Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Red Alert was not just an incredible continuation to a great game but the underlying concept, of the Soviet Union under Stalin fighting against the European Forces was an important revolution in gaming history. The cinematics are of higher resolution and even better than what you saw in the previous game. While several units such as the Mammoth Tank made a reappearance, there are also plenty of new units including full compliments of maritime and air elements. The level design is even better than before. The best part of this game is however, the difficulty. Even under normal difficulty, it is very challenging.

This game is the prequel to the acclaimed Real Time Strategy game of 1995, Command & Conquer: Tiberium Dawn, it details the forming of the GDI and NOD forces and an alternate reality in which Hitler never rose to power, a more sinister force emerged, Stalin, and now he is marching across Europe.

I love the series and if we are talking about the movie sequnces, then it's great, the acting is spectacular and all fits in well in the story, even though it won't mean nothing to you if you are not playing.

Joseph Kucan is a great actor and I hope he won't turn to the big screen because there are Places to go, Buildings to raze.

Strategy games haven't exactly been on top of the world in recent years (mainly because the average person doesn't want to sit in a game for 3 hours only to lose) but the fact remains that Command and Conquer is literally a genre maker. While the original took place in the near future of our world and featured a coalition of some of the world's most powerful nations (the GDI) fighting against the terrorists of the Brotherhood of Nod, this one will probably interest you more if you are into Cold War history. Taking place in an alternate reality where Einstein goes back in time to kill Hitler as he is released from prison, Red Alert focuses on a fictional war between Allied Forces and an aggressive Soviet Union to decide the fate of Europe. The war in question is actually World War II, but not ww2 as we know it. The soviets have monstrous double barreled tanks known as Mammoths (which would be featured in other Command and Conquer games), and the allies get devices capable of teleporting vehicles around the battlefield instantly. While the story in this game and the live action cutscenes that compliment it aren't really anything to write home about, what really matters is the gameplay. Like other strategy games, Red Alert plays differently depending on what faction you choose to rule the battlefield with. As is the case with its sequel, the USSR prides itself on unmatched firepower, and can be best described as a steamrolling military force with powerful ground vehicles, cheap expendable soldiers to support their tank armies, and punishing artillery units. The soviets suffer from a dire lack of maneuverability and rely on helicopters to respond to threats quickly around the warzone. While easily capable of delivering a crushing blow once their economy gets big enough, the USSR's brute force and frontal assault tactics tend to be unsubtle and direct to a fault, and they possess hardly any units which allow for strategies other than smashing your enemies with sheer firepower. On the other hand, we have the allies, whose units tend to be more fragile (but faster) than the soviet ones, but can be overall more effective than them depending on how good the player's micromanagement skills are. This means looking after each individual unit and ordering it to do different things depending on what's going on. The allied infantry are better trained than their soviet counterparts, and are thus better in a gunfight. Strangely, the allies in this game are actually inferior to the soviets in terms of air power, as the allies only have one air unit: the AH-64 Apache helicopter (erroneously called the Longbow in spite of not having the targeting sensor of the same name). The one area the allies possess a clear advantage over the soviets is on the seas, as allied naval units are much more powerful than soviet attack submarines. Another thing the sequel would change is the soviet's use of Tesla technology. In this game's alternate reality, soviet forces captured famed Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla and forced him to produce weaponized versions of his electricity based inventions for the soviet army. This includes the tesla coil, a pylon which shoots out lightning bolts at allied ground vehicles and infantry, frying them with little effort, and the tesla tank, a mobile version of this weapon. In Red Alert 2, many countries are part of the USSR, but only Russia uses tesla tanks. While more fragile than most other armored vehicles, they make up for this by being able to handle any type of ground threat, doing full damage to other vehicles and disintegrating any soldiers that get in their way. One thing I never understood about these games is why you would bother making a huge army of soldiers when tanks are much more efficient. Even in later games like Generals, infantry are not a big threat, as they die way too easily, have short range, are too slow, and are just not cost effective. One vehicle can kill like 20 of them alone, and so the only way to use them correctly is to either put them in vehicles themselves or use them to support your tank army. They will cover each other's weaknesses and serve as meat shields when your vehicles get into a bad spot. Just like other Command and Conquer games, Red Alert has a story mode in which you can choose to either serve the soviets or the allies. You play as this faceless commander who is just kind of there and just so happens to be the best that particular faction has, but what's really odd is that the game is technically a prequel to the first C&C game and even takes place in the same universe. Command and Conquer has 3 different subseries: the Red Alert games, Generals, and the Tiberium games, which focus on GDI vs Nod. It is actually revealed in Red Alert's campaign that Joseph Stalin himself employs Kane (Nod's leader) as a counselor. The game designers eventually realized that this doesn't make any sense, as Kane would continue to appear in tiberium games after Red Alert which take place in the 2030s, making him over a century old. Because of this, EA has stated the timelines in the games are all separate, thereby contradicting Kane's appearances in this game. Even though the stories of these games are usually pretty ridiculous, you have to remember it's not meant to be taken all that seriously. After all, this is the same series in which the soviets employ squids that have been mind controlled to strangle enemy warships. Just like Red Alert 2, this game also has a soundtrack by Frank Klepacki, which was voted the all around best video game soundtrack of 1996. He really is a genius of game music and there are some tracks in this game that if you really wanted, could be danced to. Overall, the first Red Alert game is a classic of the real time strategy genre, but it is archaic compared to things like its sequel and Generals. Both these games would add a lot of new things to the franchise, as well as having a brilliant modding community that continues to publish modifications for the games over 20 years later, giving you new ways to play.

I believe Red Alert is one of the few games of the mid-nineties that stood the test of time and that is still immensely enjoyable so many years after it's release.

Red Alert was released only year after the original C&C, having started out as a expansion pack but somewhere along the line Westwood decided to convert it into a full sequel. This shows because the 2 games have similar game-play, graphics and most of the units in Red Alert are exact copies from C&C. However where Red Alert manages to surpass it's predecessor is with the addition of much more interesting story lines, campaigns with lots of twists and turns, improved cinematic sequences and also a few interesting air and sea units which improves game-play.

The player can choose between the Soviets and Allied campaign, each side have different strengths and weaknesses, requiring the player to adjust his strategy to the suit his side's particular strength and weaknesses. The Soviet units are generally stronger, but more expensive and slower than the Allied units. The Allied units are quicker and cheaper, but lack the firepower of the Soviet units. The game is difficult enough to challenge the casual gamer and keep you entertained for hours without being frustratingly difficult.

An area where I believe the developers got it wrong was with the balance of strengths and weaknesses of the Allied and Soviet sides, the Allied units are simply not cheap nor fast enough to make up for their lack of firepower, a large Soviet tank rush would usually easily wipe their Allied opponents off the map. The dumb AI is also not much of an improvement from the previous game, and is actually quite easy to beat once you've got the hang of the game.

Criticisms aside, If you are a RTS game fan and never got round to play this game (which is highly unlikely) or just want to go for a trip down memory lane, this game will still be worth your money and time.

The movie sequences in Red Alert are great! You can't tell the backgrounds are computer generated and it looks photo realistic. The only thing I don't like is how the actors talk to the camera. Tiberian Sun will be better because you will actually be a character on the screen! Joseph Kucan is awesome!