The basic gameplay is like most other real-time strategy games. You must direct forces, build structures, fend off enemy troops, and concentrate your own against the proper targets to seize victory. The specifics of Generals, however, are in the "General Powers" and the discrete specialties of each army.

The USA faction is a quality over quantity force, with expensive costs but some of the most versatile and well-rounded forces, able to handle nigh any task. The Chinese forces are the inverse, relying on deploying forces as a weighted fist for optimal effectiveness and a lot of high-risk yet high-reward tactics. The GLA, unlike the first two, has no air force, no structures that use any form of power, and lacks most of the endurance of the meatier units of the other two forces. Conversely, the GLA is dirt cheap and able to use all sorts of unorthodox tactics denying the other two forces to win. The "General Powers" are a menu of unlockable "bonus tactics" such as making all of certain units deploy as enhanced veterans, unlocking unique units, or being able to deploy special attacks on any enemy area based on a cooldown timer at any location.

Graphically, the game has a clean yet simple modern world look, with many areas modeled on real-world locations with appropriate set pieces, and while the 3D models for units are a bit simplistic in places, they are distinct and well-animated. The USA radiates a "high tech" aesthetic, the GLA a Middle Eastern grunge look, and the Chinese a brutalist approach typical of their no-nonsense mass assault tactics.

The music and sounds for each force are quite distinctive. The USA voices and music feel like something from a blood-pumping uber-patriotic movie from the 1980s, with self-assured US Army Rangers and chill as dry ice tank and air force pilots. Their music is the kind of stuff you'd set a dramatic movie crescendo with a pro-American outlook to. The Chinese forces have ominous Chinese-themed marches and dirges, all of their voiceovers sounding slightly cliched in Chinese-accented English but radiating bombast and confidence in the glory of the Chinese military. The GLA voiceovers are like a pastiche of every Middle Eastern terrorist cliche with appropriate fanatical warrior lines and their musical score is Middle Eastern themed with a heavy metal undertone to set the tone they are to be taken seriously despite their shoestring budget looks.

The game is controlled by keyboard and mouse, mostly the latter, and the game comes complete with a tutorial to get you started. The user interface is generally intuitive and it's easy to do things like set troop waypoints and navigate the map to sortie forces and deploy structures.

Stability is generally fine once you get past some annoyances as mentioned in the lede. The original was released in the early 2000s, meaning unless your computer is so bad you can barely do word processing, this is likely to run at max and not even stress your PC at all. It is playable on Linux with some tweaks, but not rated for Steam Deck play.

Morally, there are some concerns.

Violence is real-time strategy style, minus blood and gore. While mostly lacking blood and gore, there are some flame, nuclear, and chemical weapons (used by the Chinese for the first two, GLA for the latter) that result in painful screams and bodies turning a single color to indicate burning or being poisoned, but the low detail means this is more implied than super explicit. Most other attacks result in bodies falling and disappearing or stuff exploding if non-humanoid and doing the same. Except for the GLA, the USA and Chinese forces generally try to avoid civilian casualties, though they can result from carelessness or friendly fire. The GLA, however, has no qualms about getting civilians or nonmilitary personnel killed and often makes a point of it in some missions.

Language is going to be mild if there is any at all. Maybe at most a d*mn or h*ll once or twice, mostly used for actual real-world names for weapons, like "Hellfire" missiles and/or military codenames. Sexual content and anything supernatural is nonexistent, this is a no-nonsense, real-world-oriented real-time strategy game.

Morally, the USA and China have the saving grace of trying to operate within the bounds of international law and are fighting in a legitimate response to attacks by a terrorist group on their polities and citizens. The GLA is the villains' campaign by default, given their utter disregard for the niceties of civilized conflict, use of weapons of mass destruction banned under real-world WMD laws, and absolute disregard for the noninvolvement of civilians. Worth noting the Chinese use of nuclear and flame-based weapons is somewhat cruel if not formally illegal in the real world in formal combat situations. The GLA use of poison weapons and terror bombings, on the other hand, is.

Overall, CNC Generals is a fun if simple "modern-day" RTS that is available dirt cheap as part of a bundle on Steam and on EA Play. Morally, it's got some concerns like any military title but is fine for any mature Teen on up. It's not the very best RTS game ever, but it's still just as fun to play as when I first played it nearly two decades ago and thus recommend it highly.