Command & Conquer: Red Alert - The Aftermath

The Good
The best part of this mission disc is that we finally got to see some new units, and not only new mission and tougher campaigns. Soviet side now got U-boats to balance the loss on the ship side, as they are as heavy ranged as allied cruisers, only with a precise hit on the target. Probably my best units in the entire "RA" franchise. Also, this time they really get new Tesla tanks (not as we saw what we did in "Counterstrike" and probably got disappointed) and troopers. Allied got some Chrono advanced and actually functioning tanks, and field mechanics with ability to repair vehicles as medics can heal your men. All in one, a nice set of new units we got this time, and I mean icons and all that, able to produce them, nothing false like in the previous add-ons.

Another 8 or so tracks to extend overall count of songs, and they're pretty good actually. Not that stray from the original, but it's nice to hear something else for a change.

Nicely extended multiplayer with a new type of maps called 'extralarge' which this time may just be enough for 8 players, as earlier were simply too small and too crowded for anything more than 6.

It's not much to debate on this one, it's really more of the same, same type of terrains, same units (with some new), same songs (with some new), same cinematics (with no new, unfortunately), and so called 'continuation' to the story for solo campaigns.

Bottomline, the game itself is worthy solely because of new units and known ground, but otherwise, you may just jump and play "Red Alert 2" (which is nothing comparing to the original, but has better handled add-on).

The Bad
I wouldn't mind saying something for this as to be bad, but I actually liked this add-on, more since it was the first to actually give me something new than just more missions. And even if Westwood did make this one solely because they realised they sent 150,000 pieces of "Counterstrike" at the time, then they did a good thing maybe even not knowing of it. But as the things stand now, their add-ons are basically almost better looking and more interesting than the originals themselves. Guess time cures just about everything ;)

The Bottom Line
After the first add-on mission disc for "Red Alert", called "Red Alert: Counterstrike" which brought us as much new things as "The Covert Operations" did to original "Command & Conquer", which ranged from having still same units, with some of them different firepower, and mission briefings as a text without any live cast or new cinematics, and had same cinematics for starting and ending certain mission, only differences were 8 or so new battle tracks, and single and multiplayer maps. Now, this game can be sorted under the same type of add-on, but this time we got what we always wanted,... some new units to balance the power in the struggle between Soviet and Allied forces. Sure, this type of add-on mission/companion disc an never measure to the greatness of it's successors such as "Firestorm" or "Yuri's Revenge", but it guarantees fun to everyone who enjoyed "Red Alert", wether as campaign commander, or in multiplayer skirmishes.