"WMDs." "Preemptive Strike." "Shock and Awe." If these sound like buzzwords ripped from five years` worth of U.S. news headlines -- you`d be hearing right. Except now, this household, post-millennial vocabulary is injected into Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars` mission outlines. Under C&C`s real-time strategy guise, however, these scenarios aren`t shoved into a stress-position of overly-specific locations, conditions, and outcomes. Instead, the gameplay mechanics (and arms-race missions) are simultaneously pulpy, unhinged, and just-one-more-skirmish addictive.

Returning to center stage 17 years after the events of C&C2: Tiberian Sun, the showdown between the G.I. Joes of the year 2047 (the GDI) and their Cobra-La adversaries (the Brotherhood of Nod) reach a flashpoint once again. The GDI lulled itself into complacency since the Second Tiberium War due to the lack of an overt Nod presence. During those last 17 years, Nod had dug even further underground to serve as their initial gambit. But now Kane, Nod`s enigmatic messiah who`s long since lost count of how many of his nine lives are left, executes a series of brilliant and blinding attacks against the GDI. He cripples the GDI star wars program, launches a tactical nuke, obliterates a key GDI space station, and in so doing, Kane -- efficiently and effectively -- starts the Third Tiberium War. Quoting everyone from Jesus ("And he cried with a loud voice … Lazarus, come forth!") to Saddam Hussein (by starting the "Mother of All Wars"), the megalomaniacal Kane has returned in top form.

Welcome back, Commander. You`ve got a lot of work to do.

In keeping with the C&C tradition, Tiberium Wars offers a heady mix of brutish do-ya-feel-lucky-punk gameplay, stirred into the just-technical-enough jargon to root itself in sci-fi plausibility. You could receive a Nod mission briefing from Ajay (Josh Holloway of Lost fame) with a 5 o`clock shadow slathered across his cocky grin, practically sporting a 10-gallon hat with his Wild West swagger … then you might unlock some piece of research intel describing the process for reaching "an explosive catalyst for detonating existing Tiberium crystal deposits in a sub-critical reaction." Hey, who the heck knows? Sounds like a blast, though.

Along with Josh Holloway (and the returning Joe Kucan as Kane) are veteran and freshman actors hailing from all over the entertainment exosphere: Rounding out Nod`s top talent is Tricia Helfer from the incomparable Battlestar Galactica; GDI recruited the always-awesome Michael Ironside (Starship Troopers) to play General Jack Granger; Grace Park (also of Battlestar Galactica) as can-do Lieutenant Sandra Telfair; and Jennifer Morrison sheds her House M.D. lab coat to suit up as Lieutenant Kirce James. But the William Shatner Overactors Award is reserved for a frothing-at-the-mouth Billy Dee Williams hamming it up as GDI Director Redmond Boyle (not to mention recapping his Star Wars role as the Only Black Guy in the Movie). While I can`t deny how much I love every minute of C&C3`s triumphal return of full motion video