A lot of the die hard fans of the Command & Conquer real time strategy universe were disappointed with the release of Command & Conquer : Tiberium Sun. Well it seems that Westwood took note of the growls of disapproval and polished off Red Alert 2 to the highest shine before releasing it to us RTS-hungry wolves.

The Story
You think the Ruskys were bad in Red Alert? How's a full scale military invasion of Washington DC that leads to the destruction of the Pentagon for starters? Although, it makes me wonder just what happened to NORAD's extended range surveillance? The Soviet Machine is back under a new leadership (a tension-filled triumvirate actually), and world-war on US soil is the direct result. You have the choice of playing as either the US field commander trying to cobble together an effective defensive force from the remnants of the routed US military, or you can play as Comrade Field Marshall in charge of the invasion horde. There is also a tutorial mode for the newcomers to the series, however you probably will skip it, unless you have never seen a real time strategy game before. The combat missions are structured in increasing difficulty, it is pretty easy for the first few missions, getting tougher as you go along.

This gradual difficulty increase also entails starting off with simpler forces at the beginning, and receiving new types of units and having new characters introduced into the story. (You will particularly like the Chrono-Legionaires in the later missions: these little guys can jump all over the map and literally vaporize buildings by enveloping them in some sort of time-sink.) On par with the spirit of Red Alert, the game has a lot of urban warfare, you get to blow up cop cars and burger joints that look suspiciously (but of course not in a trademark infringing manner) like some of our famous fast food chains

So basically here is your patriotic mix of war and women, as I faithfully captured in a few of the screenshots below, there are some very attractive ladies that you get to work with. I particularly enjoyed the map review session with Tanya, the American commando. However, it seems that Westwood is not aware that very big percentage of game players are women, or least they thought that these lady-gamers probably pass Red Alert. This is evident in the lack of eye candy for women, as the male characters in the game are downright shabby. The President looks like a car-salesman, the German Chancellor looks like he is in dire need of a bier, the French guy looks like a retired Foreign Legionnaire, and the Russian leaders just look like old balls of excess tissue.

The game is well balanced, which is feat in itself that makes a good RTS game an excellent one (i.e. Age of Empires 2). For example, while you will cry foul when, in the early missions, you realize that the Russian harvesters are armed with a strong machinegun, while your harvester gets slaughtered by one or two puny little Russian conscripts, you will feel more than compensated when in the later missions you get the Chrono Harvester. This unit, like its Legionnaire counterpart, can jump all over the place, without having to travel the linear path between the start and destination points. This is of course extremely handy when you have depleted the resources in your area, and now have to raid the enemies' fields for more.

One weak area in the balancing game is the super weapons of Soviet Nuke versus NATO Weather control, I think that this match up favors the Russians. Other than that, the wide variety and different strategic capability of some units makes for practically endless plans of attack, especially when in multiplayer mode. Unlike the buildings in Age of Empires 2, the structures in Red Alert 2 get destroyed rather quickly, which significantly changes your defense and expansion strategies. You must either have a significant portion of your military force spread throughout your base (especially when your opponent has the time-transporter equipped Chrono Legionnaires) or have a high degree of redundancy built into your base through repetition of critical installations.

A nifty new feature is the ability to garrison your soldiers in neutral buildings, and they are not visible to the unsuspecting enemy patrol walking into this ambushes kill zone. Further, with this feature, now you can or rather HAVE to conduct true FIBUA Ops (Fighting In Built Up Areas Operations), moving from house to house, building to building sweeping the area clear of enemy infiltrators. Another feature is the experience gain of your units through exposure to combat. As it should be, a unit that has fought a few ambushes and earned its medals has better accuracy at longer range, and thus will be successful when fighting against a rookie squad of the exact same unit.

Graphics & Audio
The graphics are rather simple, though noticeably better than Red Alert, but then you don't play this game for the graphics. However, interaction is good, you can destroy just about anything with the right amount of firepower, and the terrain clearly shows the battle damage. The pre-fight movies are excellent, Hollywood quality, though the atmosphere presented seems rather comical. I never quite grasped the seriousness of the strategic situation from the cut scenes; however, I quickly made up for it when ten advanced soviet tanks rolled to my front gates two minutes after starting a mission. The sound effects are great, and add greatly to the feel of the game. The only thing I found funny was the accents of the characters and particularly the French unit taunts.

Final Word
All in all, Red Alert 2 is an Excellent game that will keep you playing for a long time. With all the variety of unit skills and the resulting myriad of strategic combat possibilities this is one game that you won't get bored with for a while. And in case you do, by then the next version will be around :). And now, if you excuse me, I have to Nuke the Kremlin.

Review by: SirZ 
Date: 31 Dec 2000