Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour Expansion

Officially Released on 22nd of September 2003, PST 12MN [22nd of September ASIA 3PM]. Game bought in 22nd September at 8:30pm in CyberActive Computer Shop Singapore

LAST UPDATED: 11th June 2005

This page is hosted on Lycos tripod due to lack of space in Geocities.

As this page is thoroughly about the official expansion pack of CnC G, if you are on 56k connection, give about 2 minutes for all the thumbnails in this page to load.

This page is solely dedicated to the just recent released expansion for the award winning strategy game Command & Conquer: Generals™, titled Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour™ produced and published by EA. This time the box is super small, about half of the original Command & Conquer Generals Box

This page will be as similar as my previous personal review of Command & Conquer: Generals™

Now we head on to the requirements needed to run the expansion:

System Requirements:

Command & Conquer Generals installed in the computer and patched to v1.6

Windows XP/ME/2000/98

800MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor

128MB RAM

8x CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive

1.4GB free hard disk space plus space for saved games (additional space required for Windows swap-file)

32MB video card using the Nvidia Geforce2 (or greater), ATI Radeon 7500 (or greater) chipset with DirectX 8.1 compatible driver

DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card

Keyboard, Mouse

Recommended System Requirements:

1.8GHz or faster Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP processor

256MB or more RAM

8x or faster CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive

Nvidia Geforce3 (or greater) Direct3D capable video card.

Mostly its requirements follow what C&C Generals requirements are.

Update: The current patch version as of 5th June 2005 is version 1.04 (for Zero Hour).

The box consists of:

1 VCR like cover case that includes:

• The 2 Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour™ Installation CD-ROMs

• 1 EA Games/Sports Product Brochure

• 1 Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour™ Installation Guide

• 1 Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour™ Product Manual

• 1 Command & Conquer Generals: Zero Hour™ Unit/Structure Tech Tree

• 1 Limited Edition C&C Generals USA Collar Pin [While stocks last]

Update: Seems CloneCD has closed business and I can't do a proper RAW copy of the game without getting a Please Eject and Insert the Correct CD error. But Alcohol120% did it successfully made myself a 1:1 copy of it on virtual CD to be used for the living room PC. Bear in mind that I do this for experimental purposes I do not recommend to do this for pirate purposes.

Installation was a breeze, just pop in the cd and install. The installer installs it to its own new directory in 'EA GAMES\Command And Conquer Generals Zero Hour\'. It has its own DATA folder located in the 'My Documents' of the login user (Windows NT Series) or just in the plain 'My Documents' (Win 9x Users).

Instead of Normal, Hard and Brutal, Zero Hour™ uses Easy, Normal and Hard. [Back to Red Alert 1 days hehehe], but it's still the same difficulty as before.

New Honours: [apart from the normal honours in the original CNC Generals game]

1. Domination Honour - Recognition for winning 100, 500, 1000 or 10000 games over your C&C Generals Career

2. Ultimate Honour - Conquer every Skirmish map against the MAXIMUM NUMBER OF ENEMIES on HARD difficulty to earn the Ultimate Honour (i.e play a 8 player map, u alone against 7 hard enemies and win the game)

3. Challenge Campaign Honour - Complete the Generals Challenge to earn this honour. Win the Challenge in hard mode to earn the GOLD medal

4. Fair Play Honour - To earn this, you must have won, lost, surrendered, or exited using normal game channels at a 90% rate for at least 10 total games [applicable to online gaming only]

In this section, I would not be describing to you in detail  the capabilites of these new units/structures. Buy the game and experience it yourself as there are a lot to mention talaga.

USA Units

• Sentry Drone [stealthed unit (when not moving) to detect stealth units, upgradeable with a gun mounted for minor attacks]

• Microwave Tank [structure disabler and infantry killer]

• Avenger [paints units to give offensive units more accuracy on their attacks. Damages air-units]

USA Structures

• Fire Base [huge cannon land defense shoots fire shell. Garrisons 4 infantry unit to take out units that evaded the blast of the cannon]

• Countermeasures [gives all USA based air units 50% to evade heat/radar guided missiles]

• Hellfire Drone [drone that shoots hellfire missiles, 3rd drone upgrade apart from scout and battle drones]

• Chemical Suites [Increase the resistance to toxin infected areas]

• Supply Lines [Upgrade productivity of Chinooks gathering supplies]

• Bunker Busters [damages/kills infantry and/or vehicles in bunkers/buildings/GLA holes]

• MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst as what the manual stated but in the game it is called Mother Of All Bombs 0.o) [upgrade for fuel air bomb level 5 air strike, upgrade requires generals promotion of the fuel bomb air strike with a $$$ cost, much stronger and powerful]

