14 DAY TRIAL // Command & Conquer is one of the franchises I liked best when I was younger and played them almost obsessively, but the series managed to almost kill itself with the fourth full installment, only to now be set for a revival under the guidance of the new Victory studio of BioWare.
More quietly and under the radar publisher Electronic Arts has also used the same universe to deliver a free-to-play and browser-based strategy game, called Alliances, which has gone through the beta phase and is now available to play for everyone.
The game is pretty similar to what Ubisoft tried to do with the Might & Magic license in the same field and what Electronic Arts itself tried with Lord of Ultima, but the Command & Conquer game manages to deliver a better experience on all levels so far.
Players will focus on creating a well-working base area, with a number of structures that need to be carefully placed for the best results, while also managing separate offensive and defensive forces and then joining with other players for higher level alliance play.
The game manages to integrate all the known elements of the Command & Conquer universe and built some very serious and engaging mechanics around them, although no great innovation is on show here.
There have been some issues with stability during the beta stage, with the game sometime crashing out on the simplest of commands, on rare occasions managing to take out my entire Firefox session, but those got rarer in time and now seem mostly gone.
As long as the developers and Electronic Arts are willing to keep putting resources in Command & Conquer Alliances in order to deliver new content and expand the gameplay the strength of the setting might help the game exist and thrive in the long term.