Playdate: Red Alert 2 (04/19/2019)

Thank you for the awesome production work Vinny! and thank you Dan and Mike, this was a blast to watch :D

This was an incredibly fun show.

@vinny What headsets did you buy? I’m in the market for some. These had great voice quality.

ESPORTS

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Great work @vinny !

I feel like we got some OG wild Vinny productions here and I love it!

This was simply amazing, I would love to see more of this in the future!

So much nostalgia...

I remember that when this game came out, Best Buy (I think?) had this bonus where if you bought the game, you would also get the soundtracks for all four C&C games (including this one). Christmas morning, I unwrapped that CD case and I knew that the next present was gonna be this game (it was!). So many hours spent playing this. I was a huge fan of Sliders, so seeing Kari Wuhrer in the role of Tanya was awesome.

No unit cap is one of the things I fucking loved about this game, having come to this game from StarCraft. I loved turtling and then building up a ridiculously huge army. Also, the Rocketeers are the coolest unit ever.

Dan seems like a sore loser AND a sore winner, and honestly that's a shitty look for a dude who's 35.

Really liking the Mahardy content. He meshes really well with Dan.

Anyone else want a Brad vs Dan RTS playdate?

It could be framed WWE style where Brad tries to reclaim the title of GB Anime Editor.

I would love to see more of this!

Please do more of this.. I love it.

Yeah really cool. They don't make games like this anymore.

That upcoming game Conan Unconquered by some of the creators of C&C (say it out loud) looks good too but I think it's more of a wave based game?

What a great playdate!

This was hilarious, the end of that third game got me good.

What an incredible playdate. The production, the game, the ESPORTS, the REPLAYS...everything fucking ruled. Bravo beasters.

One of the best playdates of all times. So GOOD. The Electronic Sports format is brilliant.

I would trade several active shows for a weekly show where GBers faced off in XCOM, RTS, etc.

Dan is the worst of both worlds, a poor winner and a poor loser.

I had such a blast watching this. It really took me back to playing this on my own garbo emachines PC growing up. I loooved the cut-aways to speak with Dan and Mike about their plans individually, it made this 1000% more enjoyable than it would've been if everyone was just quietly playing. The instant replays were also a+. <3 u vinny

Also I appreciate Dan's commitment to just doing tons of different wacky/fun/ridiculous plans rather than sticking to one tactic. I do think it was poor sportsmanship to instantly surrender on your first defeat though after Mike had gone down fighting a few times :P

Also, Mike is just a great dude. I love it when he stops by.

These kinds of features really set GB apart from your average let's play/gameplay stream and I love it when things come together and this one deffo was a success. thx guys

this was real good

Great stream. Would love to see more C&C. Not too sure about the replay stuff though. It slows things down quite a bit and I usually watch the VOD of streams (time zone issues with watching live) so I can just skip back when I wanna watch some moment again.

More of this please, really great show!

please please do this again

This was so great. I loved Red Alert 2 so so much. I think Mike could have totally won the last match with just a few tweaks. Would have loved this to be more competitive, but great play from everyone!

Good work on the setup Vinny, and this was great!

I can't get enough of Dan being salty. Couldn't even let Mike savor that well-earned victory.

Very fun! Thanks for all the hard work you guys put in to get this together.

More of this please, I loved it all

Holy shit this is a good feature, nice job ya'll, effort was worth it.

This was great guys!

Great idea for a show, and always love seeing Vinny flex those production muscles!

Hell yeah, this would be wonderful.

Overall, this was a very good stream!

The raw simplistic dynamic between Dan and Mike in this masterpiece of an RTS. Red Alert 2 is a modern classic that still holds up, and is by far my favorite C&C.

Random thoughts:
* The bloatware on the laptops. A quick fix would be to just uninstall the "MSI Ultra Gamer Fps Optipro"? A full Windows re-install sounds like a good thing for the future though.
* I remember the Lan play being a bit janky in Windows back in the days too. Like not showing up when the other player hosting and so on. Having to switch hosts, checking lobby again and stuff along those lines.
* At least with the Yuri stand alone expansion (extremely recommended since it adds more of the good stuff) you can play at a higher resolution. Which will make the HUD less cramped.
* Mike, Dan and Vinny work well together, probably the best match on gb right now. Mike also did much for the Goldeneye streams. Focusing on the game, knowing something about it and so on.
* It looked like Dan played more (than Mike) versus humans, and usually winning (probably prefered to lure in noobs and smashing them, resulting in them not wanting to play again) , besides rushers ofc. Mike however, he played more like a person that mostly fought AI (which is fun in RA2 too).
* To add some value to the interviews and commentary you actually need someone who knows something about the game. Like facts on what unit counters which and the difference between nations.
Not just one popping in and asking who will win or watch video tutorials on how to do replays. At the very least keeping up with the matches. Personally I found the stumbling replaying and commentary a bit annoying and it would have been better without it. Replays may be new for GB, but it has been done by "bedroom streamers", youtubers and e-sport coverage teams for over 10 years now.

But to end on a positive note:
Probably the best Playdate and content/video/stream from Giant Bomb in 2019. More of this please, and less of the other stuff.

Man, non-esports-level RTS games are so much fun to watch. Might have to pull up Brad's stream against Norman "The Shoebreaker" Chan.

What an incredible playdate. The most interested I've been in a video for a while! Amazing games guys. Definitely would be into more of these.

Love the competitive nature between these two. would love to see them try to take on more RTS games, particularly ones neither are that familiar with

Vinny that tank/dolphin bit at the beginning was fantastic. Loved this so much!

First game I remember playing at 4. So freaking good.

Mike is...not good...

I am liking Mike Mustache-hardy. It's a good look.

Also please someone do a supercut of Dan outright cheating.

Pure awesomeness

Watching this again. So much fun - please make this a regular thing :)

Awesome, I hope we see more of this.

As someone who has never played a Command & Conquer first hand.... This was still such a memorable and classic Giant Bomb feature. Shout outs to vinny, the quick cuts and bits were fucking great.

Really enjoyed the Giant Bomb MSI Invitational this year! It was great to see these two vets back in action. Growing up I was a fan of Dan Ryckert, until he was disgraced by the 2014 match-fixing scandal -- leading to him being banned and losing his Taco Bell sponsorship.

Nothing less than Golden Moltar level lever pulling skills, Vinny, this was rad. Also yes more mike. And this feature, it's good.

I Loved this video, I would watch more of this feature!
More Mike & more C&C! (Or other strategic games)

This one has earned a spot on my hard-drive.

This is awesome and could be it's own seperate show on GB! A show where 2 or more bombers go head to head in an old multiplayer game.