Cold War real-time strategy action (Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PC))

Member Name: mchitty

Product:	Command & Conquer: Red Alert (PC)
Date:	14/12/08 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Original and innovative at the time, great fun, lots of strategies

Disadvantages: Not 3D, not flashy, some crucial modern features missing.

This is where it all started - do you remember?

*Nostalgia incoming*

Now, back in the day, PC games cost like, 150 quid, and game in these ENORMOUS boxes, and the good ones always had 10 CDs and took a day to install. And every game had a 200 page instruction manual. And on the back of the box, the games would boast about the graphics having 256 colours...

Red Alert was one of those games. And it blew us all away. I mean, nowadays we're faced by an absolute deluge of real time strategy games, for the most part following the same formula. When Red Alert came out, it was pretty much the only thing out there, apart from it's precursor Command and Conquer.

These games introduced the formula we're so familiar with today - building up a base, seeking out resources, amassing an army and attacking the enemy. Red Alert handles this concept with panache, honing RTS gameplay very early on.

The single player game is very entertaining. There are two different campaigns, held on the two different discs, Allies and Soviets. Each campaign is accompanied by an intriguing cold war storyline, and supported by some rather amusing video cutscenes. At the time the game came out, these seemed really high budget for a computer game - now, not so much, but they're still entertaining! There are points in the campaigns where you can make a choice, which adds re-playability to the game. The missions themselves are fairly simple, but supported by mini-in game cutscenes and messages that keeps things entertaining. At points, I found the campaigns to be rather tricky, so a bit of patience and skill is required!

Another available single player option is 'Skirmish', which sets up a basic game on a chosen map against a set number of opponents. This type of mode is pretty much required in RTS games now, but as far as I know, Red Alert was the first game to introduce it.

There are lots of units and buildings available in Red Alert, from airplanes and helicopters to the notorious Tanya, who is immensely powerful but can be killed in one shot. And of course the infinitely powerful defensive tool the Tesla Coil, which instantly zaps enemy soldiers. The graphics are 2D but sharp and smooth, although they've certainly aged, the game is certainly still very playable.

There's one feature of current RTS games that is noticeably missing, that is the ability to queue up large amounts of units. Instead, you have to click on them one at a time, which can be a bit of a pain.

Multiplayer in Red Alert is a heap of fun, although you'll be hard pushed to find anyone to play against nowadays. The strategies involved are fun and surprisingly varied for such an early game, from destroying the opponents power stations to power down their defence and inhibit their expansion, to stealth and deception with spies, to a simple brute force approach. Make sure you've got guard dogs in your base!

Overall, Red Alert is one of the original RTS games and in my opinion, still one of the best.

Summary: One of the first - and still one of the best