Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

     Red Alert 3 is a great Command and Conquer game, though it just misses the mark as a faithful Red Alert follow up. But that's not nearly enough of a reason for you to miss out on this excellent RTS.

     First and foremost, I believe that RA3 is a game for RTS vets. Although the tutorials, single-player campaign and skirmish AI can be quite friendly to genre newcomers, and online lobbies matches you pretty good with players of your own skill level; I deem that long time real-time strategist would get the most out of this game and find time to master the factions.

Liked:

Unit Design:

      The units in RA3 are excellent and real fun to use. Some are pure fantasy (like most of the manga/anime inspired Empires units) and some are within the confines of reality. They all have very unique personalities that show through via their unit responses. For example the Empire's commando “Yuriko” the anti-social school girl ("They don't know what it's like!"), or the veteran grandpa Century bomber pilots ("Put out 'em fires back there!"). They are always fun to hear, plus, it makes you feel a little guilty when you sacrifice them for the greater good (at least I do…).

Faction Design / Balance:

     The thing a lot of people complain about C&C series is that the factions play out too similarly. In the most recent C&C 3, the two main factions (GDI and Nod) had similar structure types, and similar unit types. And to ensure victory, the player just had to amass an army of 3rd-tier armours, invade the enemy's base and leave no witnesses.

     Pretty early on in the announcement of Red Alert 3, EA LA has said that they are going to address issues of unit and economy balance, and they have delivered on that promise quite splendidly. The three factions have different structure production styles.

     The Allies can’t base creep but can produce buildings faster; the Soviets can base creep but their buildings are vulnerable when constructing; and lastly the Empire can build anywhere on the map, but their tech upgrades only apply to each unit production structure.

     No one unit in the game feel overpowered, and an army consisting of only 3rd-tier armours can be dispatched quickly by cunning commanders; this will have players thinking hard about their force composition, on land and sea.

Single-player Campaign / Story:

AI Co-commander:

    If you lack a buddy who is also interested in riding the world of communist scum or capitalist pigs or what have you, you can always hit it up with an AI co-commander. They are very competent allies and will carry out your orders swiftly. Although they aren’t so powerful that they’ll finish missions for you, but they’ll do good at aiding you destroying one or two objectives.

    However, their performances are not very consistent. In some missions my AI ally cranks out units on the fly, keeping the enemy suppressed while I amass a massive army to do the final push. But sometimes my AI buddy even has trouble keeping him/herself alive under enemy fire. One mission I had to finish on my own because my AI ally was completely wiped out. But on the whole, the AI commanders are very well thought out and they seem to utilize different tactics and prefer different unit types; also the brief FMV gives them great personalities.

Silky Smooth:

     Sure it’s the classic C&C gameplay, heck, I even turn on “Classic C&C left click order” mode. But something about this game is just smooth. Maybe it’s how the units move, or maybe it’s the graphical presentation of the game. The overall pacing of this game has a big emphasis on being fast and smooth; units carry out your orders swiftly and their detailed animation are top-notch for an RTS.

Graphics / Presentation:

     For all intents and purposes, Red Alert 3 is a very pretty game. It knows what it is and doesn’t try to do impossible things. In fact the camera in the game can’t zoom all the way in for an ultra close up view on your units, because the default camera is the best way to play the game; and by the time you finish gazing on Agent Tanya, half your base is probably already gone.

     The vivid colour palette illustrates the game’s mood excellently; it may not render the most realistic tracer fires, but that’s hardly what RA3’s going for. The explosions are intense with colour and fire, looks like they pack a real punch and dealing devastating damage to its surrounding. The waters are a sight to behold; they move fluidly (most of the time), splash and react to wrecked ships and falling aeroplanes in realistic ways. All in all, the SAGE (aka W3D aka RNA) engine has come a long way since its roots from the Westwood days. One more thing to note, the graphics in RA3 can scale pretty drastically to suit your PC’s capabilities, but you should at least be able to handle the medium settings to get the most out of your game (as you can see).

Graphical Comparison:

Story (Wait… do I smell self-contradiction?):

     The story itself is ridiculously awesome filled with its own predictable twists and turns and good CG and sexy women. However, I’m not very convinced about RA3’s initial set up. If you haven’t heard, RA3 starts with the Soviets leaders going back in time and murders Einstein, when they came back they found themselves with one more enemy who waste no time on their goals of world domination, this totally resets the whole Red Alert universe. Both the Soviet and the Allies campaign then thrusts you into this war with very little explanation of the history in this alternate timeline; all you got going in is the preconceived notion that the Reds and the Capitalists really hate each other. Considering how well the rest of the single-player story pans out, this initial tosses-you-in-the-frying-pan feel very rushed, and ultimately disappointing in the grand scheme of things.

(Lack of) Selecting a Country in Skirmish:

     Gone is the faction select in skirmish mode where you can choose a country that represents either Soviets or Allies with a unique weapon for each country (Such as Russia or Iran for Soviets, France or South Korea for Allies). I really liked that about Red Alert 2 where you can either pick Germany for their powerful tank-killer or Korea for their supreme air force. I suppose it might have to do with the pursue for political correctness these days. Considering how much political flak Red Alert 2 would come under if it were released today (Demolition Truck anyone?), I guess I can understand the exclusion of this feature.

Unit AI / Path Finding:

     This is way more distracting than the two pointed out above. For one, sometimes units will encounter path finding issues around a large amount of cohorts, or in tight space; they tend to get stuck and jitter for some time before solving the problem, though this doesn’t happen very often, it is still annoying to manage in a fast moving game like RA3. Second, large armour units like the Apocalypse tank or the Mobile Con-yard will take the shortest path possible to an ordered location and nothing would stop them. That’s great against pesky enemy tanks and their defensive walls; but it’s less great when your tanks purposefully plow through and totally destroys your own walls.

     On the issue of unit AI, the default guard stance maybe too passive for their own good. For instance, if one unit comes under fire in a group of tanks, the other ally tanks would not start attacking unless the enemy comes within their firing range, making the enemy able to pick off your units one by one if you’re not watching over them, all resulting in more micromanagement on your part.

Subdued Installation Process.

Main Menu Not Crazy Enough.

In the End:

     For the most part, this is Red Alert; crazy story, fantastical units and made better with silky smooth gameplay plus better balance. The single-player campaign is well worth the price of admission, and if you’re into the RTS genre, you’ll be busy with the online for quite some time.

     I have an attachment to Red Alert deeper than most people; C&C: Red Alert was the FIRST video game I’ve ever played, when I was 8, I thought it was cute and funny to order my conscript around. Now ten years have passed, my love for RA has not wavered. Sure the craziness of everything helps at bringing back Red Alert, but something feels missing; something I can’t quite pinpoint. But it hardly matters, if there’s any time to reboot the Red Alert franchise, it would be NOW.