| Product: |
Command and Conquer - Red Alert 2 (PC) |
| Date: |
06/12/00 (499 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: Faster paced action over previous versions
Disadvantages: All over far to quickly - buildings are too weak
I’ve been a great fan of the command & conquer series of games and have every one. Naturally, when I heard about Red Alert 2, I raced off to get it.
For those of you who’ve been residing on another planet for last few years, Red Alert 2 is basically a real-time strategy game. You build up your base, train men, build tanks and by use of clever tactics and/or brute force, manoeuvre your army or armies to destroy the enemy. Common to all command & conquer games is the need to harvest ‘ore’ to get credits.
Anyway…
After Tiberian Sun, I was expecting lots of new & bigger maps, lots of new and many more weapons & buildings. Does Red Alert 2 have this?
Well, the graphics are better & almost all the buildings, tanks, ships & infantry are different, however when I say different, I mean they are called different names & look different. A lot of the ‘new’ buildings, vehicles, men etc are simply reincarnations of those from previous games. For example.. the ‘Stealth tank’ is now known as the ‘Mirage tank’ and turns into a tree instead of just being invisible! Having said this though, there are new additions, these being…
/###/ The New Units /###/
/#/ Chrono Legionairre’s – these men have the ability to chrono (teleport) around the map, the delay between chronos depends on how far they chrono.
/#/ Prism Tank – these beasts use focussed rays of light to blast away the enemy.
/#/ Dolphin – destroys the enemy with a sonic blast & can also be used to detect enemy submarines & remove squids(!) from ships.
/#/ Kirov Airship – Extremely slow, but can drop continuous & deadly bombs on the opposition base.
/#/ Desolator – These soldiers spew deadly radiation, making terrain impassable wastelands.
/#/ Tesla Trooper – remember the old tesla coil from Read Alert 1, these men carr
y mini versions around with them!
/#/ Terror Drone – A super quick, spider like robot, enters into enemy vehicles and slowly destroys them, only the repair bay can get rid of it. Moves on to another vehicle after it destroys it, VERY irritating!!!
/#/ Crazy Ivan – Plants bombs on just about anything (even cows!!)! When upgraded, he gains chrono abilities, teamed up with Yuri (below), they make an excellent team!
/#/ Yuri – Can mind control other people or animals! Also has the ability to deploy and give off a psychic wave, killing all infantry in range. Used with Crazy Ivan, he can mind control cows & such like carrying bombs into the oppositions base – ‘there she blows’!
/#/ Giant Squid – Slow or sink enemy ships!!
/#/ Tesla Tank – A tank with a tesla coil fitted, very damaging!
Obviously, which units (and buildings for that matter) are available to you depends on what side you are playing (Russia, US, France, UK, Cuba etc). Each side has it’s own special weapon and advantages / disadvantages, i.e. build quicker, units cost less – whatever! I should also make it clear that the above list is only the ‘new’ units, there are many more (15 units, 26 vehicles & 40 structures in total to be precise!) which have been kept from previous versions of the game – albeit with different names! I won’t list all those, as this opinion would be huge then (getting on bit now!), have a look for opinions on Red Alert or Tiberian Sun for more info (although I personally haven’t written one – yet!)
And the new buildings…
/###/ The New Buildings /###/
/#/ Prism Tower – A very effective defence post, using rays of light as its weapon. Can team up with near by towers to create even more powerful blasts – excellent!!
/#/ Cloning Vats – Once built, you get two men for
the price of one – bargain!
/#/ Ore Purifier – Once built, ore is worth 20% more – another bargain!
/#/ Psychic Sensor – Detects & shows you where the enemy will strike (within the range of its sensor), very useful for super-weapon attacks, you can chronoshift your construction yard to safety!
/#/ Nuclear Reactor – A power plant that can actually sustain your entire base – wow, unheard of in command & conquer world!!
/#/ Weather Control Device – This is a truely deadly super weapon!! You can unleash a lightening storm upon your opponent’s base, and it will wipe out a very large number of buildings!
Okay then, that’s everything new, most of the original buildings & units are still here, as are the original super-weapons! Many aspects of the games have been revamped as follows…
/#/ The menu bar is now divided into buildings, defence buildings, vehicles and infantry and is thus now much easier to use. Waypoints etc has also been revamped, although I doubt many people will use them.
