Okay, way back when Command and Conquer was released with great acclaim. It was fast paced, fun, and had a bald headed evil guy who is still considered one of the best bald headed evil guys in the buisness.
He was a guy so evil that even Michal Bean and Darth Vader combined could not defeat him!
Then, after Command and Conquer came out, the guys from Westwood studious decided...who would be EVIL enough to be the villain in our next game?
Who else?
Awesome stach aside, Stalin is very evil and he made an excellent bad guy in the next game by Westwood: RED ALERT.
Red Alert takes place in an alternate timeline created when Albert Einstein builds a machine that takes his Theory of Relativity and breaks it over its knee with a sickening crack: A TIME MACHINE!
Yes, old Einstine travels back in time. Where? Germany! When? 1930something.
Why?
Well, isn't it obvious?
He rubs off Hitler and changes the world. Now there is a weak Germany standing between the Red Menece and the rest of the world, a new World War is touched off when the Red Army invades Europe. Fun!
Red Alert was fast paced, and rather more light hearted than Command and Conquer.
The second Red Alert followed up with the idea of a draw in Europe and the death of Stalin. Not one to just sit around and be evil all by itself, Russia decides to invade the United States. At this point, the developers were partially bought by EA, and by this point...changes started to come into the Red Alert franchies. Things got a little...silly...
A little more over the top. A little more tongue in cheek? The game was very entertaining, and many people enjoyed it. I sure did! My favorite unit was the attack squid, by which the Soviets could drag hapless aircraft carriers down to the depths!
Ahem.
Now, the wait is over and Red Alert 3 has come out.
And...
Is it good?
Well, at first, I was skeptical. Firstly, Westwood no logner exists. Rather, the game is being made by EA. Secondly, they have tacked on a third faction to play as: The Japanese.
And then I saw this...video. This trailer. Giant robots? Samuri swords? Telekenetic giggling japanese school girls with skirts!?
Wait, I thought, this has gone completely off the deep end! This is TOO silly, this is too absurd, this is completely...STUPID!
Then the game came out and I fully intetended to despise it.
And, guess what?
It kicks butt on several levels. Its fast paced, fun, pretty and really really really funny. The story this time is that the Soviet Union has been pushed to the brink of destruction, and their Primer has fled the Kremlin.
So Tim Curry, who plays the soon to be Primer Cherdenko, goes back in time and kills Einstine, the man most responsible for Allied awesomness. And now the Soviets are pushing the ALLIES out of Europe...at which point George Takai shows up with a huge fleet of Japanese ships and starts blowing stuff up!
OF COURSE!
So, firstly, if you are the type to be offended by steryotypes and really bad accents...don't play this game. Though I would like to say *everyone* is turned into clowns, not just the Soviets and the Japanese.
The Americans, for one, are fairly saterized, mostly by the inclusion of their completely insane, rabid right wing President Ackerman. He builds a giant laser in Teddy Roosvelts head and threatens to destroy Moskow from his secret Mount Rushmoor base.
GIANT LASER. In TEDDY ROOSVELTS HEAD!
I was barely able to contain my giggles...but then I lost it when the giant head of Thomas Jefferson turned out to have giant laser eye beams, which lead to the line that made me fall out of my chair in pure hysterics.
"JEFFERSON! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOARUGH!"
Which is followed by the completely straight faced delivery of: "We must stop our crazy President."
The game is rife with shuch humor. The Russian's main Armored Personal Carrier deploys infantry by shooting them out of a cannon and letting them parachute to the ground as they will. Deadly Russian attack bears maul infantry to death. Allied Spies all sound like Sean Connery and utter dry witticisms before sneaking past enemy lines. Unlike the second game, which was mostly America rather than an Alliance of nations, the Allied units all have different nationalities. British, German, French, American...Jamacian...dolphin...
Yeah, there are also deadly attack dolphins.
Ahem.
The music is also top notch, along side the awesome humor. It is some of the best music I have heard in a video game for a LONG time, and has almost beaten Starcraft's iconic techno beat in temrs of sheer pulsing pushingness. This is music that grabs you by the nose and YANKS as hard as it can.
