Command & Conquer Red Alert 3

Of the many different games that comprise the Command & Conquer (C&C) franchise, the Red Alert (RA) sub-series has always been the most light-hearted of the lot. For this reviewer, the humor, wacky gameplay and quirky storyline always proved a big draw and with Red Alert 3 (RA3), things are no different.

The game, as before, takes part in an alternative timeline in which World War II never happened. In RA3, the Soviet Union rises to power and is giving the Allied forces more than a few problems. Unfortunately for the Soviets and the Allies, a third faction introduces itself in the form of the Empire of the Rising Sun and complicates things further. So, like Command & Conquer 3 (released last year), RA3 now also features three distinctive and playable factions.

The storyline for all three factions are intertwined in that all three factions are at war, though each campaign is unique in terms of missions and what actually happens through the storyline. Starting the game, the player can play through any faction’s storyline; the game doesn’t force you to play in any particular order.

In terms of gameplay, RA3 uses the same RTS mechanics used by the other C&C games; harvest resources, build a base and construct an army to attack the enemy with. However, one unique difference RA3 boasts is the inclusion of co-operative campaign gameplay. Regardless of what faction you play as, you always play alongside an ally. Playing by yourself, your ally will be computer controlled and you can assign orders and tasks and we’re happy to report that the computer-controlled ally is actually very useful and does listen to orders. Playing online, your ally can be controlled entirely by another gamer and this is possibly the game’s strongest draw.

Playing with friends or even strangers is loads of fun and makes it possible to complete missions in a myriad of ways. You can of course try and go the brute strength route where you and your ally just try to rush the other armies with an overwhelming force, or you can opt for a two-pronged approach or, if you really want some devastation, combine super weapon attacks. The only down-side here is the co-operative campaign is only playable if you game online.

The game’s artificial intelligence (AI) is quite good and, depending on the difficulty setting you’re playing, it can give you quite a bit of trouble. That said, you never really feel that the AI is outright cheating, which means you can definitely win missions or skirmishes if you pull off the right stuff. The three factions are unique in terms of their units and look and Electronic Arts has done a decent job when it comes to unit balance. So, for everything the enemy can throw at you, there is a counter that you can use. The fearsome Kirov airships for instance pack base-leveling bombs but they’re so slow that they can be taken out by good air-defense that has been strategically placed around a bases’ perimeter.

The older Red Alert 2 had a number of naval units and in RA3, the developers have taken it to the next level. You can now construct entire bases over water and you have an awesome number of naval units to wage war with. And, more often than not, you’ll find that though you can complete objectives using only land or air units, sea units can make things a lot easier.

The one issue we had with RA3’s gameplay had to do with unit path-finding. On more than a few occasions a unit just couldn’t do what we had told it to just because it couldn’t work its way around the terrain without getting stuck. The only workaround here was for us to manually guide the unit around the map, which may be difficult to do at times.

C&C3 brought full motion video (FMV) sequences back and we’re happy to say that RA3 also features a fair few FMVs. However, with RA3 the developers went the whole nine yards in terms of casting as actors such as J.K. Simmons, Jonathan Pryce, Kelly Hu, Jenny McCarthy, George Takei and many more make an appearance. Each of the actors fits the role chosen for them perfectly and as a result, each character feels very real and you’ll actually find yourself liking or disliking them based on your tastes.

Besides the Hollywood clout, the FMVs look authentic as far as the look and sounds of the sets are concerned. It’s not all eye-candy and no storyline however because even the dialog is fairly well written and, as you’d expect of a RA3 game, there’s a fair amount of humor present.