/#/ Depending on which side you play, your ore miner with now either be armed (with a light cannon) or have the ability to ‘chrono’ back to base.
/#/ Men can now garrison buildings, and shot out their windows at the enemy
/#/ When using the chronosphere super-weapon, the units permanently chronoshift & don’t come back, useful! It can also now transport up to 9 units at a time.
/#/ Promoted units gain power! Once a unit has been promoted (i.e. from performing well in battle), it will increase in speed, its weapons will do more damage & in some cases the unit will gain ability, e.g. Crazy Ivan can chrono when fully promoted.
/#/ The Iron Curtain can now make up to 9 units invulnerable at a time (ouch!), of course, this still wears off!!
/#/ Super-weapons are now much more powerful (or rather building
s are much weaker) & always show up on the map, regardless of cloaking devices etc. Beware; the nuke can now destroy a construction yard in one hit – along with many other buildings!
/#/ Buildings are much weaker, can be destroyed much quicker – never leave your base unattended – if attacked, you’d never make it back in time!
/#/ Ore is now instantly deposited instead of trickling in..
Well all this sounds darned good, and I couldn’t wait to get going, but not to long after playing I was rather disappointed, the main elements that I used to enjoy have gone, the game play has changed somewhat.
Now, I must admit, I’m not too keen on playing these games single player, it’s just too boring & I hate those missions where you just have a few men to conquer the map. I like to build bases, amass an army and use tactics. The AI (Artificial Intelligence), despite what Westwood say, is still not much better than it ever has been and you quickly see patterns to the computer opponents. What I much prefer is multiplayer, this brings the game to a whole new height…
But whereas I could play the original Red Alert and Tiberian Sun all day, I and my friends got bored within hours of playing Red Alert 2 & went back to Tiberian Sun. The whole fun of building a base, blockading yourself in and strategically placing units and defence turrets etc has disappeared!
This is all because your buildings can get demolished in seconds, even a bunch of GI’s (the crappest infantry) can demolish a building in seconds. This completely spoils the game, because unless you simply build lots of men and tanks straight off, your dead – so it’s pointless trying to build anything else, you’ll die trying! Also, enemy units still, although it appears much worse, will not attack anything unless specifically told to guard, fight or get attacked, thus, combined with the speed yo
ur opponent can demolish your construction yard, you have about 10 seconds to respond to a base attack or it’s game over.
Even after applying a mutual, will not attack period with my friends, it then just became the first person to build & activate the Weather Control Device or Nuke wins, since it destroys the vast majority of your base.
The first multiplayer game I played, I wiped out my opponent simply by a single parachute drop of men – they destroyed all key buildings before my opponent could respond!!
Basically, if you’re caught off guard just once, your dead – you can’t possible cater for all events and there is not enough time to react before you base is in ruins.
This has completely ruined the game, I’m hoping I can find a hack to increase the strength of buildings by a factor of 4 or so, just like in Tiberian Sun to increase the amount of ore your got per load (otherwise you were sat there twiddling your thumbs just collecting ore for ages!).
As for ‘skirmish’ mode, this is just a joke. The computer controlled players can build about 4 times faster than you - if you visit there bases right at the start, they already have just about everything built – almost instantly!! The computer only ever attacks you – if you have several computer players, this makes it impossible! The computer seems to ‘know’ your weakness, for example, if you defend your base for air attacks – you won’t get any, you base will be blown away from the ground or sea & vice-versa etc. You can’t possible build for all events quick enough and thus it quickly becomes more luck than skill to win. Again, since your buildings get destroyed almost instantly, it is game over if you leave you base to attack another computer player – since another computer player will then attack your base. If you don’t deploy armies to destroy the super-weapons as soon as there ar
e built, again, it’s game over because just one nuke or whatever will finish you off.
You often discover your base has been destroyed without even knowing it!!
What makes this all worse is that the map sizes are no bigger, in most cases smaller – and there are very few maps to choose from. You will meet the enemy before you’ve had a change to even build some of the more basic things.
There is the ability to disable super weapons but it doesn’t, it disabled just about everything, leaving you just the basic buildings, men and tanks.
Overall, the changes to this game make the action much faster and the games end quicker, but for me, this is just not fun. I got enjoyment from the tactics, defeating a fully equipped base and armies is a lot harder, a lot more fun and a lot more satisfying than just quickly building as many tanks etc as possible and piling in.
