Reviews - Ayeba

This is from a casual point of view. I have played around with four different variants of Zero Hour: 1.06, Shockwave 1.1, Contra 008 Final and Rise of the Reds 1.85. About 3-5 hours each, testing the differences vs AI. No PvP yet. Once I manage to decide which one I'll introduce to my RL friends, I'll hopefully get some PvP done.

Rise of the Reds is great fun. The reason why I don't give it a 10 is simply that I reserve 10s for "Completely blew me away, I will never (at least not in a few hundred hours of gameplay) play anything ever again", which has yet to happen to me.

Rather than having 12 fractions with a lot of similarities, there are now five radically different fractions. Unlike ZH, there are no one-trick ponies among them. All have some basic cornerstones in their army, but they all feel like unique variants. Ex: All have APCs (BMP, Lynx, Humvee, Troop Crawler, Technical), MBTs (Kodiak, Leopard, Crusader, Battlemaster, Scorpion), Tier 1 AA, Tier 2 AA, and at least two types of artillery.

In addition to the basic cornerstones, each of the fractions adds a lot of specialized units and buildings fitting their theme. For example, Russia have the MTP Recovery Vehicle which can recover destroyed allied vehicles. GLA, on the other hand, has the Recycler which can use destroyed *enemy* vehicles to upgrade itself and its allies, with two unique upgrades for each fraction they salvage from. ECU can build a solar plant supplying 1 000 000 units of energy, but can never have more than one.

All the unique differences really make the fractions feel radically different. This breathes a of fresh air into a pretty old game, and gives the potentially a lot of longevity.

Stealth is also re-hauled; very few units/defenses can detect stealth. This is a good change, in my book.

Do I have any complains so far? Not really. I have not played long enough to detect any problems yet. I miss the unique sub-fractions, but a variant of that feature will be added in 2.0. The game also has a pretty good wiki and an active community, not to mention it is in active development.

So, the only remaining issue I have is "What do you want from a mod?" Rise of the Reds lies somewhere between between a full conversion mod and an "extension" mod. Shockwave, for example, is closer to the original design philosophy, both for good and bad. Contra is further away from the original design philosophy, but closer than Rise of the Reds. All three are excellent mods, I just need to figure out what I personally want. Or just play all three to death. Except for the fact that the amount of time I can dedicate to gaming is less than a tenth of what I had when I originally played Zero Hour around ten years ago.

This is from a casual point of view. I have played around with four different variants of Zero Hour: 1.06, Shockwave, Contra and Rise of the Reds. About 3-5 hours each, testing the differences vs AI. No PvP yet. Once I manage to decide which one I'll introduce to my RL friends, I'll hopefully get some PvP done.

I really enjoy Contra. The reason why I don't give it a 10 is simply that I reserve 10s for "Completely blew me away, I will never (at least not in a few hundred hours of gameplay) play anything ever again", which has yet to happen to me.

Contra is somewhat different from Shockwave, in the sense that it changes many of the original design philosophies. That is neither a good nor bad thing, it depends on your personal taste; what do you want from a mod?

Some highlights of differences from 1.04:
- Units and buildings are gated behind ranks. You have a set arsenal at rank 1, which expands at rank 3 and again at rank 5. In general, super weapons are at rank 5, with some exceptions (nuke general at rank 3, super weapon general have some at all ranks).
- Nuke general has no static defenses, possibly to balance the previous feature.
- You can't sell buildings, though you may demolish them. Contrary to many others here, I feel this is a good change. Take a look at 1.04; is it a good thing that everyone and their grandmother sells their command center after building two dozers? It also makes capturing more powerful, since the attacked player won't get a partial refund.
- Since rank equals better arsenal, it punishes failed attacks harder. To some extent, it also punishes turtling, though this may go both ways.
- Stealth is buffed through the roof. That is, base defenses no longer detect stealth. Each fraction has some ways to detect stealth, but very, very few detect all types of stealth. Most detects a limited type (such as AA detecting stealth aircraft, and infantry heroes detecting mines).
- Base defenses appear to be a bit weaker than ZH. In addition, since some of them are gated behind rank 3 and you won't get rank by turtling, said tactic is even more discouraged. Not to mention you also need to guard for stealth. I find this a good change.
- All fractions have a super unit at rank 5. Like super weapons, this is limited to 1 in tournament mode, which is a good idea to enable. Even one of these is a great pain, both to build (time and cost) and defeat.
- Many fractions have mobile light super weapons at rank 5.
- Vehicles with fire-ports for infantry are extremely rare. Correct me if I'm wrong on this one, I may be mixing this up with another mod. I think this is a good feature, as Rockvees were a major issue in 1.04.
- Some base features are now upgrades. In particular, not having fire wall by default for Dragon Tanks felt strange.

