The number of new units and structures is amazing as well. While you won't be able to use every unit within a single army you will have lots of fun experimenting with the individual Generals and their corresponding armies. I particularly like the microwave tank which disables buildings and fries nearby infantry. The Bunker-Busting Bomb for the Stealth Fighter will annihilate any troops garrisoned in a building while Chem. Suits will give the grunts a longer lifespan when up against the GLA. On the terrorist side the Sneak Attack ability is a 'helluva' lot of fun in multiplayer, unless you're on the receiving end. The fact that almost all GLA units can be upgraded by driving over battlefield scrap is a real bonus, as is the Combat Cycle. These little beauties are even more fun than they sounded when info first started leaking out about the expansion. Sending twenty or so of these fellas into an enemy base with Suicide Bombers strapped to the handles will create so much havoc that even a small group of Angry Mobs will finish off the less-prepared opponent. The Chinese Emperor tank is a behemoth that can take a mental beating while causing destruction through its massive cannons and built in gattling gun. The Carpet Bombing ability is great, although not as sweet as the Nuclear Carpet Bombing ability of one of the General's. All in there's about thirty new units to play with. The new neutral structures, Artillery, Repair and Unit Drop all add fun to proceedings, although again their lack of toughness makes them an all too brief factor in a match.

But there's more. For the skirmishers of you out there there are an utterly insane number of battlefield medals to win. I mean, who on earth is going to ever get the 10,000 Domination medal? But it's out there if you are so inclined, or bedridden for the rest of your life. There are also more achievable medals such as the Ultimate and the Battletank Honour. The graphics have been spruced up a bit, with rain and snow effects on some maps, and a smattering of new objects. The Worldbuilder has also been enhanced and tweaked and is certainly a less daunting tool than it's first incarnation, so we should see even more maps appearing on the net. It's not like the community has been slack in the past. For those of you into viewing past matches the replay function has been spruced up with some fast-forward controls.

Now the bad news. This game likes to crash more then the original. On my old motherboard things were fine, right up until a day or so before it got swapped, then the dreaded 'Technical Difficulties' box popped-up whenever I tried to load it. And that problem has migrated to my new set up, strange as it's a new XP install. Searching forums for help revealed that a lot of people are having more problems with ZH than they did with Generals. It seems RAM can be a problem, so if you have cheap RAM in your machine make sure you buy from some where that accepts returns. Problems also seem to be frustratingly prevalent in the side of things. Maybe the bolting on of the new features over the old game has made it go "tits-up" on many machines. I just hope that the imminent patch addresses these problems for the majority of people, as ZH is a top-notch piece of gaming when it's working right.

On top of these 'Technical Difficulties' there are a few other that rankle. Units have an annoying tendency not to fire back, even with the addition of the 'Retaliate' option which is meant to force your units into returning fire. Selection can also cause problems. Too many times my men have refused to acknowledge my orders and sat around discussing the weather while their comrades took a pounding. These problems only happen occasionally but they are extremely annoying when they do manifest themselves. The pathfinding can cause problems as well with units taking routes that make you think they are on expense accounts. During LAN games, battles would sometimes come to a premature end due to mismatches but as this only happens on user-made maps it can't really be blamed on the game. There are also a few balancing issues that need some further tweaking. However, even with these problems in mind Zero Hour is a top quality expansion which, in my opinion, will not be penalised too heavily for these hitches as they should soon be sorted out in a patch.

I barely touched the missions in C&C Generals, preferring instead to spend endless days wasting my flatmates over the LAN. With Zero Hour I've been enjoying some great story driven combat while trying (unsuccessfully so far), to beat all the Generals in the challenge mode. And almost every day still brings at least one fight over the network. So in effect, Zero Hour is actually a better game than the original it is spawned from. Once its teething problems are pulled or filled-in I feel it will be recognised as one of the classics of its time.

92%

By Sam Gibson