• Sentry Drone Gun [adds shooting capability for the Sentry Drone Unit]

USA Generals Powers

• Leaflet Drop [drops leaflets to infantry/units to lower their morale and sap their will to fight]

• Spectre Gunship [Special air force flying around in circles to destroy a target shooting 50 calibre shells, gunship target can be manually overidden but within its circle flight path only]

China Units

• Listening Outpost [detects movement of units (stealthed or not) over a wide radius]

• Helix [large helicopter transport that can be upgraded with propaganda tower, gattling gun or bunker, napalm bombs can also be added to increase firepower]

• ECM Tank [electronic counter measure tank disrupts guided missile and rocket attacks causing them to miss, also used to disable vehicles]

China Structures

• Internet Centre [hold 8 hackers in turn they work better, have satellite hack 1 & 2 upgrades]

China Upgrades

• Neutron Mines [like jarmen kell sniper attack, this mines kills the driver in the unit, leaving the vehicle driverless]

• Satellite Hack 1 [upgrade reveals all territory around each command centre on the map]

• Satellite Hack 2 [acts like a gps feature of the USA command centre]

• Neutron Shells [Neutron shells destroy enemy personnel, leaving the vehicle intact, deploy from Nuke Cannon]

China General Powers

• Carpet Bomb [high altitude aerial bombardment]

• Frenzy [units armour increase over a short period of time]

GLA Units

• Saboteur [can climb cliffs, stealth, infiltrate bases, and powers them down. Saboteur enters a Command centre all general powers are reset]

• Combat Cycle [recon unit, the cycle acquires the ability of the infantry riding it]

• Battle Bus [massive reinforced bus bunker style, open windows which infantry shoot thru outside. When immobilised, it becomes a bunker like cover for the remaining troops]

GLA Structures

• Fake structures [diversion structure, forces enemies to change tactics and waste resources, can be upgraded to real structures for surprise attacks]

GLA Upgrades

• Worker Shoes [increase productivity of workers gathering supplies and walks faster]

• Camo Netting [applying camo netting to stinger sites and tunnel networks wraps them in camouflage protection

• Fortified Structure [upgrades the external armour of GLA structures]

• Booby Trap [allows rebels to place invisible explosive charges on any structure, enemy combatants that attempt to commandeer them detonate the charges]

GLA General Powers

• GPS Scrambler [scrambles the GPS frequencies across a wide area and hides units under camouflage cloak]

• Sneak Attack [GLA can place a tunnel exit anywhere on the map allowing personell to strike an enemy base from within the base itself. Attacking units should be previously positioned inside the Sneak Attack or Network tunnel before deployment]

NEW Tech Buildings

• Tech Repair Bay [constantly repairs all vehicles]

• Tech Artillery Platform [neutral structure that fires ground based enemies]

• Tech Reinforcement Pad [regularly air drops one of the assault vehicle types]

The 9 generals in the Generals Challenge [usable in skirmish and online gaming]

• 3 generals per side for a total of 9

• Defeat the other 8 generals to get the Generals Challenge Medal [bronze, silver and gold awards depending on difficulty whereas the latter is the hardest difficulty selected]

• You command a general's army featuring specialized units, structures and upgrades.

• Each general's army has faster or cheaper access to the weapons and structures needed to achieve victory using its unique set of tactics.

• Find their weakness and counter their strategies.

Box Pictures are taken with a 3.2MP FujiFilm Finepix 601Z Digital Camera

Box pictures:

Box The front of the Zero Hour Box. [Very small box btw]	Front Box Flap A book like flap opens to preview the 9 generals that can be chosen in the skirmish or Challenge Mode	Back of the box Description of the game at the back	Innards of the box On the left is the CNC VCR like CD cover that consists of whats on the right: the white installation guide, the generals manual, a tech tree leaflet and a EA product brochure	While stocks last!!! A free limited edition USA Collar PIN!!!

