When comparing Age of Empires II HD vs Command & Conquer: Generals, the Slant community recommends Age of Empires II HD for most people. In the question“What are the best RTS games for PC?” Age of Empires II HD is ranked 4th while Command & Conquer: Generals is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Age of Empires II HD is:
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Awesome ambiance with a great finish
While the graphics are slightly outdated, they were very well done for their time. And when combined with the history behind the game and its wonderful soundtrack, the game comes across as extremely polished.
Pro Runs on very old computers
As this game is quite old, requiring only a 1.2GHZ processor and 1 Gigabyte of RAM, this title will run on older PC's and laptops alike without issue.
Pro Facilitates the user's preferred pace
This game neither gives the impression of being thrown to the wolves nor that of being left stranded on an island. Whether you want to move slowly and steadily through the game or take things at a more heightened pace, Age of Empires 2 will allow for both (given a little planning).
Pro The Zero Hour expansion adds even more ways to play Multi-Player
While Command & Conquer: General's Multi-Player is a solid addition to the series, it is heightened greatly with the addition of Zero Hour. In this expansion, each faction has different generals the player can choose from, with specific specializations and drawbacks. One Chinese general specializes in infantry, allowing them certain upgrades to increase their effectiveness, while a Global Liberation Army general has an advantage with toxins, giving their vehicles the ability to have Anthrax-laced explosives that deal extra damage. With this addition, Zero Hour gives players the freedom to choose whichever general that fits their playstyle.
Pro Classic Command & Conquer gameplay reimagined with moderate realism
The staple of the Command & Conquer series has always been its resource gathering, base building, and large armies, all of which return in this Real-Time Strategy classic. While most Command & Conquer titles feature bombastic and over-the-top units (and storylines), Generals reigns in the franchise to tell a semi-realistic story with semi-realistic infantry and units. Gone are the signature wildly imaginative units from series like Red Alert, replaced with the United States' M1A1 Abrahms tanks, Chinese APCs and the GLA's Vehicle-Based IEDs.
Pro Many fantastic mods for this game
Just an awesome game because it reinvents itself through the many good mods that's out there. Mods like Contra 009, Shockwave or C&C Generals Untitled. The last one of these has an amazing AI.
Pro Three factions with different stories
Command & Conquer: Generals features three playable factions: The United States, China, and the Global Liberation Army, each with their own unique storyline. Every storyline tells a concise and mostly cohesive story, with most of the encounters taking place in the Middle East.
Pro Satirical portrayal of factions
All the factions are exaggerations of current real-world countries or organizations, in the case of the GLA, which adds quite a bit to the experience.
Cons
Con A lack of proper User Interface scaling makes a clunky UI worse
While this is a remastered edition of a classic Real-Time Strategy title, the UI was left largely unchanged. Selecting workers still prompts you to click buttons to bring up both economic and military buildings, then choosing whichever building you wish to construct. This is uninteresting design and makes the UI difficult to navigate.
On top of this, the game does not feature UI scaling. Since the game is bound to your current desktop display settings, the UI will adjust itself to match that resolution. This means if you play at 4K resolution the User Interface will be absurdly small, making it near impossible to see what buildings you wish to construct or what units you want to train. This is counter-intuitive design, for this era of modern gaming, and makes properly playing the game more of a hassle than it should ever be.
Con Age of Empires II HD is an unsuccessful remaster due to its outdated graphics
With the only notable upgrade being high resolution options, Age of Empires II HD fails at being a proper remaster. While higher resolutions give the game a slight face lift, the rest of the engine is left largely unchanged. This means the graphics we see in this remaster are nearly the same in its original 1999 release. Due to this, the game is grating to the eye and does not deliver on its high definition promise.
Con Slightly dated graphics
While great for their time, the graphics in Command & Conquer Generals have not withstood the test of time, thus those who did not play it when the game first came out may find the graphics and art style too appealing and not to their liking.
Con Near-offensive portrayal of factions
While it can easily be viewed as a satirical take on possibly then-current views of each culture represented in Command & Conquer: Generals, some players might take offense to how each faction is portrayed. The United States includes units that state they are doing what's right, the Chinese army units worship the Red Dragon, and the Global Liberation Army are shown as terrorists and near-barbaric. It is because of these tongue-in-cheek depictions that some may be turned off from this title.