Electronic Arts’ real-time strategy classic, Command & Conquer: Red Alert is 13 years old. Suddenly we feel very ancient indeed.

Anyhoo, in celebration of this coming of age EA is giving the game away absolutely free. That’s right – nought pence, nada and precisely zip in terms of financial outlay on your part. How good is that?

Those of you looking for the inevitable catch need look no further than the necessity to obtain Winzip or Winrar in order to assemble the files, and then maybe the means to burn the resulting ISO image to a disc so that you can play the game – easy stuff, really. Thereafter the Soviet and Allied campaigns are yours to enjoy forever. Hoorah!

And that’s where the freeby-related fun finishes for us, although US gamers pre-ordering the awesome-looking Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 will also be able to download Red Alert 2 for nothing. Fingers crossed EA Europe is in the midst of sorting out a similar promotion right now. Until then head over to www.ea.com/redalert and gorge yourselves. Mmm...