Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

Few are the games in which you can fire live bears from cannons into the thick of a battle as backup or your troops. But in terms of ridiculous, over-the-top military special moves, that’s just the tip of the outrageous iceberg where Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is concerned. The long-running series helped define the Real Time Strategy genre, one of gaming’s most serious and deep propositions. But while there’s certainly a tactical heart beating deep inside Red Alert, it’s be a stretch to call it in any way serious: this is, after all, a game in which transforming mechas fight bears and sentient dolphins for victory on the battlefield.

The B-movie science fiction story is told in over-the-top filmed cutscenes, which employ a slew of scantily-clad B-list actresses such as Hollyoaks’ Gemma Atkinson and The O.C.’s Autumn Reeser, and older actors such as Home Alone 2’s Tim Curry. The gist of the story is that Russian leaders have travelled back in time to murder Einstein, thus changing the course of history by allowing the Soviet Union to dominate the world stage. This gives rise to a new threat: the Empire of the Rising Sun and the story charts the battle between three world factions, the Soviets, Allies and Japanese, all told with tongue firmly in cheek.

Each of the three factions plays quite differently to the others with its own unique 9-stage campaign to play through. The name of the game is terrain: you must mine resources to create capital with which to build structures and units to send out and destroy your opponent. The flurry of whizzing around the map, managing and micromanaging your structures, vehicles and troops, sending them from A to B and back again is as compelling as its ever been and, thanks to the game’s clear presentation and intuitive control scheme, everything flows very naturally.

In Red Alert 3 income is more limited than it’s been in previous titles, meaning you’ve less money to spend on churning out troops and must be more considered in choosing where to spend what you do have. Contrary to what you might think this doesn’t make for more pedestrian gameplay as the units you can build are powerful and flexible. No matter who you play as you’ll be able to use ground, air and sea units and, with secondary attacks and different abilities to toggle between, there’s never a moment of downtime during battles.

Outside of the campaign there’s an impressive array of 28 different maps on which to play ladder and clan matches. You can even broadcast your match to others (allowing a viewer to provide match commentary on-the-fly). The game is well-balanced and enjoyable, boasting a strong tactical core that’s been overlaid with ridiculous story that gives rise to some memorable unit types and scenarios. It mightn’t be the deepest RTS on the market right now, but it’s certainly the most enjoyable.

4 out of 5