 

---

In-Game Pictures are screenshotted within the game itself (F12 key)

USA & Skirmish Pictures

Mission Screen 1 Starts from sea, cruisers shooting terrorists at the beach	Mission Screen 2 The landscapes turns around to the USA-CHINA base being attacked by GLA. Here you see the massive Sneak Attack being demonstrated	USA Missions A short picture of the un-usable unit in skirmish. Here is an aircraft carrier only playable in missions. Here 20 raptors get ready for launch.	USA Mission RAPTORS flying off to accomplish a mission	USA Mission Aircraft Carrier Raptors taking out a GLA Arms Dealer
USA Mission Sentry drones and infantry being deployed along with Colonel Burton. Sentry drones detect invisible units and is cloaked when not moving.	USA Mission Colonel Burton Clearing out barrels for preparation of rangers capturing the building. [Actually fireworks demo eto]	USA Mission Army of Humvees and Paladins assaulting the GLA base to accomplish being victorious	USA Mission USA Avenger Vehicle effectively paints an air unit and land unit for an increased accuracy attack from offensive units. The USA Avenger Vehicle protects the USA battalion from missiles by taking them out [kinda like paladin's laser but better]. It has no offensive attack, but can take down air units.	USA Mission Continuation of attacks by USA Armour
USA Mission Bunker busters [for Stealth fighters] equip the missiles of the stealth fighter to blow away infantry garrisonned in bunkers/structures and units hiding in GLA tunnel network will be destroyed from within.	USA Mission Colonel Burton and GLA Jarmen Kell allying to destroy the overly optimistic and toxic influenced leader Dr Thrax of the current GLA leader in Zero Hour.	USA Mission Supreme Air strike of comanches. Notice the icon at the bottom right corner where u see missiles, thats counter measures. All USA air units [offensive and delivery] have these to evade 50% of missile attacks.	USA Mission The effects of Bunker Buster equipped Stealth Fighter	USA Skirmish Trial I versus a hard computer [note, hard computer = brutal army, as easy normal hard is equals to normal hard brutal when compared to cnc generals original]. notice the different tactic or coding implemented for the AI, camping tens of tanks at the base.
USA Skirmish 1 Particle cannoning a little bit to reduce the size of the army but the computer kept building more until my computer slowed down but playable still.	USA Skirmish 1 Generals Promotion MENU.. :)	USA Skirmish 1 4 humvees armed with tow and 4 missile defenders in each vehicle assault the quad cannons camping in the middle of the map. Note: Search and Destroy Strategy was initiated here.	USA Skirmish 1 Note the reinforcements pad tech building. This is a highly modified Twilight Flame map original from CNC Generals. The skirmish game continued by me attacking with over 50+ tanks and rebuilding as the computer was countering my attacks too. I unleashed the air strikes and particle cannon and my airforce to help. It was a long 2hr game.

 

---

Generals Challenge (USA Air Force General is what I chose) and Some Screenshots of LAN Zero Hour at home.

 

Generals Challenge USA (Air Force General), as you can see my secondary assault force are vehicles BUT since air force general ang pinili ko, I do not have access to build Paladins/Crusaders, but I have all access to aircraft for a lower cost production. I even have Carpet bombing air strike.	Generals Challenge Combination of air and land forces decimating a GLA Toxin General. [US AIR GENERAL vs GLA TOXIN GENERAL, vs match 1]	Generals Challenge US Spectre gunship circling the blue designated target. Manual overiding its default aim, I target the palace first
Generals Challenge Hmmm, I wonder what happened there.....	Generals Challenge Another generals challenge {match 2}. Now my opponent is a China Nuclear general. Avenger unit behind humvees paint the target so it becomes more visible to offensive units and shoot them faster and more accurately	Generals Challenge Before: Stealth fighters equipped with bunker busting missiles shoot a tower garrisonned by chinese infantry.
Generals Challenger After: Bunker buster equipped missiles does its job, killing all garrisonned infantry in the building, but the tower is still intact, albeit damaged by the initial missile attack.	Generals Challenge Now is USA v USA, my enemy now is a USA Superweapons General. Bunker busting time!!!!	Generals Challenge Spectre Gunship on its way!!!!
Generals Challenge Target aquired............. destroying war factory.. bang bang bang!!!!	Generals Challenge Now its the next stage (I've lost count hmmmm.) It's a match against the China Tank General. I've launched a carpet bombing air strike onto this nuclear packed power plants and see it booooooooooooooom!!!!!!	Generals Challenge USA Spectre Gunship acquired.........
Generals Challenge USA Spectre Gunship initiating attack....	Generals Challenge Now I am up against a GLA Stealth General, as you can see the whole base of this general is stealthed. I deploy sentry drones to reveal them (as well as scout drone and the spy drone)	Generals Challenge In the last picture, i paradropped rangers equipped with capture building and flashbang skill and claimed the scud storm as my own. Here is a demonstration of its effects when it is being launched.
Generals Challenge NOW THIS IS IT! The final battle in generals challenge. Win this and get the Generals Challenge medal [bronze = easy, silver = medium, gold = hard]. A unit at the top centre of the screen gets stuck there after being bunker busted. hahaha	Generals Challenge A downed chinese HELIX [helicopter-transport of china that can be upgraded like a overlord tank and be equipped with napalm bombs] has been downed by king raptor [only available for usa air force general side] the king raptor is equipped with 6 missiles and counters missile attacks against it with its pointed defence laser and flares .	USA Skirmish round 2 Multiplayer time, here is a combined air strike from my father and me particle cannoning the leftovers. [I used usa air force general and my father used china tank general]
USA Skirmish round 2 Guess what happened??? hehe chinese neutron bombs being detonated by the particle cannon and the carpet bombing air strike	USA Skirmish round 2 My MOAB air strike [superduperly upgraded fuel air bomb strike] detonating above the war factory.	USA Skirmish round 2 More aerial support. My Spectre gunship doing its rotational business attacking the ones below.
USA Skirmish round 3 Hmm now its another multiplayer match, this time i am using USA Laser General [my father used USA Air force general]. I launched the Fuel Bomb air strike above these packed together patriots. You can see missile before dispersing the gas outside	USA Skirmish round 3 Now you see the gas... and you should know the outcome..	USA Skirmish round 3 BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. instant downing of chinooks and destruction of patriot missiles.
USA Skirmish round 3 Final Assault: Laser General units aka laser crusader tanks and avenger attacking the base. avenger uses red radiation beams to down air units and white pointed defence laser to neutralize missiles. Laser tanks attacking the base with, of course, laser beams.

