Feature interview: Command and Conquer 3

If C&C is infamous for anything, it is its full motion video. It has copped plenty of flak over the acting quality of its pre-mission cutscenes. EA LA has set out to abolish this reputation and has literally spared no expense to make the FMV exceptional.

‘We knew from the start that we needed a very talented cast to do justice to the story for C&C 3,’ says Verdu. ‘I believe we’ve created a story for this game that has real depth and resonance, featuring interesting and complex characters that grow and change over time, a rich world, and some truly cool moments. We needed actors who can bring our characters and our story to life – and we found them.’

They certainly did. The cast for C&C 3 is an impressive sampling of old and new premium sci-fi, including Michael Ironside; Billy Dee Williams (or Lando Calrissian as you’ll probably know him); Tricia Helfer and Grace Park of Battlestar Galactica fame, who play Six and Boomer respectively and Josh Holloway, the roguish conman from Lost. It is, by far, the best collection of actors ever assembled for a game.

‘EA’s commitment to C&C shines through in the company’s support for a top flight cast, a live action shoot on multiple stages with large physical sets, and several minutes of high-end computer graphics. C&C is back in a big way,’ says Verdu.

Salvaging Sage
Behind the scenes, the venerable SAGE Engine from C&C Generals takes care of rendering the world of the third instalment in the Tiberium series. SAGE has been upgraded a number of times, the last iteration providing for EA LA’s Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth II. For C&C 3, the capabilities have once again been improved to compete with the increasing expectations of gamers. According to Verdu, These additions include a ‘next-gen’ particle system to power explosions, smoke, haze and weather effects, as well as a post-processing system to add special effects to completed scenes.

‘You can see heat shimmer and distortion in the atmosphere from weapon effects and engine exhausts [a Pixel Shader 3.0 effect]. Units and structures are normal-mapped and have specular highlights. These are just a few of the improvements that make the game look great.’

Verdu also explains that work has been done on the memory handling and data storage elements of the engine that should provide a dramatic performance increase over previous games. ‘You’ll see the results in super fast load times, crisp controls, and an absence of hitching or lagging from loading assets on demand.’ The engine has also been optimised for dual and multi-core systems, and although not providing as massive performance boosts as seen in Supreme Commander, will be faster than single-core.

Tiberium is held back by GDI resonator technology in the Blue zones.

‘There is a natural performance boost when running on multiple cores – about 10 percent to 15 percent. But we don’t have a true multi-threaded architecture. Again, be leery of games that claim to fully use multiple cores – the architectural challenge is significant and we’re only now on the verge of realising the potential of multi-core systems.’

With Microsoft Vista recently released to general consumers and quantities of DirectX 10 parts, such as NVIDIA’s G80-based products, making their way into the market, we asked Verdu why EA LA decided to go with DirectX 9 for C&C 3.

‘We’re right on the cusp of DirectX 10 with C&C 3 and we didn’t feel we could just “patch in” a DX10 solution so we could boast that we had a DX10 game. True DX10 products are few and far between. Look to the next generation of our RTS games for true DX10 goodness. All that being said, you’ll find that C&C looks amazing.’

He also says that when DX10 does finally hit, EA LA will more than likely continue to build on SAGE, rather than produce something from scratch.

Our last question about SAGE regarded PhysX and other physics solutions accelerated via hardware. Verdu says that pseudo physics is a part of the engine, but the demand for complete simulation was unnecessary, and certainly didn’t warrant support from hardware.

‘We have enough physics in the game to make the world come to life – but we certainly don’t claim to have a realistic physics simulation,’ explains Verdu. ‘Physics simulation can be a tremendous drain on CPU and we are choosing to use that budget elsewhere – to make the AI great, to support improved pathfinding, to increase the number of objects in the world. I think it would be very cool to support hardware-based physics simulation and I look forward to the time when the installed base is such that we can count on that as a capability.’

Final orders
Any RTS worth its strategy tag has multiplayer, and C&C3 caters for this demand. Verdu was happy to mention a few of the features the team has implemented.

‘Integrated clan support allows you to practise together, learn from each other, and then compete cooperatively with your friends. Your online profile will be jam-packed with interesting statistics that you can use to help hone your game, while our ladders and leaderboards will provide an objective measure of your standing within the community. Finally, but perhaps best of all, Match Broadcast allows players to demonstrate their dominance to large audiences by “televising” their matches to other C&C3 players and to anyone who can download a freely available Spectator client. You could have literally hundreds – if not thousands – of people watch you play.’ This last feature should help with the professional gaming crowd where it’s not unusual to televise matches.

As for the single player campaign, players can expect over 35 missions to charge through, though Verdu did not say if this is for each faction or combined.

Verdu strongly believes that the combination of the multiplayer features, the history of the C&C franchise, the new units, the engrossing plot, quality FMV and the fast and fluid gameplay that C&C is renowned for, will push it ahead of the rest. ‘With the legacy of C&C we always had the challenge of creating a game that felt fresh but familiar, a state-of-the-art 2007 RTS that also felt “right” to people who have an emotional connection to the games that came before,’ explains Verdu.

‘My proudest moment on the project is when we brought in gamers to play some multiplayer and heard those magic words: “This feels like C&C! C&C is back.”’

The Global Defense Initiative prepare to kick Nod.