Report Abuse

“Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 is one of the all time...”

written by jasonwebb on 14/01/2005

Good Points
A strategy classic, colourful detailed graphics.

Bad Points
Too few missions on the campaigns.

General Comments
Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 is one of the all time classic strategy games. Unless you have been locked away in a cell for the last 10 years (and i am sorry if you have), there is no way that you could not have heard of Westwood Studios. They pretty much single handedly created the real time strategy genre with the advent of Dune 2 back in 1992. Off the back of this, the Command & Conquer series was released, with the second in the series being Red Alert, which on its own spawned four add on packs. Unfortunately, even after having a windows overhaul from the original DOS versions it is more than a little dated, so Westwood have released Red Alert 2.



The story picks up from the original, so if you are not familiar, here is a summary. In the original, Einstein has invented a time machine, which he uses to go back in time and stop Hitlers rise to power by removing him from the time line just after he leaves prison. As Hitler no longer rises to power, the Soviets become a world dominating force and attack the Allies but are defeated. The Allies then place their own patsy at the head of the Soviet government, so that they can make sure the Soviets stay firm allies, or so they think.



Red Alert 2 picks up at this point in the story where the allies hand picked leader Romanov launches a surprise attack against America, under the mind control of his advisor Yuri. The initial attack leaves the Americans battered and almost defenseless and this is where you take over as either the Soviets trying to take over the world or the US trying to stop them. During the game, as in the previous releases the story is carried along by video cut scenes which tend to add a little drama to the game and are decently acted by recognisable B list actors.

There are two basic modes of play and they work as follows,



Campaign - These are the single player missions which follow the story line through to its conclusion. The variety of missions included is very good, changing between limited force special missions to all out war.



Skirmish - This can be either against multiple computer opponents or multiple live opponents across a network or the internet.



It is well worth playing the missions first, as this will give you the best grounding before you take on live or good computer opponents. The main reason for this is that by the time you have played through the campaign you will understand better where the strengths and weaknesses lie in building your forces and how best to develop your teams ready for battle.



As mentioned earlier, Red Alert 2 allows multiplayer games either over the Internet or across a network. Most of you are likely to use the Internet, so Westwood supply its own game matching service which can be installed at the same time as the game, or of course you can use a service like GameSpy. The Multiplayer action takes place across a variety of maps between 2 to 8 players in several modes including the obligatory death matches and even team campaigns. There are several options to restrict your starting advatages like money or number of units depending on your skill level. The option to restrict super weapons is probably the most sensible, as with these switched on, it purely turns into a race to see who can build and use theirs against the enemy first, which can cause a major restriction in strategy.



There may not seem on the surface of it to be much difference between this or the games that came before apart from a few pretty graphics, but you would be wrong. The basics are still there like the intuitive controls, collection of resources, unit grouping, patrol waypoints and build queues but there is much more under the surface.



The types of units available are very impressive, from the lowly infantry and tanks of old, through to attack planes, airships, dolphins and giant squids (gotta see it to believe it). Special units make an appearance like the rebel tanya from the original game through to time and space hopping Chrono Troopers that can phase enemies out of time.



The strength of the two forces is pretty well balanced, as the Soviet units tend to build faster and come a little cheaper, but the US forces tend to be a little stronger. One of the greatest additions is that your units can gain experience as they win battles, until they become elite units. As they gain levels they will move a little faster, pack a bigger punch and even heal themselves in some cases.



In play the interface will be recognisable to anybody that has played another game in the series, with the screen split into the main play area on the right with the radar in the top right and the rest of the right hand column concerned with unit building. It is all very intuitive and even someone that had never played before could be sat in front of this game without instructions and be playing quite happily in five minutes flat.



Graphically the game plays with an isometric viewpoint, which has been the only bugbear about all of these games, as it is quite easy to lose units behind buildings sometimes, but once you get used to it there is not too much of an issue. Depending on your machine and graphics card, the resolution can be set to 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. In all modes the graphics are well detailed and colourful with even the smallest units being recognisable for what they are. The terrain and cities that the game is played across are again very well detailed with some of the items being interactive, like the ability to garrison troops inside buildings for a very effective defense. Scattered around some of the maps are things like oil pumps, which again can be occupied to gain you more revenue.



The sound in the game is passable, with effects for things like flak guns and missiles being very effective, but the repetitive confirmations from your units can get annoying after a while. In saying that, you will probably not notice this niggle too much whilst in the heat of battle as you will be too busy tring to stay alive.



If I had one issue, it is probably that there are too few missions in the campaigns, but this is now helped by the add on pack that is now available. Overall though, if you are a fan of real time strategy games you MUST have this in your collection, especially if you can pick it up in a bargain pack somewhere.