In general, all the original 9 sub-fractions have had their special features turned to 11. This is a feature I have mixed feelings about. On one hand this is really cool. On the other, it just magnifies the problem ZH had; many of the generals were one-trick ponies. I like the versatility Shockwave gives each of the fractions, and that is unfortunately missing here. For example, if you choose the US Super Weapon general, you'd better be prepared to turtle up, 'cause your arsenal for assaulting is less than stellar.

The new generals bring some new ideas to the table, and feel interesting and unique.
- Cybernetic General (US) has no infantry, only cyborgs. It feels like more like General Terminator than anything else, and that's not a bad thing. Reminds more of GLA in style; faster but weaker individual units.
- Flame General (China) has some really cool interactions with fire, such as a static, invisible defense that pumps out blobs of fuel that other defenses or units can ignite. Otherwise pretty similar to other china fractions.
- Assault General (GLA) lacks a particular feel. Well-rounded, I guess.

Documentation (somewhat outdated): Contra.cncguild.net

This is from a casual point of view. I have played around with four different variants of Zero Hour: 1.06, Shockwave, Contra and Rise of the Reds. About 3-5 hours each, testing the differences vs AI. No PvP yet. Once I manage to decide which one I'll introduce to my RL friends, I'll hopefully get some PvP done.

I love Shockwave. The reason why I don't give it a 10 is simply that I reserve 10s for "Completely blew me away, I will never (at least not in a few hundred hours of gameplay) play anything ever again", which has yet to happen to me.

I believe Shockwave is the mod that comes closest to the original design philosophy behind Zero Hour. In other words; it expands the content without completely redesigning the game, so veterans to ZH will not take long to get into it. That includes myself, having sunk a few hundred hours into it about ten years ago. To stay true to the original design philosophy is neither good nor bad; it depends on your personal preference. In effect, what do you want from a mod?

In general, Shockwave feels very polished. I have yet to completely bug out the AI or otherwise break the game. The new units are interesting, as are the balances done to the existing units. The best thing about the mod is that all the sub-fractions (as far as I can tell) have several different ways to win the game. In 1.04 some of the sub-fractions felt like one-trick ponies.

Not only are there now more viable tactics, all the fractions have a really unique feel aspect to them. Alexander no longer struggles with a nerfed US arsenal just to receive a slightly better Aurora, EMP patriots and cheaper particle cannon. Now she has unique and genuinely interesting units, such as the robot tank (cheap, fast tank), enforcer (teleporting plasma tank), lockdown MRLS (artillery, HE missiles or EMP rockets) and Shatterer (Tank with sonic weaponry, damaging everything in a line). Awesome!

The three new generals all have a unique feel to them.
- Ironside (US) has very specialized weaponry. Ex: Different infantry for AT (Javelin Soldier) and AA (Blue Arrow Defender). Extremely powerful when he has the right weapon for the occasion, but extremely easy to hard-counter if he doesn't.
- Leang (China) has discarded all propaganda and nuclear weaponry in favor of generally better units and powerful artillery. Specializes to some extent in napalm and tremor-based weapons. Not sure I approve of no AA infantry, the jury is still out on this one. Her super weapon is a the ultimate building killer.
- Deathstrike (GLA) focuses on salvage, discarding stealth and sacrificing speed. Plays more like the China in the sense that his army is slower and more powerful. Also, planes and helicopters. Feels a bit overpowered, but I can't tell for sure.

The core fractions have also gotten some unique upgrades which neither of the sub-fractions have, such as the GLA Balloon and the US Exo Suit. This also gives them a semi-unique feel, resulting in more like 15 fractions than 12.

Are there anything I didn't like? No, but it takes a long time to discover subtle balance flaws. I'm not sure it takes care of all the issues 1.04 had, but enough that I'm extremely happy with it.

It was some hazzle getting it to work with the origin version; I ended up deleting the files on the hard drive, re-install it (through Origin), copy in the files and change the format to .big for all of them. If you use this method, keep a separate copy of Zero Hour for all the different mods (about 5GB each).

Online manual, with good description of all the units: Web.archive.org
Two mutually exclusive fan patches: 1.1.2 by Arcelia (http://www.moddb.com/mods/cc-shockwave-unoffcial-addon-112) and 1.1e by nikitazero678 (http://forums.swr-productions.com/index.php?showtopic=7384).