Command & Conquer: Red Alert

THE BAD:
Graphics could have been slightly better

SUMMARY:
This game was the sequel to Command and Conquer. Instead of GDI v Nod they went for the Allies v Soviets in a World War II type setting. There are several familiar units including the MCV, Harvester, Engineer and Mammoth Tank. But there are many more that have been introduced. Again, there is a well devised single player storyline but this time there is an excellent multiplayer mode as well.

The single player mode will take you through a World War II inspired storyline. You can play as the Allies or the Soviets. Allies play in blue and Soviets play in red, giving them an evil sort of feel. You are taken through many missions with more units and technologies becoming available as you progress through the missions. By the time you get to the final level you will be using the most powerful units your side has available to them.

This time the source of income is not Tiberium but Ore. It still needs to be harvested but it isn’t poisonous to infantry and you can run them over it safely. The Harvester, like many vehicles look different (the MCV unpacked almost looks like a vacuum cleaner on its side) but still do the same job. Power is still essential for your base to operate properly and more buildings rely on power this time and will shut down if your base goes under powered.

You still generally have to start off with an MCV and build up from there. As far as base defences go the Allies have two Pillboxes and a Gun Turret and the Soviets have a Fire Tower and a Tesla Coil. The normal Pillbox fires a machine gun that’s good against infantry and fairly good against light vehicles. The Camouflaged Pillbox is exactly what it sounds like. It’s less tall and blends in with the terrain and also has more armour. The Gun Turret is like it was in C&C and is primarily an anti-vehicle defence. The Fire Tower shoots out balls of fire which are good against infantry and vehicles alike. The Tesla Coil is the equivalent of the Obelisk of Light in this game. It fires out a bolt of electricity and is extremely powerful. Against infantry it will fire out three quick bolts before recharging. Just a couple of these can make entry into any base by ground hard work. But like the Obelisks these take up a whole lot of power and will go offline if your base goes under-powered.

As far as units go, there are now spies and thieves for the Allies. A spy will appear to the enemy as one of their own troops and you will be able to get past nearly all units easily. If you enter a spy into an enemy building you can get a whole lot of useful information. The only unit that can detect a spy is the Attack Dog. Since a spy has no weapons you need to steer clear of these because once they lock onto you then you’re dead. If you get a thief into a Refinery or Silo you will steal money. For the Soviets they seem to have inherited the Mammoth Tank and it is still as deadly as it was in C&C. They also have a V2 Rocket Launcher. This has incredible range and can destroy most buildings in only a few hits but they are lightly armoured and can’t hit moving targets

The Soviets have a massive advantage in the air as they can have an Airfield to build Yaks and MIGs as well as Helicopters but the Allies only have Helicopters. These planes can be very handy for striking lone units very quickly, especially if this happens to be an undefended Harvester. I found myself using these quite a bit. The Yaks are effective against infantry and the MIGs against vehicles.

But while the Soviets have the advantage in the air, the Allies have the advantage on sea. They have 3 units to the Soviets’ 1 plus the Soviets Submarine only attacks other sea craft. But the Allies have a unit that can hit sea units, one for sea and air units and one (the Cruiser) that has an incredible range and incredible power. The Cruiser can’t hit sea units so it relies on others to protect it. But it hits land units with incredible force, if slight inaccuracy. Both sides have access to a transport that is used to move land units over sea

Both sides have access to an Atom Bomb launcher. This launches a nuke that can cause large damage to buildings and usually destroy power plants. The Allies have the Chronosphere which can teleport units instantly across the battlefield, but only vehicles. This did have some weird side effects though. The Soviets have the Iron Curtain which makes a group of units invulnerable for a short period of time. Nothing was too destructive or powerful though which was good.

But the best advancement from the last game has to be the Skirmish option. Here you can battle against computer controlled enemies on large map and fight to the death. Unlike the last game you can have up to 8 people on a map and the computer players actually do something. While you chose Allies or Soviets still, you had to choose a country from that side. Each country would have a slightly different advantage from all the others, like tanks move slightly faster and the like. Once you’ve done the main storyline in one player mode from both sides there isn’t really a whole lot you can do differently. But with the Skirmish option you can have hours and hours of fun doing battle. This is where I had most of my fun while playing this game because there are never two battles alike. Best of all was that you could play this on your own without having to connect to the Internet or other computers. One downside I found was that once you destroyed one computer player, the rest automatically allied together and ganged up on you. Also if you chose to ally with a computer player (by pressing “A” while selecting one of their units) then, again, all the computers would ally against you. This seemed slightly unfair and annoying, but most of the time I wanted to go it alone anyway.

As far as downsides go I really can’t think of any to be honest. The graphics weren’t red-hot in this game, but the cut-scenes and videos were again done very well with superb acting and storyline. You also get a surprise guest appearance by someone when you complete the Soviet campaign. So unless you don’t like this genre of games then you’ve probably played this game. But if not I’d recommend you do so as it’s probably dirt-cheap by now given how long ago it was released.

THE BAD:
the badness comes from where other games succed GRAPHICS!!!!! but even that wont put it down

SUMMARY:
This game is one of my personal favourites because of the storyline and the time it takes to complete im being so serous please try this game and i promise you will be amazed at it.