Hard rock, as well as iconic music from each of the nations. The Soviets have stirring Comunist anthems, with lyrics sung entirely in Russian. The Japanese have a more...omminus, and yet oddly pretty sound.
And the Allies...
Um...
Lets just say its rapmorockual.
So, yes, the music is so good, I normally have to take my hands away from the keyboard and do air guitars along with my favorite riffs.
The actual gameplay? Fun. Very fun. It retains the awesome fast pace of Red Alert 1, and spruces it up a bit with some very neat touches. Most units have special abilities that can be used in nasty ways. Every side has super powers that they earn by killing the other side's units. The Soviets, in one, have two very sadistic abilities that I love to dead...
Magnetic Satilite and Orbital Drop. The Mag-Sat lets you SUCK enemy vehicals into SPACE. Yes, that includes air craft carriers.
The Orbital Drop...well...
Remember those aircraft carriers you just sucked into space? Well, taking them was so mean...why don't you give them back. Ontop of the enemies base.
Each faction has their own special motive. The Allies tend to have units that can repair and defend one another, meaning their army is HARD to kill. They also have lots of teleportation and lasers. The Soviets are all about numbers and Tesla Coils. They stick Tesla Coils on everything: Buildings, boats, infantry...they also have the biggest tank in the game. The Japenese are focoused mainly on mobility and being annoying as all heck. Most of their units can turn into other units at the flip of a switch.
I question the utility of a heliocopter that can turn into a walking tank...but I do not doubt its total awesomeness.
The side balence seems good, thusfar. Though some units are over powered, they normally have ways of being taken care of. Most things have "counters", which is to say, a Century Bomber is scary to anyone who dosn't have a few MIGs to shoot it down.
And, just like in the last game, each faction gets its own Super Weapon. I am very sad to see that nukes have gone the way of Einstine and Hitler...which leads me to say, "HEY! Einstine wasn't THAT integral to the nuclear weapons program."
To which the game Responds with:
Touche game...touche.
If you like fast paced fun, over the top voice acting, a rockin sound Track, and the desire to shout "WOLVERINES!" at the top of your lungs (Its just me? Really?), then Red Alert 3 is a good choice.
He was a guy so evil that even Michal Bean and Darth Vader combined could not defeat him!
Then, after Command and Conquer came out, the guys from Westwood studious decided...who would be EVIL enough to be the villain in our next game?
Who else?
Awesome stach aside, Stalin is very evil and he made an excellent bad guy in the next game by Westwood: RED ALERT.
Red Alert takes place in an alternate timeline created when Albert Einstein builds a machine that takes his Theory of Relativity and breaks it over its knee with a sickening crack: A TIME MACHINE!
Yes, old Einstine travels back in time. Where? Germany! When? 1930something.
Why?
Well, isn't it obvious?
He rubs off Hitler and changes the world. Now there is a weak Germany standing between the Red Menece and the rest of the world, a new World War is touched off when the Red Army invades Europe. Fun!
Red Alert was fast paced, and rather more light hearted than Command and Conquer.
The second Red Alert followed up with the idea of a draw in Europe and the death of Stalin. Not one to just sit around and be evil all by itself, Russia decides to invade the United States. At this point, the developers were partially bought by EA, and by this point...changes started to come into the Red Alert franchies. Things got a little...silly...
A little more over the top. A little more tongue in cheek? The game was very entertaining, and many people enjoyed it. I sure did! My favorite unit was the attack squid, by which the Soviets could drag hapless aircraft carriers down to the depths!
Ahem.
Now, the wait is over and Red Alert 3 has come out.
And...
Is it good?
Well, at first, I was skeptical. Firstly, Westwood no logner exists. Rather, the game is being made by EA. Secondly, they have tacked on a third faction to play as: The Japanese.
And then I saw this...video. This trailer. Giant robots? Samuri swords? Telekenetic giggling japanese school girls with skirts!?
Wait, I thought, this has gone completely off the deep end! This is TOO silly, this is too absurd, this is completely...STUPID!
Then the game came out and I fully intetended to despise it.
And, guess what?
It kicks butt on several levels. Its fast paced, fun, pretty and really really really funny. The story this time is that the Soviet Union has been pushed to the brink of destruction, and their Primer has fled the Kremlin.
