Now Playing: Tempest Rising

To say Tempest Rising is simply ‘inspired’ by the Command & Conquer Tiberian series would be generous to say the least because it is – unashamedly – a new C&C in all but name. And I’m totally cool with that. After the absolutely abominable C&C 4 all but killed the series, fans have been waiting for either a new entry, or a new RTS game to pick up the torch.

In C&C you can play as the GDI – a NATO-esque Western military alliance. Or as The Brotherhood of NOD – a cult-like organisation that covets Tiberian. In Tempest Rising you can play as the GDF – a NATO-esque Western military alliance. Or as The Tempest Dynasty – a cult-like organisation that covets Tempest.

GDI – GDF. The Brotherhood of NOD – The Tempest Dynasty. Tiberian – Tempest. The two Tempest Rising factions even, to a degree, play like their C&C equivalents – GDF is more focused on low mass, high tech forces, whereas The Dynasty relies more upon cheap, but plentiful units. But I’d say that, overall, there’s a closer technological balance between GDF and The Dynasty than GDI & NOD (at least in the early C&C games).

The plot of Tempest Rising will also be instantly familiar to any fans of C&C because it is, more or less, a rehash of the plot from C&C 3 – the two factions fighting it out on a global scale until the arrival of a new, third faction that’s connected to the Tiberian/Tempest.

In C&C 3 it’s the Scrin. In Tempest Rising it’s the Veti. But unlike C&C 3 in which the Scrin had their own mini-campaign, there’s no such equivalent for the Veti in Tempest Rising. That’s a shame, but I have a feeling we may see a Veti campaign added via DLC in the future.

I guess the question is – does Tempest Rising, by so strongly mimicking C&C, lack its own identity? I don’t think so. In fact, I’d say Tempest Rising does a strong job of building its own over the course of the two campaigns. It utilises the C&C framework to provide a solid and familiar foundation on which to build, one that should be appealing to old C&C fans waiting for something new.

I think it’s a pretty smart strategy, and I’m also pleased to say that the game doesn’t just try to copy what came before it – it has plenty of new ideas of its own. Both factions feature an impressive range of unit and building types that allow you to put together varied army compositions based on how you’d prefer to play.

And this isn’t a game where you can just spam a handful of units to win – you really do need to utilise and combine different units and their unique abilities to your advantage. The range of special unit abilities can seem a little daunting at first – in a fast-paced RTS, you don’t necessarily want to be juggling so many cool-down limited abilities across several units. But Tempest Rising does a decent job of easing you into things so you’re never overwhelmed.

Of the two campaigns, I’d say I enjoyed the GDF more as I feel they offer a better balance and variety of missions. I feel The Dynasty campaign is a little weaker, with too many missions relying upon you utilising small strike teams with more linear maps and objectives. There’s surprisingly little base building to be found in The Dynasty campaign – more often than not you’re working from existing bases or capturing enemy facilities.

Unlike C&C, which had its glorious live-action mission briefings and colourful cast of characters, Tempest Rising, perhaps out of budget necessity, instead uses in-game engine characters to provide briefings. This does allow them to add some interaction in the form of optional dialogue questions, but they’re not half as much fun.

They’re . . . fine, but very stilted and they lack the personality of the best C&C briefings – like Michael Ironside barking orders at you in C&C 3, or Kari Wuhrer as Best Tanya from Red Alert 2. The story, as I said, is essentially a rehash of C&C 3, but it’s also . . . fine. The two campaigns play out in parallel so you get two sides of the same story.

So how does it compare to the C&C games it so closely resembles? Well, I’d say it’s up there with the best – but not quite the very best. As a first game in a new series I’d say Tempest Rising is great, but it does rely a lot on that C&C nostalgia to carry it through. I think what really matters is where they go from here – and the story certainly sets up a potential sequel.

You have one great campaign (GDF) and one okay-ish one (Dynasty). The factions are well designed and the units and their abilities really do feel like what you’d expect in an actual C&C sequel. The visuals are great and the game runs smoothly. Oh, and the music is great too – if a little overbearing when it continues pounding even during mission briefings.

I’ve not tried multiplayer because that’s not really my thing, but I’ve tried a few skirmish maps and had some fun, although I do think the skirmish AI could do with some tweaks so it’s a little less stressful to fight against – right now, even on Normal you only really have two options – spam and rush, or extreme turtle.

Overall, Tempest Rising is a very good RTS game that doesn’t quite match up to the best of the series it’s so heavily ‘inspired’ by, but it certainly comes close. The question is – what’s next? Can this game spawn a new series that can stand on its own? That’s not so reliant on C&C nostalgia? I think it can, but it’s certainly not going to be easy.

7/10

Stellar Blade (DEMO)

When I first saw Stellar Blade I thought it was going to be an action game in the style of Devil May Cry or Bayonetta, but that’s not what it is at all. In terms of combat, I’d say it’s a pretty interesting mix of Dark Souls and Sekiro. It’s what I’d describe as a more ‘reactive’ action game than a ‘proactive’ one. You’re not dictating the pace – you’re reacting to enemy pacing / animations. It’s a game that – like Dark Souls – rewards careful, deliberate play and patience.

Your movement and attacks are somewhat slow – even your basic dodge is limited in range. You have simple combo attacks, but these won’t cancel or stun enemy attacks (not unless you complete an entire sequence) and you can’t easily break from a combo to parry, dodge or block. If you try to play Stellar Blade like DmC or Bayonetta you’re going to be in for a rough time.

Enemies have ‘balance’ points which is essentially the ‘poise’ system from Sekiro. Every time you perfectly parry an attack, they lose a point, and if they lose them all you can perform a stylishly animated ‘retribution’ attack for massive damage. This isn’t a game where you can rush in and spam buttons – you need to bide your time and creating openings to exploit.

 

Some attacks can’t be parried, only dodged, and some ‘lethal’ attacks can only be countered with unlockable skills. The combat in Stellar Blade is all about proper timing and once you understand that, and accept that’s how the game wants you to play, it’s pretty damn fun and satisfying – especially when you down a boss without taking a single hit.

There is a bit of trial and error at play in the sense that until you’ve fought an enemy or boss once, you won’t be aware of their attack patterns, so be prepared to die a few times until you learn their moves. I also feel that some enemy attacks aren’t adequately telegraphed to the player.

You can rest at camps as you go and, like Dark Souls, these heal you but also re-spawn local enemies. I did like exploring the (limited) map available in this demo – there’s quite a few little nooks to discover containing supplies or lore to collect. Oh, and I really like the enemy designs.

 

I played through this demo twice to get a feel for things, including the additional boss challenge and although I enjoyed it, I’m not sure if I want to pick this up at release because despite coming to like the combat, there are other aspects of Stellar Blade that feel a little weak.

The story and character aspects are clearly evocative of NieR: Automata but kind of terrible in comparison. All of the story stuff in this demo fell flat for me with some bad dialogue and a main character with the personality of a brick – which is unfortunate, because a game like this really benefits by having a strong personality at its core. It is only a demo, so maybe these things improve / get better as you go, but it’s not a great first impression.

Overall, once I did get a feel for the combat, I did like what I played. I’m not sure I like it enough to drop 60 quid at release, but I’ll see what else I’ve got lined up to play.