What I would really like is Red Alert 1 or Tiberian Sun with some of the plus points from this release, along with much bigger & better maps and a bigger range of units to deploy, Red Alert 2 is just over far to quickly for me and will often just piss you off because you loose purely because of something stupid, like blinking!
So, as much as I love the command & conquer games, this one just doesn’t do for me over the previous versions.
Maybe if you prefer a faster paced game without the tactics, planning and base building then this will be perfect for you, otherwise stick to Tiberian Sun & Red Alert 1.
Having said this, I play purely for multiplayer; the missions may give you a lot more enjoyment.
Thanks for reading,
Tobes.
Summary:
|
Last comments:
 |
- 24/08/02 I just think you're not a good gamer ...
I treid the game a few times and I think it's a strategy game not like Tiberian Sun but that's why it has a new name. If it would be just the same, it wouldn't be fun...
The buildings are not weak and you don't have to guard all the time, even in hard, with a strong defense, you can easyli attack somenone without getting back and finding your base in ruins... Ore was never a problem to me. Perhaps you don't use a good tactic, my tactic : get as fast as possible a war factory and build 2 new Miners, + you can always use one for troops or something. You also mentioned the fact that you won a multiplayer game by dropping your troops early in the game. This could be easily countered by some dogs... It looks like you gave up too quickly. Another thing, you said that computers only attack you : not true, perhaps you should take a good look at the maps and you should find the Free For All button, by clicking this one, only 2 or 3 computer players will attack you out of 7 .. You should be able to handle it. Buildings are not too weak, you don't have enough defense and engineers. Some Tesla Coils and Prisma Towers is not enough to take anything, but with some tanks between them, nothing will pass... In the air there is on problem with Sovjets : they have Flak Troops and Flak Cannon: you can even shoot an 'drop airplane' before it can drop its units.
I really don't know why you can't win this game having played Tiberian Sun... I never played and Command&Conquers before Red Alert 2 and it was not too hard for me. Perhaps you should first PLAY the game a little instead of first writing a bad opinion. Sorry to get a little mad at you, but i'm doing it for the game. |
 |
- 03/05/01 Okay, first, ianisme:
Ahh, I had Dune 2 too, and on the Amiga as well! Got my first PC back then and got it for that too, set the standard that game did, cheers, TT.
Next up, Aaron2k:
Ok, first up, I was using documentation from Westwood Studios when writing this opinion, and it's there that it said about different countries having varying abilities. Can't say I notice the difference (as with previous versions), but the games creator is unlikely to be wrong. Perhaps it's changed in a later version?
Stand well and truely by my statments on the computer players, AI etc. The computer most definatly DOES build MUCH faster, try playing on a small map, explore straight away and watch the computer! Considering Westwood were promising a new super duper AI for this release, it's crap - no different from the previosu versions.
I've been playing multiplayer C&C for years, and this is the first in which me & my friends got bored within hours.
My facts, to my knowledge are correct, everything else is purely opinion. Have you played the previous version to which you can compare? There are many different styles of gameplay, mine (ala tatics etc) does not go together with this game. Each to their own!
TT. |
 |
- 02/05/01 Well basically I would have 2 disagree with several things in this opinion, firstly you said that different countrys have different abilitys such as cheeper units ect. Well all i can say about that is that it is wrong.
Another thing, the computer doesnt really build much faster than me and I can kill a brutal comp in 4 mins. youve just gotta know what your doing and you realise that its not so hard. Its just when a newbie comes and sees the comp do so well its amazing to them but its easy.
I dont know if you do but u should play the game on the Internet coz it is a much better game and most ppl (apart from cheats) dont "Know" all about your base. Which brings me on to my next point, the computer do not attack your weaknesses. It is a simple AI program which is set to basically do the same routine depending on the circumstances of its own base and nothing to do with yours. For example the computer will never build a Dreadnought or a Aircraft Carrier. Which i think you left out of your new units section. Plz play the game more and get ure facts straight in order to get a better opinion.
If you ever want a game on the net mail me Aaronboydra2@aol.com <---------best in the uk :) so i do know what i am talking about |
View all
11
comments
|
Deutschland 
España 
Italia 
France - 
