 The
original storyline had three factions facing off against each other, GLA, USA,
China. Set 20 years in the "future", Generals pitted the U.S. and Chinese
against the terrorist faction of the Global Liberation Army. Through 21 single
player missions, the player tried to stop the opposing side from from deploying
a nuclear weapon or capture nuclear weapons (if you played as the GLA). To be
honest I hate telling the storyline in more than a general manner in a review.
After all, some people play a game for the storyline. Therefore I will not post
specifics on the game storyline that are not on EA's website,, nor will I give
specifics on how to complete missions.
Zero Hour presumes that the U.S. side was successful in Generals. You take
the role of either a U.S., Chinese, or GLA general in a series of 5 single player
missions per side. As the original game had 21 total missions, and many of those
missions being shorter than Zero Hour's missions 15 is an excellent number for
an add-on. Every mission briefing is done by a "correspondent" of
each of the 3 sides. This is a huge improvement over the pictures of weapons
and the voice of Black Lotus and the other 2 voices used in Generals
 The U.S. storyline
takes place directly after the conclusion of Generals. You battle a new enemy,
Dr Thrax, through 5 missions which are better scripted than the ones in Generals.
Generally the missions are well scripted and challenging. It was rather frustrating
to have the enemy beat me when I was playing on hard. But it happened in one
of the missions and they came close in another one. This is a nice change from
Generals, where I beat every mission on the first try.
The GLA storyline is a little bit different. In this campaign you battle against
the U.S.. In one memorable mission, I fired the U.S. Particle Cannon against
an aircraft carrier blowing it to smithereens. EA decided to throw in a in-game
cinematic (using the game's graphics engine) blending a cut scene into the game
seamlessly y. I don't want to go too far into the GLA storyline, as that would
ruin the SP game for people who purchase the game.
 The third
side, is of course, China. In a twist, the U.S. retreats from Europe in the
face of increased GLA activity. With Russia nowhere to be seen in Generals (wish
they were here, maybe in the second expansion), China jumps into the breach,
taking over parts of Europe with the weakening U.S. military. The Chinese campaign
was the hardest C+C campaign I have ever played.
|