So Tim Curry, who plays the soon to be Primer Cherdenko, goes back in time and kills Einstine, the man most responsible for Allied awesomness. And now the Soviets are pushing the ALLIES out of Europe...at which point George Takai shows up with a huge fleet of Japanese ships and starts blowing stuff up!
OF COURSE!
So, firstly, if you are the type to be offended by steryotypes and really bad accents...don't play this game. Though I would like to say *everyone* is turned into clowns, not just the Soviets and the Japanese.
The Americans, for one, are fairly saterized, mostly by the inclusion of their completely insane, rabid right wing President Ackerman. He builds a giant laser in Teddy Roosvelts head and threatens to destroy Moskow from his secret Mount Rushmoor base.
GIANT LASER. In TEDDY ROOSVELTS HEAD!
I was barely able to contain my giggles...but then I lost it when the giant head of Thomas Jefferson turned out to have giant laser eye beams, which lead to the line that made me fall out of my chair in pure hysterics.
"JEFFERSON! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOARUGH!"
Which is followed by the completely straight faced delivery of: "We must stop our crazy President."
The game is rife with shuch humor. The Russian's main Armored Personal Carrier deploys infantry by shooting them out of a cannon and letting them parachute to the ground as they will. Deadly Russian attack bears maul infantry to death. Allied Spies all sound like Sean Connery and utter dry witticisms before sneaking past enemy lines. Unlike the second game, which was mostly America rather than an Alliance of nations, the Allied units all have different nationalities. British, German, French, American...Jamacian...dolphin...
Yeah, there are also deadly attack dolphins.
Ahem.
The music is also top notch, along side the awesome humor. It is some of the best music I have heard in a video game for a LONG time, and has almost beaten Starcraft's iconic techno beat in temrs of sheer pulsing pushingness. This is music that grabs you by the nose and YANKS as hard as it can.
Hard rock, as well as iconic music from each of the nations. The Soviets have stirring Comunist anthems, with lyrics sung entirely in Russian. The Japanese have a more...omminus, and yet oddly pretty sound.
And the Allies...
Um...
Lets just say its rapmorockual.
So, yes, the music is so good, I normally have to take my hands away from the keyboard and do air guitars along with my favorite riffs.
The actual gameplay? Fun. Very fun. It retains the awesome fast pace of Red Alert 1, and spruces it up a bit with some very neat touches. Most units have special abilities that can be used in nasty ways. Every side has super powers that they earn by killing the other side's units. The Soviets, in one, have two very sadistic abilities that I love to dead...
Magnetic Satilite and Orbital Drop. The Mag-Sat lets you SUCK enemy vehicals into SPACE. Yes, that includes air craft carriers.
The Orbital Drop...well...
Remember those aircraft carriers you just sucked into space? Well, taking them was so mean...why don't you give them back. Ontop of the enemies base.
Each faction has their own special motive. The Allies tend to have units that can repair and defend one another, meaning their army is HARD to kill. They also have lots of teleportation and lasers. The Soviets are all about numbers and Tesla Coils. They stick Tesla Coils on everything: Buildings, boats, infantry...they also have the biggest tank in the game. The Japenese are focoused mainly on mobility and being annoying as all heck. Most of their units can turn into other units at the flip of a switch.
I question the utility of a heliocopter that can turn into a walking tank...but I do not doubt its total awesomeness.
The side balence seems good, thusfar. Though some units are over powered, they normally have ways of being taken care of. Most things have "counters", which is to say, a Century Bomber is scary to anyone who dosn't have a few MIGs to shoot it down.
And, just like in the last game, each faction gets its own Super Weapon. I am very sad to see that nukes have gone the way of Einstine and Hitler...which leads me to say, "HEY! Einstine wasn't THAT integral to the nuclear weapons program."
To which the game Responds with:
Touche game...touche.
If you like fast paced fun, over the top voice acting, a rockin sound Track, and the desire to shout "WOLVERINES!" at the top of your lungs (Its just me? Really?), then Red Alert 3 is a good choice.
Was never into Red Alert much, but you definitely make me wanna check it out!