Craig's Red Alert 3 Review

First off, I am rather a Command and Conquer fan, playing mostly all of them, apart from some of the expansions, I even played that random FPS they decided to make for no honest-to-God reason. So when, jumping back a year, they released Command and Conquer 3: Tiberian Wars, with the revival of Kane, one of the greatest game Villians in a game, followed closely by Dr. Breen, i was rather extactic, and, by Jove, the introduction of an alien race, Yay! Happiness for all, and the result, after buying and playing the game, for me personally was a: Meh...with meh sprinkles, all the over-poweredness of the Necrons in Dark Crusade without any of the kick-ass to follow.

So on randomly finding a link to "New Red Alert Game" i was half in anticipation, half in dread over this new EA release. Jump back further into the past, and you possibly will remember Red Alert 2, which was a fine specimin of a RTS of it's time, Russians Vs. Allies, lots of Dogs, Spiders, Tanks, blowing each other to Hell, futher back still from that, going to Red Alert, yes I have played it and was deeply hurt, when i saw the Full Game for free on a demo disk and it not working due to Vista, Damn OS's. Anyway Red Alert 3 has quite a high standard to reach, even if the bar was lowered a couple of notches due to C&C3.

When i first saw C&C3 i had thought, By Jolly, a playable alien race, Hazzar! Demographic targeted, Amazing Sci-Fi actor cast, away we go, and, as i previously stated. Meh. Even with the Nerd-gasm from the sci-fi actors all in the same room.

As i said in my Fallout 3 review, I chose RA3 over Fallout & Dead Space, due to it's blurb on the back of the box, at the time, when i was less informed, Fallout was a FPS, Dead Space was in a similar meh ish category, and i was bored out of my mind with FPS's, and RA3 which is obviously a RTS, which i hadn't played for awhile since possibly C&C3, but what sold RA3 over the other two, was the lines, in the blurb, "Parachuting Bears" and "Samurai Robots", I mean, Wow!! Their creative department must have been locked away, families threatened, and force fed awesome pizza till they came up with that. Then when you open the box you get a poster of the Girls of RA3, awesome as a concept, how-ever, bears and robots is one thing, perhaps mixing them together and putting them into a setting like, Mars, and having them fight, Flying Monkey Fish, for something like, Lemon Pie, but when the female interest comes into play, t is rather degrading and insulting, I mean, don't get me wrong, nice looking co-commanders are all well and good, but when each shows off far too much clevage and wears things totally unsuitable for combat or a desk job, it's the metaphorical carrot dangling infront of the nerd, and to be honest, I don't bite.

Anyway, moving onto the actual game, and the gameplay, if you have played C&C3 and Generals, it's more of the same: Build base, collect money, all base are belong to me, collecting money seems more difficult than usual, but that's good, no instant building a massive army, and there are enough ore mines scattered around anyway. Bases are intuative, as they can be built on land and water, superweapons also included, although, floating walls havn't caught on yet. On the subject of super-weapons, they are still as over-powered as ever, but i suppose thats were the "Super" comes into it, some, like the Chronosphere have the most obsurdly short cool-down time, but they have moved away from RA2's Nukes and Lightening and moved towards Vacuums and Photons, Hazzar for science! It's all very pretty, and also amazing destructive.


Units are similar, Tesla Troopers, Conscripts, Attack dogs, but here's where it moves on and gets interesting, all three races (I'm moving on to the third one soon, promise) have different mechanisms for warfare, Russians have boats that go on land, and flying parachuting stuff, Allies have disguise and sheilds, and the Japs have Transformers, one that even looks like Optimus Prime, if he had been captured and brainwashed by the Japs. Still on this racial differences thing, Each race has a different way of building the base, and upgrading it, Russians put structure down first, and build up, Allies build it then plonk it down, and Japs build it, put it in a box, and says "where-ever's fine with me boss", same with upgrading, Russians just build stuff, and upgrade that way, Allies, have to get one upgrade from the central command thingy they are near to, and Japs, upgrade each unit producing facility individually, which when they keep getting blown up, can annoy the hell out of you.

Each unit gets a rather nifty secondary ability or weapon, Some might get a "Jump back in time to heal or remove yourself from a stupid fight" others might change to a magnetic gun, that sucks in tanks to crush them under their tracks. Which adds more tactics to the game as opposed to "Big army, move over there, kill anything between Point A, and Point B."

We now move swiftly onto Powers. For some games, it's a saving grace, something to turn to if your amazing attack plan of flimsy robots against a moon lazor didn't go quite to plan. Powers can turn the tide of a battle quickly, but for a game that offers soo much in the way of tactics, which the changing weapons and abilities, it turns into a power-up cluster-fuck. Some powers are overly ridiculus, like a satalite to steal all your tanks without warning, or a bomb you can't stop, you just set it off quicker.

As i've mentions they have released a new faction into the game, The Empire of the Rising Sun, and they are pretty funky, Transformers Vs. Ruskies, and since the aforementioned changing weapon and use of abilities things, all races are equal, unlike the Scrin in C&C3, where you could wipe the floor clean with Planetary Assault Carrier and Devastator Warships.
I suppose, for me, the best bit about RA3 is the actors involved, do actually create a nerd-gasm.
I mean, the Japs are rules by Sulu, for those familiar with the Star Trek Universe, Russians led by Long John Silver, and with the Crazy Russian scientist from Armeggedon, and the allies led by the Head reporter from the Spider Man films, with the second in command being a Bond villian.

Another new feature, which is rather nifty, that EA have decided would be a good thing to implament, is a Co-op campaign, which is orginal for a C&C game, and is quite fun, even if you can't select the commander you want to be, but hey thats being pedantic.

Speaking of being Pedantic, i move onto problems. Glorious, Glorious Problems. First off, The Powers, "God Said: "Let there be Powers" and Craig Said: "Fuck off!!!"" I mean, with less than careful planning, and more random clicking, you could decimate a base beyond repair with superweapons and powers alone. Another thing that is rather annoying is the swimming thing, Dogs and Bears especially. Not disputing the fact that they can swim, it's just that... Dogs don't swim an inch above the water, and Bears haven't inherited the powers of Christ and can walk on water, so in a round-about way, i'm saying they don't look realistic. Now Remember back to RA2, and the fun RA2 Chronosphere fun, or moving boats onto land, or land units to water, and it would destroy them, I do, and well it works still, but, Submerged units seem immune to this fun, and this i would of accepted, if i couldn't bloody see them under the water!! And why, when i fly planes accross and fire missiles into the water does it do bugger all to them?? Absolutly no damage what-so-ever.

Anyway, overall, it is a fun game, and lives up to the RA standard, beating C&C3 by far, not that it had to do much. It still keeps the heart of a C&C game, good casting of actors, good fun races to chose, all fun, but, word of warning, if you are bored with the Build base, munch stuff, routine of RTS, firstly, don't buy RTS's second, RA3 is more of the same.

By the way, sorry for Essays. One day i'll write a short review.
Well this has been Craig, No clue what i'll review next, possibly a Freeman game, or a game related to cake, and lies.