Title: Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath
Platform: PC, Xbox 360 (June 23)
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Electronic Arts

I enjoy a good expansion pack. It’s like a second helping of a really great dinner with a few new spices added. I think back to games like Warcraft III, StarCraft, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Half-Life and I can’t imagine them without The Frozen Throne, Brood War, Throne of Bhaal and Opposing Force. A well-made expansion pack extends the story of the original game - or fills in the gaps of the original story as is the case with Opposing Force - while also adding new elements and making improvements. They’re like mini-sequels in that way. They take something that’s been out for a while and bring new life to it. Kane’s Wrath is almost everything you could ask for in an expansion to Command & Conquer 3, with new units, game modes, maps and story elements that flesh out the long-running fiction of the Tiberium universe.

Kane’s Wrath features a new single-player campaign comprising 13 missions that span some 18 years. Act I starts in the year 2034 just after the events of the Firestorm expansion to Command & Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun. Kane is intent on reuniting the warring, splintered factions of the Brotherhood of Nod and taking on the GDI once again. Act 2 starts in 2046 and runs parallel to the events just prior to and during Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars when Kane destroys the Philadelphia space station. This second act fills in details on the Nod motives during the third game and some of the inner turmoil Kane’s army suffered. Act 3 takes place in 2052 after the third Tiberium War and involves Kane’s awakening of the cyborg warriors known as the Marked of Kane as well as his reclamation of the Tacitus from a GDI stronghold.

For those who are up on their Command & Conquer lore, Kane’s Wrath offers some interesting details about the C&C canon. Unfortunately, if you don’t already know who Kilian Qatar and Director Redmond Boyle are and what C.A.B.A.L. and the Tacitus are, you’ll be thoroughly confused about the story. There’s no attempt made to catch up newcomers to the series through the full-motion video sequences but much of the information can be gotten through database information you unlock during the game. Because of the discontinuity between the acts, the campaign doesn’t mesh together very well and the acts themselves are not strong enough to stand on their own. Indeed, the 13 missions are fun enough to play through, but the narrative won’t win any awards.

For the full-motion video sequences, some new actors were brought in to breathe life into the Nod cast for the expansion. Carl Lumbly (most notably from "Alias," but he’ll always be John Parker from "Buckaroo Banzai" to me) plays Brother Marcion, leader of the religious sect called the Black Hand that split off from Nod during the Second Tiberium War. Natasha Henstridge (Sil from "Species) plays Alexa Kovacs - the expansion’s evil hot blonde character who stays fully clothed. The new FMVs are on par with the ones from C&C 3, although Natasha Henstridge looks a little embarrassed at times. It seems that no other actor or actress is quite as comfortable as Joe Kucan playing the seemingly immortal Kane in these settings.

More important than the story is what Kane’s Wrath brings to the C&C 3 experience overall. For skirmish and multiplayer games, players can now choose from not only the core factions of GDI, Nod and Scrin, but now there are an additional six sub-factions - two from each of the three original. The sub-factions use the same building and unit types as the faction from which they are derived, but they also bring new units and more specific advantages to the battlefield.

The Steel Talons are a GDI sub-faction that uses the Wolverine mech as a light scout unit and a larger mech called a Titan as medium tank. They also build harvesters and Behemoths with room to garrison a single squad of troops to give them extra firepower. The other GDI faction is ZOCOM, which uses sonic weaponry and units that are more resistant to tiberium-based attacks. The Nod sub-factions are the Black Hand and the Marked of Kane. The Black Hand specializes in flame weapons and hallucinogenic technology while the Marked of Kane utilizes cybernetics and beam weapons. Reaper-17 and Traveler-59 make up the new Scrin sub-factions. Reaper-17 specializes in a stronger, more direct ground assault at the expense of aerial combat while Traveler-59 opts for a more subtle approach through teleportation and mind-control abilities.