Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Having never played a Red Alert game before (or really any Command and Conquer game), I decided that the series' third installment would be a good time to dive in and see what the fuss was all about. What I found, however, was a little more crazy than I could have anticipated. Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 functions more or less like your standard RTS, but adds a layer of pure insanity at every turn. The result manages to be both generic and entertaining, making it a solid purchase for fans of the series or genre- though maybe not many others.
 
The gameplay of Red Alert 3 is all around solid, if unspectacular. You build up your base, collect resources, train units, and fight battles all in real time. The core mechanics are all extremely generic RTS fare, and will be immediately familiar to anyone who's played an RTS in the last 15 or so years. The campaign's mission structure suffers the same fate, and is filled to the brim with bland, repetitive objectives- usually along the lines of "destroy stuff". The few missions that do varry from that template actually ended up being more frustrating for me, such as one mission where you have to defend an AI controlled convoy halfway through the level. Red Alert 3 could have done better to break from the mold a bit more (and in better ways), but that doesn't necessarily mean that its gameplay is bad. It's all stuff that's worked before, and it works similarly here. It's just that it's not terribly new or interesting, and might not be enough to sell Red Alert 3 on its own merits.
 
Fortunately, it doesn't have to. For all its blandness in the gameplay department, Red Alert 3 does more than enough to stand out on the thematic front, as this game is balls-to-the-wall crazy. Every aspect of it is infused with a mind-boggling amount of insanity, and the game is infinitely better for it. The characters and story are absolutely hilarious, and get themselves involved in the wildest scenarios- time traveling to murder Einstein, a hidden weapons facility in Mt. Rushmore, and using the American President as a Japanese spy are only the tip of the iceberg. The live action cut-scenes are fantastic as well, as the actors and actresses deliver their lines with the right amount of "camp" to be awesomely entertaining. The units in the game are also thematically great, with parachuting bears, torpedo shooting dolphins, and transformer style mechs only being the highlights. Finally, the visuals and audio do a stellar job at tying it all together. Everything is upbeat and colorful, providing a great stage for all of the game's crazy happenings.
 
In the end, how much you'll like a game like Red Alert 3 is totally dependent on what you're looking for. The gameplay isn't going to satisfy anyone save the most hardcore RTS fans, as it's likely to wear thin well before it's due. But if you're looking for a game that is thematically bonkers all the time, then look no further than Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3.
 
For additional information on my review style and scoring system, click here.