Base-building and broad strategizing have been supplanted by small-scale micromanagement; standard battles have given way to capture-point conquest.

Like most strategy games, Command & Conquer 4 offers a single-player campaign, offline skirmishes, and online battles; but unlike most strategy games, it rewards you with experience based on your activity in every mode. No matter which mode you play, finishing a match inches you closer to your next level. Gaining levels means new units, new powers, and new upgrades--goodies that you can then take with you into any of the modes.

Matches make for short-term entertainment, and the persistent experience you earn in every mode is always dangling the promise of cooler toys in front of you. This will keep you occupied until you unlock every available unit and upgrade, which will take most people a few days. Until that time, you will likely need to endure the imbalances intrinsic to leveling. You may face players who have access to units and powers that are superior to yours, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it aside from reaching the same level. If you create a custom game, there's no way to limit the match to players under a certain level--you can't even give a custom name to the match you host. Once you've reached the level cap, it's hard to overcome the sense that you're just always throwing a single bunch of units into the fray, at least during five-versus-five battles.

All of the mission design problems are exacerbated by C&C4's worst misstep: The vast majority of the units are locked to you from the game's start, even in skirmish mode. You have to play through many, many missions (multiplayer and/or single-player) in order to rank up and unlock the cooler units, upgrades, and support powers... and that's per faction.

Command & Conquer 3's lengthy campaign was notable for several exciting large-scale missions spread across multiple fronts. By contrast, C&C4 puts you in control of a relatively small force whose size is limited by a predesignated number of command points.

But the campaign feels restrictive. As a rule, you simply lead around the same control group from spot to spot as you complete your mission objectives.

Because more powerful units take up more cap space than less powerful ones, it's almost impossible for one side to gain a qualitative advantage over the other. You can spam small stuff (usually the most effective method) or hold out for the big bashers, but your opponent will always have the same relative strength. This makes for little risk in losing units; if your enemy builds units you're weak against, simply scuttle all your dudes and retool to get units they're weak against, and then they'll do the same, etc. In other words, straight fights in C&C4 play a lot like a boxing match between two guys with iron jaws and teensy weensy hands. You and your opponent can pound away at each other till you're both spent like an addict's last dollar, but nobody's knocking anybody out.

Now, it's an RTS truism that the biggest draw is multiplayer, but fans should be aware that C&C4 , like a bear in a pigpen, is a whole different beast from previous C&C titles. Multiplayer involves both sides (all matches are a single team vs. another single team -- Nod and GDI players cannot be on the same teams) trying to capture and hold various control nodes throughout the map. This, however, involves its own special set of tedium, since the game's small maps and mobile bases (critical differences from World in Conflict) mean games always play out the same (one team grabs this or that node, then rushes to take the other team's nodes, while the other team does the inverse). Any attempt to turtle a single node inevitably leaves the mobile team with an advantage, as the turtle cannot run to other nodes. This leads to both players going mobile, chasing each other around the map, and to the ludicrously repetitive process I began this review with... and with which, for the sake of symmetry, I will now mercifully end it.

"We've captured Node 1."

"The enemy has Node 2."

"We've captured Node 2."

"The enemy has Node 1."

PERSISTENT INTERNET CONNECTION, EA ACCOUNT, REGISTRATION WITH ENCLOSED SERIAL CODE AND ACCEPTANCE OF END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO PLAY. SOFTWARE REGISTRATION IS LIMITED TO ONE EA ACCOUNT PER SERIAL CODE AND IS NON-TRANSFERABLE.

It's worse than AC2 in that a disconnection means you lost all mission progress and you cannot reconnect mid-mission... AC2 pauses to allow you to reconnect, and saves the exact place you stopped playing if you quit.