Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 Reviews

While Generals may be my favorite game of all time, I am in the minority when I say I like it the best out of all the Command and Conquer games. Most people think that the games that preceded it were much better, as they had more interesting storylines and more creative units. Not to mention, Generals does not feature the full motion cutscenes this game is so well known for. The acting in them is cheesy and over the top most of the time, and you can tell the actors enjoyed what they were doing. This gives the game a fictitious feel to it, as it's not meant to be taken all that seriously. If you go into it expecting realism, you're going to be disappointed. Even so, the storyline of the game itself does mirror the real life cold war in many respects. Red Alert 2's plot is set after the events of the first Red Alert, in which the USSR tries to invade Europe in the 1950s but is beat back by an alliance of different countries called The Allies. The game still takes place in the alternate reality where Hitler is killed by Albert Einstein, thereby eliminating the second world war. Following the Soviet Union's defeat in the first game, they install a new leader, Alexander Romanov, who plans to invade America with the help of his psychic assistant, Yuri. The Soviets initiate the third world war by launching a surprise invasion of the US, with huge, bomb-laden blimps called Kirovs leading the way. America tries to respond by launching nukes, but Yuri is able to mind control the personnel responsible for the missile doors and lets them explode in their silos. The player is then given the choice to fight for either the Soviet Union or The Allies. Being a lifelong Generals player, I find the Soviets to be more fun because they get heavier tanks and their strategy revolves more around brute force, which makes them similar to the Chinese team from Generals. The Allies tend to rely more on combined arms, meaning their units have to work together in order to be successful. Regardless of which side you pick, you are given 12 campaign levels to complete. As The Allies, you must try and stop the USSR's onslaught, and once you're in a comfortable enough position, you actually start fighting back. As the Soviets, you're simply working on taking over the world (which makes this campaign more fun). I won't spoil either of the story modes, but RA2 also features other game modes to make things more interesting. Skirmish mode is back, which is good because it's a staple of the C&C series. You can play as different countries (which are aligned with either the USSR or Allies) and depending on which one you pick, you can get a country specific unit. For example, the German team gains access to a tank destroyer, which is an armored vehicle great at killing other vehicles but is pretty much worthless against anything else (even soldiers). Aside from this one unit, the German team plays identically to the standard Allies. One problem I do have with this game is the less than amazing balancing between the units, as many people in the game's community have stated time and again that the Soviets are overpowered. Early in a match, you can get completely overwhelmed by a Soviet player who knows what they're doing, as their vehicles tend to be stronger (but more expensive) and their infantry units are cheap and easy to mass produce. Once the Soviets have a Palace constructed, they can gain access to this building called the cloning vat, which means every soldier they produce has an identical copy of it made for free. Considering Soviet infantry are really cheap and train extremely quickly, they end up being very unfair in my opinion, as it's a viable strategy to build a huge army of soldiers and just support them with a few tanks. The Allies can beat back this tactic if they know their stuff, but considering their equipment is generally more expensive, it can be pretty frustrating. Aside from the balancing problems, Red Alert 2 has a huge amount of creative units and buildings in it, and even though I hate to say this, they're way more original than Generals. The Allies get some highly experimental units such as the Chrono Legionnaire; a soldier using a rifle derived from technology invented by Einstein which can freeze enemies and completely erase them from existence. On the other hand, the Soviets get things like the dreaded Apocalypse Tank, a monstrous, double barreled fighting vehicle that can go head on with basically any unit and come out on top. Similarly to Generals, this game does have superweapons, although sadly you can only build one at any time. By modern standards, the game does have something that is arguably irritating, which is its lack of a proper unit queue. In modern strategy games, you can queue up as many units as you want, but they will still be built one at a time. With this game, you can only produce one type of vehicle at a time, even if you have multiple war factories. However, building more than one war factory allows your vehicles to be made quicker, which is not the case in Generals. If you're used to old fashioned games like this, it won't really bother you, but if you're a modern RTS player, you may not like it. Add on to this the fact that this game crashes quite a lot on things other than Windows XP and it is hard to recommend it to people nowadays. If you're a Command and Conquer fan, you've probably already played this before (and you definitely love it). If you're not, it can be hard getting into now, but it's still easy to get into if you enjoy Generals like me, as there are numerous similarities. The 2 dimensional art style might seem outdated by today's standards, but the way a game looks doesn't really matter. The music is great too, and once again it's Frank Klepacki knowing just what tracks to compose. Whatever the case is, Red Alert 2, with all of its ridiculous acting, crazy and creative units, and interesting plot will always be regarded as a great game by RTS fans.