Being an RTS, the gameplay obviously occurs in real-time. Again, an obvious point, but one that has to be made to those considering a C&C mobile purchase. Anyone who has played even five minutes of a single RTS can vouch that the genre requires two active hands to play well. Many can sit back and play competently with a just mouse, but then, many FPS gamers will tell you that playing solely with the keyboard is as accurate and fast as adding a mouse to the equation.

The controls for C&C are adequate, but it is the implicit two-handed requirement that causes them to suffer. As one might expect, cursor movement is accomplished via the arrow keys or the keypad, and the equivalent of a mouse click is mapped to OK and 5. Unfortunately, clicking is where the control scheme utterly disintegrates. In an RTS, you're always clicking. Always. Whether you're clicking a building, setting a movement queue, or issuing an attack, clicking is intimately involved in almost all processes.

I dare you to try maneuvering with the arrow keys while consciously avoiding an accidental press of OK. For an exercise in even greater frustration, I challenge you to do the same while swinging the cursor to and fro using the number keys. One-thumbed play will most likely result in a press of 5, and two-thumbed play is almost impossible since one thumb will have to be hovering above 5 while the other weaves around it to control cursor navigation. And attempting to use your left hand to control the left-side buttons while leaving your right thumb to see to the right side? Forget about it.

EA Mobile did implement a few slick shortcuts in order to cut down on what they had to perceive as a cumbersome real-time experience. Base construction, which begins with your HQ vehicle, is as simple as highlighting the HQ, selecting it, choosing a base, picking a square, and pressing OK. After giving your blessing to spend the required amount of tiberium, the new building, be it a barracks, refinery, power plant, or something else entirely, is instantaneously built.

Similarly quick and simple is unit production. Choose a barracks, select a troop, and so long as you have the required tiberium, the unit appears nearby. Nice, clean, and easy. Unit movement and attacking have been combined into one easy click, similar to pressing A and left-clicking terrain in a PC RTS. Your units will engage hostile NPCs en route to their given destination, leaving you free to flex your fingers for a few moments.

But of course, growing a base and building an army is never a leisurely activity. If you're being pounded by attackers, your hands will twitch all over the keypad, making any intelligent command a rarity. When you inevitably engage an enemy, you'll be too busy swapping squads and squinting at the mini-map to accurately relay movement orders to your troops. Swapping squads is only a button press away, true, but that's just one more button on an already crowded battlefield.

C&C 3 is cheap, but even at as low as $2.99, this game just doesn't have a lot going for it. No multiplayer mode is available, and even if one was, playing against a human opponent with such a cramped control scheme would be more amusing than engaging. Only 12 single-player, GDI-only campaign missions are available, leaving you with nothing to do but engage the NOD A.I. in custom battles while you lament the three bucks that could've been spent at a drive-thru.

EA Mobile did the best they could, but frankly, some games do not belong on certain platforms, plain and simple. Turn-based gameplay is what mobile phones do best, and while a turn-based C&C would've been weird, it would've been playable, something C&C 3 just isn't.