by our reporter inside E3, Mat Everett

Most of you are looking for all the news you can get for Command and Conquer 3, and I have good news: I was able to get a first hand look at what EA is bringing to the table and how it is approaching the game. I also witnessed game play from what EA has created thus far.

EA’s approach to the back-story is astonishing; they’ve really taken the development of the CnC 3 story to the next level and it is probably the best I have ever seen. In making this in-depth tale, they have written what they are calling the “CnC Bible”. This book includes the entire story line of Tibirum and gets very, very detailed. The community will most likely never see this Bible though, since it was created for EA’s development team so they could fully know and understand the story and have a complete background of how all the races came about and how they function within the CnC universe.

The basic gist is that GDI is trying to secretly save the world as NOD is busy convincing the world that GDI is the enemy. The real mystery is how the two factions are split up. Either you are GDI or “not GDI” – they left us hanging on what this other faction was. The demo zoomed out from beyond the Earth to what looked like a space ship coming out of deep space. What faction they are and how they work into the game is not known just yet.

When I was shown the game play, everything ran very smoothly and it was really just a jaw-dropping moment. The game is built on the same engine BFME2, with nice saturated graphics and HDRI sun effects. The units, such as helicopters and tanks, look so realistic for there were times I felt like I was watching a movie with live action. The level layout is very much like the current CnC, but has all the updates you could want in the new series. The selecting and placing of units is very much like any other RTS on the market today, but it does have a few nice flashy waypoint and spot selection graphics that let you know where you just sent your units.

It took a while for me to let it to sink in that CnC 3 was actually alive. It looks like it will have been worth the wait.

View the 15-second trailer bootlegged from E3 2006

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