Game Review: Red Alert 3

Title: Red Alert 3

Genre: Strategy
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Los Angeles

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is a 2008 real-time strategy video game developed by EA Los Angeles and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on October 28, 2008 in the United States for Microsoft Windows PCs and October 30, 2008 in Europe. An Xbox 360 version was released on November 11. On January 21, 2009 EA officially announced Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Ultimate Edition, the PlayStation 3 version which contains bonus material extra to that of the Xbox 360 and PC versions and released on March 23, 2009 along with the Mac OS version by TransGaming. The game is a continuation of the Red Alert games within the Command & Conquer series. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising, a stand-alone expansion pack, was released for Windows in March 2009. It was offered via digital distribution.

Like the previous entries in the Red Alert series, the game is set in an alternate reality from World War II, in which the Western Allies fought the Soviet Union. In Red Alert 3 the Soviet leadership, facing defeat, goes back in time to kill Albert Einstein and prevent his assistance to the allies, paving the way for Soviet domination in the present. However as an unintended consequence, a third world power, the Empire of the Rising Sun, is created and all three sides go to war. All three factions are playable, with the gameplay involving constructing a base, gathering resources and training armies to defeat other players. Each faction has a fully co-operative campaign, playable with an artificial intelligence partner or with another human player online. The game intersperses strategy missions with full motion video footage featuring an ensemble cast led by Jonathan Pryce, Tim Curry and George Takei as the leaders of the three adversaries.

The game received mostly positive reviews, with reviewers citing the co-operative and multiplayer components as strengths, along with the enhanced role of naval combat compared to other real-time strategy games. Commonly cited weaknesses included aspects such as unit path finding.

Red Alert 3 retains the core RTS mechanics of the Command & Conquer series. Warring factions harvest resources using vulnerable collectors and then use those resources to construct military bases and forces on-site. Structures form a shallow but wide tech tree with a variety of units and elusive superweapons. Weapon types are specialized to the point where a rifleman can withstand direct hits from an anti-tank cannon. Red Alert 3's major refinements are the addition of the Empire of the Rising Sun to the factions of the sub-series (similar to what Tiberium Wars did with the Scrin faction), a co-operative campaign, and expanded naval warfare.

Empire of the Rising Sun

The Empire of the Rising Sun campaign begins with a full-scale invasion of the Soviet Union, just as the Soviets are defeating the Allied forces. Emperor Yoshiro's strategy involves striking at symbolic targets such as important monuments and employing fear to deteriorate the morale of the enemy. On the other hand, the Emperor's son, Crown Prince Tatsu, advocates modernizing the Imperial army and attacking true military targets, although his father would overrule him. The validity of the emperor's strategy however is soon challenged by the Allied full-scale attacks on Pearl Harbor at the Imperial islands of Hawaii and on one of the Empire's Floating Fortresses in the Pacific. Though both attacks are repelled and Hollywood is taken, a joint Allied-Soviet task force gains a foothold in Yokohama.

Having replaced President Ackerman with an android doppelganger, the Emperor learns of Zelinsky's defection and Cherdenko's time travel. This devastates the Emperor, as he thinks there can be no "Divine Destiny" if history can be altered. He surrenders the leadership of the Empire's military to his son. Under Prince Tatsu's command, the joint Allied-Soviet invasion of Yokohama is repelled and a full-scale attack on the Kremlin results in the deaths of Premier Cherdenko and General Krukov. Finally, the Empire invades Amsterdam, which holds the Allied Headquarters as well as FutureTech, the company responsible for much of the Allied technological advances. At the brink of defeat, Dr. Zelinsky's deploys a prototype FutureTech ultraweapon that annihilates almost everything in the city. Yet the remaining Imperial forces succeed in destroying what was left of the Allied and Soviet forces. Thus the war ends and the Commander is given the title of "Supreme Shogun".

► Red Alert 3 System Requirements

OS - Windows XP / Vista (32-Bit)
Processor - XP: 2.0 GHz (Intel Pentium 4; AMD Athlon 2000+; Multiple Cores)

Vista: 2.2 GHz (Intel Pentium 4/AMD Athlon 2200+/Multiple Cores)
Memory - XP/Vista: 1 GB
Hard Drive - Media: 6.0 GB / EA Link: 12.0 GB
DVD Drive- 8 SPEED
Video Card - NVIDIA GeForce 6800, ATI Radeon X1800 or higher end 

DirectX 9.0c compatible gfx card
Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c compatible 

Online Multiplayer - 512 Kbps or faster; 2-8 Players
Input - Keyboard, Mouse
Optional - VoIP Headset

Want to have a Copy of this Game?

Grab your own Red Alert 3 Today!!