Command & Conquer: Red Alert

The Good
Now, I a writing this review after not playing the game for a while, I prefer Total Annihilation, so my review may seem strange, but I remember enjoying the simplicity of the game, and the variety of missions in campaign mode, the two sides had different units unlike Total Annihilation(TA) where the units on each side were copies of each other, but thats about it....

The Bad
... I really disliked the inevitable tank rush that would finish any game especially if using the soviets, also the exhaustable resources made the game, on low ore maps with lots of players a game of who can spend their money the most effectively, which is fine, but when one runs out of ore and sees their base getting battered it is VERY annoying, yes it adds another element to the game, but I feel a bad one. The AI on the both TA and red alert are bad, but at least on TA they know when they can't win on a attack and turn around to allow reinforcements to catch up, on both games if the AI is left alone then the bases grow to ridiculous sizes and on red alert become very hard to beat without the tank rush (Yes I did try using a mixture of units, the infantry got slaughtered and the planes killed two things before getting shot down). On TA a variety of units are required to overcome the defences of a established base.

The maps that come with the game aren't the greatest either but there is a map editor.

!!!!!!YOU CAN'T SAVE SKIRMISHES EITHER>HOW ANNOYING!!!!!!

The Bottom Line
Its good fun for a while, but I found that the game would be the same each time you played the skirmishes, which couldn't be saved so the amount of wasted time was extreme, on TA you can save skirmishes and the amount of units avaliable on addons and the internet is huge, you can even make your own units and AI. I don't think that Red Alert has stood the test of time like TA has, I advise people to buy TA I prefer it to Generals in terms of gameplay and variety.

The Good
Red Alert (RA) is an undeniably stylish game, just like its predecessor. I kinda like the alternate history approach the designers took in crafting the storyline. It’s still a little too B-movie sci-fi for my taste, but a step in the right direction, nonetheless. After all, you do get to kill Commies. “Better dead than Red!”

The graphics are significantly improved from C&C, at least in the Windows 95 version of RA. The units are still pretty small, and the overall look of the game isn’t as impressive as that of Warcraft 1 & 2, but it was an improvement. The enemy AI is not brilliant by any means, but it’s persistent, and it can throw you for a loop once in a while. Frankly, I’ve seen much worse. Westwood also included a solo skirmish mode this time around, which definitely adds to RA’s replay value. Why didn’t they think of that before?

I liked the slick packaging and the shiny, thorough instruction manual. They both fooled me into thinking RA was going to be a fun game to play.


The Bad
Let’s face it: Red Alert is still a C&C game, which means it’s a big, cheesy, buggy mess. Surely all of the critics who said RA was even better than Warcraft II were joking.

RA is at least as unbalanced as the original C&C, perhaps even more so. While I appreciate the thought behind making the two sides distinct, the game is spoiled by the fact that the Soviets clearly have the better units. The Allies are inferior in ground and air forces, and while they have the superior naval forces, that won’t do you much good unless you are playing on a water-based map. Whichever side you choose, the unit variety is strictly for appearance’s sake. For example, I can’t see why a Soviet player would produce anything but the heaviest tanks. And thus the infamous RTS “tank rush” phenomenon was born, I suppose.

Units continue to be woefully unresponsive to orders. Or else they just respond so stupidly as to be beyond belief. If there is an unnecessarily long and circuitous route for your units to take to get from Point A to Point B, you can rest assured that they will find it! It’s also still a challenge just to select your units and get the selection to stick for very long. Maps and missions continue to be too puzzle-like for an alleged “strategy” game. It’s the same hair-pullingly maddening design as before, just slightly upgraded, tweaked and repackaged as a brand new game. Why didn’t the professional reviewers mention any of this stuff when RA came out?

The Bottom Line
If you liked C&C, you’ll probably like Red Alert even more. If you’re like me, though, you won’t care for either one.

The Good
Command & Conquer: Red Alert made some huge steps forward considering it only came about a year after the original Command & Conquer for DOS. The biggest thrill are now absolutely fantastic pre-rendered cutscenes that feel like watching a movie, u-boats, fighter jets, tanks, turrets, it's all there, and there's plenty of them to watch. Acting is now much more fun as there are more than just a single person looking right at you and giving you some mission briefing. It's absolutely fantastic how cheesy yet perfect the acting is, it is bad, it is funny, but the fact is it wouldn't be so great if it was any better. It is interesting to see how each of them is trying to use you to achieve their own goals, while plotting to overthrow each other (Soviet campaign movies are just plain priceless, they all kill each other in those FMVs sooner or later, until you end up with Kane, the only bad guy worth following ;)

The story is set in the past as Einstein found a way to travel through time and removed Hitler out of the way. With World War II never happening, Stalin somehow came to an idea to seize control over the globe. The game fits nicely so you can later claim that original C&C is its actual sequel. They totally ruined everything with appearance of RA2 afterwards which split the franchise into Red Alert and Command & Conquer and put a solid barrier between their timelines with very little connection whatsoever.

Missions are now stretching only across the Europe, and you are given a choice to play as Allied or Soviet commander, which will eventually lead you to rather satisfying though peculiar endings. Can't figure out why some people didn't like them, they're quite okay if I do say so myself. Again, Frank did masterful work with the music as it fitted the red storm idea up to the teeth, and is nothing short of perfection. Unlike many other games of a sort, C&C was well greeted for varying arsenal on both sides, not just giving you same unit with different looks. Red Alert makes the battle strategies even more diverse as the balance of power is more than cool. Playing as soviet commander you'll notice you absolutely have supremacy concerning tank vehicles which can crush even the top allied ones although less in numbers. On the other hand, allied tanks compensate their weakness with the speed. On the water, however, allies take all the pride as their navy is quite ferocious and their cruiser ships can devastate bases from screens afar. Opposing compensation lies with the subs, stealth and only able to destroy naval targets and shipyards. The air supremacy is on the side of Soviet forces, and now you can have airfields to host as many fighters as you can build, not just call the backup in a form of reinforcements from out of the screen.

Many new structures serve the purpose but are not always the same, although they could've made different looking factories, though. Turrets are different as allies tried to make those that can withstand soviet tanks, while soviet forces focused more on repelling light tanks and infantry crowds. And of course, there are secret technologies aiding both sides which usually become available on later levels, or right from the start if you feel like playing a skirmish or multiplayer game. Also, the biggest thrill is that Windows version has higher resolution thus showing more of the battlefield, fancy icons, and still running just swell, in other word, great.

The Bad
The whole idea of putting three difficulty levels in the game is quite ridicule if they only serve to lower your shield and firepower and increase that of the enemy. Real-time strategy is all about the strategy and the only element that should define difficulty should be computer's AI and how well is responses to your threat and tactics, cheating just isn't fun.

Sometimes computer can block itself with its own units. That is both good an bad, but it's a bug so it's bad. The good thing game-wise is that you can rest from the constant attacks, but once you determine to go un-block computer's units, you better come in huge numbers because the longer it stays blocked, the more units it will produce that will just wait in the base you'll have to conquer.

The Bottom Line
A fine RTS, no, probably the best RTS ever made, what later they ruined with Red Alert 2 is up to the association with now known EA Pacific, and bad usage of cinematics and wasted talent of some great actors included. Original Red Alert has none of that, acting is both great and fun, missions are interesting and progressive, soundtrack is catchy, and cinematics are breathtaking. In spite of being the predecessor of cheesy looking RA2, the original Red Alert still saved some sort of seriousness in its own self so it doesn't look like a parody but a well blend mixture of fun, entertainment, and presentation.