---

GLA Missions and some China Skirmish

GLA Mission GLA Combat Cycles [interchangeable infantry capable] assaulting a USA Crusader tank	GLA Mission As usual repairing my damaged cycles and replenishing my GLA armour battallion.	GLA Mission Before: Look at the scorpion tank.	GLA Mission After: hey it upgraded.. new feature for GLA, scorpion tanks upgrade thru picking up scraps from a bigger loading barrel to dual scorpion rockets [where scorpion rockets upgrade has been purchased]	GLA Mission Assaulting the GLA betrayer, GLA Dr. Thrax and his toxin cum stealth technology
GLA Mission Sneak attack tactic used. Loading up the supreme GLA tunnel network entrance.	GLA Mission Deploying the 5 star general promotion sneak attack.	GLA Mission Doors opening, help I'm under attack by the steath (camo netting) stinger sites.	GLA Mission Next mission GLA: got to destroy the aircraft carrier [main objective] so i slowly island hop and gather my units and expand my base	GLA Mission A close up of my tanks. You see a crusader hehe, I shot the driver and stole it.
GLA Mission GLA Quad Cannons do short work of USA Commanche's	GLA Mission Hey, low power, change of strategy here actually.. is it search and destroy, hold the line or bombardment???	GLA Mission More reinforcements coming through via Sneak Attack	GLA Mission I captured the particle cannon. Lasering down USA structures (I think the last structure it destroyed is the USA Supply Depot)	GLA Mission Hmm rocket barraging and Tomahawk missiles don't do its damage at all on this aircraft carrier. Thats why there is the particle cannon (actually thats the only device that can destroy the carrier [the mission states so too])
GLA Mission Elite GLA Technicals with maximum scrap upgrades destroying and downing USA power. This mission requires you to steal toxin supplies from the European USA base	GLA Mission Toxin tractor being attacked by bunker equipped Rocket soldiers	GLA Mission Would you like to try some...	GLA Final Mission This is it, wiping out the americans in this mission will result in total withdrawal of US troops in Europe. The future of GLA is in your hands general.. er... hmmm...	GLA Final Mission GLA combat cycle doing super stunts on rock cliffs. It can even park on its peak.!!!!!
GLA Final Mission With me having all access to all side's super weapons, look how destructive it is.	GLA Final Mission All my offensive units [scorpion tanks, quad cannons, rocket buggies, USA Paladin tanks, USA Avenger and USA Tomahawk launcers] have been applied with GLA GPS Scrambler. Deploy it to a group of units and it will be permanently cloaked for good [unless being scanned by radar or shooting target of course!!!] Attacking the infantry filled bunker and downing the UN Supply plane with avenger lasers	GLA Final Mission Rocket buggy shooting 50% faster when avenger paints the target to be clearer to offensive units	GLA Final Mission More avenger downing aircraft, this time the chinook has fallen.........	GLA Final Mission Time for triple superpower demonstration. 2 Particle cannons shooting a different target each..
GLA Final Mission The nuke comes and claims them all and finally.........	GLA Final Mission Scud storm chokes infantry survivors. Muahahahahahaha	GLA Final Mission What happens when this whole power grid is being shot by a nuke????	GLA Final Mission They go boom and disappear from the map... Low power is the result. And the GLA wins...... in this game and mission of course....	China Skirmish Here are China helix choppers, with overlord like upgrades and a napalm bomb upgrade too. Here they are exposing a GLA Demo Trap
China Skirmish And after that, I drop Napalm bombs. I can cook marshmallows here.@!!!!	China Skirmish Look at that 4 helix dropping napalm bombs on one target. More destructive than MiG's combination napalm strike...	China Skirmish The helix choppers are my only offensive vehicles that i constructed in this skirmish. Helix choppers with bunker upgrade and 5 Tank hunters here..	China Skirmish Finally, a last shap shot of them before the 'Victorious' screen appears. My ally in orange is a China Nuke General.

