They're Here, And Lando Calrissian knows it. 'This is war against an enemy unlike any that mankind has ever seen!' screams a wild-eyed Billy Dee Williams, hiding out in an Icelandic bunker as the alien menace thunders overhead. 'If you don't use everything in your power.. If you don't use every asset available to fight this war right now.. Then you are failing every man, woman and child on this planet!' Then suddenly, he mellows. 'Do the right thing commander.. That's all I can ask.. Do the right thing..' Ladies and gentlemen, the FMV has landed - and so have the new faces in the third act of the Tiberium Wars.

Hie first place they strike is fair London town, a 'blue zone' city unaffected by the crystalline tiberium plague that's turningour planet into a toxic, yet energy rich, wasteland. 'The GDI unambiguously sees them as the invaders: they show up, their intentions are hostile, they start laying waste to cities and fighting both GDI and Nod troops,' explains C&C3 executive producer Mike Verdu when I quiz him. 'Kane, on the other hand, keeps on referring to these guys as 'the visitors' - and it's clear that there's some kind of agenda..'

But what does this mean for the C&C franchise? The delicate balance between the solid, dependable, build-and-conquer GDI and the sly, finesse and stealth techniques of the Nod is about to be trampled upon merrily - and one false move could spell disaster for the Westwood enclave at EA. So with such an unflinching juggernaut of a franchise, just how very dare they shake things up?

Just Moved In

Control massive armies and wage war as one of as one of three rival factions in Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars. Embark on an adrenaline-fuelled single-player campaign that features explosive 3D special effects, an unparalleled Hollywood cast, and over 90 minutes of live-action video. You alone can decide the fate of the planet in the epic war over Tiberium. A lone NOD commander takes on 3 brutal Scrin single highhandedly. No cheap and easy choke points like on other maps, no unfair extra resources, tiberium fiel.

There's more than a touch of World of Warcraft's Draenei to C&C's friendly neighbourhood alien invaders - perhaps it's in their shimmering light blue colourings and rather bulbous crystalline vehicles and units, although there's also a vague insectoid nature in there too. They've been camping out just beyond the orbit of Neptune you see, and they've been there for generations - just waiting for when the time is ripe and juicy for an attack. And that time would appear to be 2047.

Now I don't want you to start thinking that the very fabric of C&C is being broken (for better or worse that certainly isn't the case), but the invaders are strikingly different in concept from anything the series has seen before.

'To some extent we've named the alien units as they would be perceived by GDI and Nod. so the basic alien infantry are called buzzers, picks up Verdu as we hover behind one of his accomplices, busily playing through a GDI mission set in the battered shell of Cologne in Germany.

'To a GDI soldier on the field they would seem to be a cloud of intelligent flying razor blades. They flock and swarm almost like a swarm of particles across the battlefield; when they come into contact with you, they spin around and cut you to shreds.' As he finishes, a tripod with wavy medusa tentacles sprouting from its top appears, firing independent laser blasts in every direction and making strange squeaking and screeching noises. It's instantly noticeable too that it's shrouded in the aforementioned alien infantry buzzers..

'Yes. They can also combine with other alien units, so you essentially get this protective cloud,' nods Verdu as the GDI scream for help on the monitor below us.Don't mistake this for the reinvention of the wheel though. Yes, the invaders have warp bubbles that summon units through wyrm-holes rather than the traditional conveyor belt approach. Yes, they can summon and control flashy ion storms that boost their own units while hassling others; and yes, they even have a unit that gobbles up tiberium, then pukes it all up over passing human troops and incinerates them. However, the new C&C faction still works very much in the venerable build/harvest/rush/ defend fashion. This isn't a Supreme Commander-style rethink of the RTS genre - it's a consolidation of years and years of the C&C franchise: slick, pretty, effective, mega-budget and (E.T. totally withstanding), back to basics.

Command & Conquer 3 is dead-set on providing the well-trodden, clean, solid RTS experience that both the diehard fans and marketing execs demand - again, it's not a revolution. But at the same time, there is an unknown factor. Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars is available for users with the operating system Windows XP and previous versions, and you can download it in English. The game version is World Builder and it has been updated on 4/26/2007. Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars™ features one of the most stunning casts of any game. Download this theme featuring the actors who play Nod characters. Includes Joe Kucan as Kane, Tricia Helfer as Kilian Qatar, and Josh Holloway as Ajay. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.

So You're Back, Commander?

I soon discover this for myself when I'm pitted as GDI against a fellow journalist who's limbering up as a servant of Kane. While I'm immersing myself in the familiar procedures of building power stations, sending out harvesters and wandering up the production ladder, I can't help but notice how slick everything is.

Hip friendly C&C toolbar may be iconic, but in C&C3, its use has been streamlined -it's almost iPod-like in its ergonomic yet deep design. Much as I hate to parrot the promises made by Verdu when I interviewed him back in May, the whole affair does feel crisp, clean and vital in a way that few RTSs have ever mustered.Soon, I've mustered a happy collection of Mammoth tanks, goliath Juggernaut walkers and a smattering of Orca gunships. Now, I'm in the mood for something a little more substantial than the sniper/infantry and flametank/pitbull confrontations my Nod adversary and I have been sharing at the crossroads at the centre of our urban map. Leaving behind a skeleton defence force, I send my chaps to the north-east of the map, ready the airforce and click and select one of a few applicable formations. Then I set walker and buggy alike, travelling at the same speed into the jaws of the valley of death. As soon as my planes leave the airstrip however, a huge Nod force decloaks a fraction to the south of my base and the counter-offensive massacre begins. 'Wanker!' I exclaim loudly.

Heading my opponent's attack force, in front of a flotilla of stealth tanks, is an Avatar War Meeh, a 40ft bipedal creation that the Nod commander can upgrade at his whim. Fancy nicking the flame-thrower component from a flametank and sticking it on? Go for it. Think a stealth field generator would help your walking metal hulk camp outside the enemy's base? Then pluck one from a stealth tank.

Either way, what Mike Verdu casually calls a 'flame-spewing, beam-firing, stealth bipedal robot of death' is bearing down on my base with surprising vitesse. Now if my defence force weren't scampering back through a Tiberium patch several miles away, and if I had any engineers who weren't being toasted in a beautiful billow of flame by a flametank, then I might have been able to knock the damn thing down - and take it over myself. As matters stand, however, I'm pretty well screwed.

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Vanquished

As the dust settles on my ignominious defeat, I sit down, steal a consolatory pain de raisin from a nearby journalist feed-trough and have a good old think. Command & Conquer 3 is dead-set on providing the well-trodden, clean, solid RTS experience that both the diehard fans and marketing execs demand - again, it's not a revolution. But at the same time, there is an unknown factor.

The Tiberium universe may have been crying out for an injection of mystery and wonderment, but are these blue fellas the ones to do it? Are their otherworldly Gipers and visuals a little too 'out there' for a series that's pr

Command And Conquer 3