Command and Conquer Rivals Review

  The success of Clash Royale has spawned a series of collectible card, tower defense games, that has run the gambit.  Command and Conquer is an old series that has a place in my heart, especially from the days of Red Alert 2, which brought me to try their rendition of this game.  Command and Conquer Rivals by EA Redwood Studios took the core concept of mobile tower defense and tried their hand.

It Is Different

  Copying a genre can be difficult especially when there are others that have been reigning king for a long time.  It helps when you have a name behind it and have had some success in the past but I am not fully convinced that this will garner long success for Command and Conquer Rivals. 

  Rivals plays out like a head to head tower defense game but this time there are no bridges and you have a little more control over resource than any other competitors in the genre.  While you can wait for the resources to auto-replenish you can also build a vehicle that will increase production.  This is a pretty vital vehicle and can become part of the tactic as in can be attacked and destroyed.  There are 3 unit types that have different weapons.  There is the infantry, vehicles, and mechs.  All growing in resource price respectively.  Starting to sound familiar right?

  Each unit is strong against certain units and weak against others.  So it does play a lot more like an RTS light then you would get out of Clash Royale.  While there are counter units in other games, they are not as specifically designed like these are.  It will be a constant updating paper scissor rocks to control 2 to 3 points on the board.  You want to control these before the missile silo timer runs out because it will then attack the enemy base.  Two missles is a victory.  It's novel, there is a lot of strategy to it but at its core its another mobile game.

But Not Different Enough

  Yes the game is new and interesting but the cards all have levels, you have to increase them with gold, or premium currency and you can only acquire them from their loot boxes or a daily market that has revolving cards.  It's the same thing that annoys me with all the others as those with a lot of time or spare cash will stomp over all casual players.  That is until they rank up and meet up with their own kind, which does happen but to even get there is a drain on the wallet or the time.

  In the time I played it the queue times weren't great and the people I was playing ranged from awful to understanding this game at a level I had not reached yet.  The game times mostly hovered at a few minutes so its a nice "in-between" game but if you are already locked into another like it that came before it, this one might not be able to steal you away.

  The game plays different and has gameplay all its own.  The issue is it just feels like the others and that it has been done before.  The extreme amount of time needed to be competitive, everything good taking forever to get or being locked behind a paywall, is not going to be saved by the fact it's nicely skinned with Command & Congquer.  If these tower defense games are your thing and you are looking for a new one, it's worth a try.  It's just most likely going the way of all the others, Ill play it, forget about it, and delete it after a bit of time.  There isn't enough to keep me in it. 

TL;DR: 

   Command and Conquer Rivals is not bad and has some unique gameplay but it still feels like the other tower defence card collecting games and will be held down by that. 

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