by Andrius Davydauskas

Created on: May 13, 2009

Command and Conquer : Generals Zero Hour is the expansion to Command and Conquer : Generals made by EA LosAngeles way back in 2003 . It was the first expansion to a game in the Command and Conquer series that was not made by Westwood Studios .

The story as very simple . Command and Conquer : Generals had no story whatsoever . Just three factions battling each other for some reason and thats all . It also lacked the famous , CnC style , cheesy video cut scenes . Zero Hour has a simple story and cut scenes which explain the ongoing situation in the form of news broadcasts . In Zero Hour , a powerful terrorist organisation has acquired weapons of mass destruction and is threatening every nation in the world . It is up to the other two factions to stop their plans .

The three factions from CnC : Generals ( USA , China and GLA ( Global Liberation Army ) ) now get 3 new subfactions each . The high tech USA gets the Weapons of Mass Distruction , Airforce and Lazer subfactions . The powerfull and straightforward China gets Nuke , Tank and Infantry subfactions . And the sneaky and merciless GLA gets Toxin , Stealth and Demolitions . All of these subfactions are based on actual playing styles used by players in the original game su veteran players will be able to make new strategies for their favourite playing style .

The new campaign is about the same length and is just as entertaining , but the main new single player attraction is the generals challenge . In the generals challenge you choose a general that represents a certain subfaction and take on the other generals in one versus one battles . You fight on maps which are favorable towards your opponents playing style . Also , your opponent starts out with a gigantci prebuilt base , but you wont . He will also keep constantly harrasing you . This makes each match very interesting as you will have to adapt and try to gain the upper hand . All of these new additions greatly improve the already amazing multiplayer and adds numerous new strategies and tactical decisions available to the players .

Command and Conquer : Generals Zero Hour is what a good expansion should be . It doesn't try to fix what is not broken , but adds more of what's already good . All of this new content greatly expanded the lifetime of the original game ( Zero Hour is still widely played to this day and considered one of the best real time strategy games to date ) .

Learn more about this author, Andrius Davydauskas.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.