---

China Missions and a Skirmish Game

China Mission Full screen capture of my chinese assault army decimating a GLA camp	China Mission My Mission is to liberate GLA presence in this region. Helix chopper hovering over the map heling out to defend my base.	China Mission Helix dropping napalm bombs onto the GLA Command Centre
China Mission Now I'm dropping upgraded napalm bombs onto a pack of GLA structures.	China Mission This mission requires me to eliminate the GLA influensive stuctures to gain back a higher International Opinion value. If the value goes down and reaches zero, the mission is a failure	China Mission See the lightning icon at the right side? That's the 'Frenzy' Generals skill, increases the attack damage and armour of the applied units for 30 seconds.
China Mission Chinese Battlemaster on frenzy influence taking down the GLA structure in a couple of shots. The Overlord tank just needs 2 shots under influece of level 3 frenzy to destroy a GLA tunnel network structure.	China Mission Chinese carpet bombing plane en-route to its target.	China Mission Launching the bombs . boom boom boom boom.....
China Mission In this mission, GLA are fleeing the scene trying to escape. The chinese must stop this from happening and you are given the chance to use anything except superweapons to stop them at all cost.	China Mission 3 Helix at one part of the map obliterating 2 GLA Toxin tractors trying to run away. These 3 helixes are equipped with napalm bombs and each of them have been installed different upgrades like the overlord tank (bunker, gattling cannon and propaganda tower).	China Mission This is me doing forced napalm strikes so that the GLA units get toasted immediately when the appear on the map.
China Mission A snapshot of the napalm fire blast.	China Mission The last mission for china, to destroy all traces of GLA in Germany. The GLA has captured a USA base in germany. Deciding my helixes as the main attacking force, you see my napalm upgraded to level 2 purple flames roasting the GLA controlled USA Command Centre.	China Mission The last piece of jigsaw to be solved. After destroying the small GLA camp here, the ending movie was shown. I have re-activated driverless USA units as my own in this final assault.
China Skirmish In this short skirmish mission, I used China Nuke General, so my battlemaster is automatically equipped with nuke shells. In this screenshot, I upgraded my MiG to use small nuke missiles, as you can see, the Overlord tank of the computer literally flying upwards and destroyed in the process of getting hit fully by my nuke equipped MiGs.	China Skirmish More MiG nuke blasts as they tear through the enemy armour batallion.	China Skirmish Heres the screen shot of my MiGs. Notice the nuke upgrade for these planes, only available for this general.
China Skirmish My MiGs just getting their orders from me.	China Skirmish BOOOOOOOOOOOM. And the result....	A small USA Skirmish Here is a kinda redundant shot, as I am using USA Superweapons general, here is EMP Patriot missile doing short work over the infantry. Notice that it has a different base compared to the normal Patriot missile.

---

Miscellaneous Section

 

If you have CNC Generals Zero Hour: Here is a file available for download, it is a very graphic intensive multiplayer game LAN game at home where my father and I played a 2 vs 4 hard enemy game and won. You must have the will to watch it all the way if your computer is slow here is the file. (It is above 500k but below 1MB in size) Right-click the link and click 'Save As' and place it into your CNC Generals: Zero Hour Data/Replays folder. Please make sure that the file type selected in the drop down box is 'All files' and type the .rep extension after the name of the file i.e (zerohr1rep is written in the box, u type the .rep extension --> it becomes zerohr1rep.rep and the file type selected is '*.* All files') otherwise u cannot see it in the zero hour load replay section.

Another cnc G zero Hr Replay file. You can get it here. Features a 3v1 game in the quest of getting the endurance medal of honour.

---

Back to Photo Gallery.

 

This page is best viewed under the resolution 1024x768 in 32bit colour, recommended browsers are IE 5.5 and Netscape 6 and above.

EA Games: Challenge Everything!!™

---