By Sam Coles:
If you were playing games on PC in the 90’s then you
more than likely played the Command & Conquer series. I know what you’re
thinking “Sam you’re only 23 years old you would have been too young to play
these”. I was very mature for my age and I was playing Red Alert 1 when I was
really young and I understood the mechanics then I used that knowledge for the
expanded sequel Red Alert 2 in the early 2000’s. We didn’t get a sequel to Red
Alert until 2008 which was a huge gap between games.
Red Alert 3’s story starts as the Soviet Union is collapsing,
but two Soviet loyalist still have hope and they have been working on a time
machine where they go back in time and kill Albert Einstein to alter the
future. They come back and the Soviet Union is thriving and one of them becomes
the new Premier played by Tim Curry, they find out that they have a new enemy a
resurrected Empire of the Rising Sun where the Emperor who is played by George
Takei has declared war on Soviet Russia and the Ally forces. They stuck with
the live action cutscenes from the early games and they’re cheesy and really
entertaining to watch with the wink to camera attitude.
If you couldn’t tell this game has a star studded
cast with Tim Curry and Jenny McCarthy playing the beautiful but deadly
commando Tanya. If you’ve played you know that they like to flaunt the female
characters a bit and why not have something nice to look at in between battles.
The game is split up into three campaigns you have
Soviet, Allies and Rising Sun this is great because each faction has unique
play styles and tactics when it comes down to their units and structures you
can build. Each mission is different and unique because sometimes you have
limited units and you have rescue POWs, these situations are tense because you
have to manage limited resources and units. You do get missions where have lots
of units and you can dominate your enemies with super weapons which will make
you feel like a bad ass commander.
If you’ve played any Command & Conquer game you’ll
be familiar with the fundamentals where start off with a construction yard and
you build up your base with new structures, defences and units. You can earn
points when you complete certain objectives and you can open the top secret protocols
where you can use ridiculous super weapons like the Soviet’s orbital drop where
you dump satellites on buildings. These
super weapons are great for turning a battle around when the enemy have got you
on the ropes and you can kick back hard. You have your standard range of units
like conscripts and flak troopers etc. then you have you have the more exotic
units like Tanya and Natasha who can take down all units with one shot with
their fire arms or C4 and airstrikes.
Presentation is great I played this on the Xbox 360
and usually RTS games on consoles have a habit of running poorly due to the
high amount of units on screen, but this game rarely has a hiccup with the
frame rate. The effects are great with the water and the explosions that look
amazing especially when you see the flames of the rockets when they’re launched
from the Soviet Dreadnaughts. Graphics are great nothing to complain about and
this game came out in 2008 and it still holds and the cutscenes look good with
the colour correction and camera angles.
Red Alert 3 is a joy to play with great gameplay
with cheesy yet entertaining cutscenes, if you haven’t played this game do it!
It’s a blast from start to finish.
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