Leveling Down

While the PC version of Red Alert 3 is superior, it’s still enjoyable on the 360.

cmfl3x and I have been playing this game on and off for the past two months, and it’s only now that I can finally put out a review. Either we’re incredibly slow gamers, or the game is just that lengthy. Well, it’s a little of both, as cmfl3x and I decided to play through all 27 campaign missions on co-op together and were only able to continue in progress when both of us were available and had the time to do so. That, plus 27 campaign missions is a pretty lengthy amount of time for a game, and we definitely got more than enough game length just from the campaign to justify the title’s price. For the most part, the game is enjoyable, but of course that depends on how you feel about a real time strategy game being played with a controller. If you’re open to the idea, or even looking for one with a lengthy campaign after discovering how short the Halo Wars campaign was, you should definitely give Red Alert 3 a shot.

cmfl3x will also contribute his thoughts on the game to the review.

Good
- lengthy and enjoyable campaign with co-op support
- campy/amusing cutscenes, stars, and units
- skirmish mode and multiplayer extend game length even further

Bad
- still cumbersome to play optimally without a keyboard and mouse
- somewhat of a barebones multiplayer with only 4 player support and no team matchmaking
- the shoddy AI partner if you’re playing campaign levels on Hard difficulty

Intro
The Command & Conquer franchise has been around for over a decade now. Hard to believe that it’s stayed relevant for this long but it’s a beloved Real Time Strategy (RTS) game series that has quite the fan following due to its combination of over the top campy acting with B-list actors and entertaining strategic gameplay. Red Alert 2 was definitely one of the highlights of the series, a game that was released over eight years ago – so fans have definitely been anticipating this sequel for a while. And for the most part, they should be pleased with how Red Alert 3 turned out.

EA tested the RTS waters on the 360 with The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II, and ever since then, they’ve continued to release RTS games with controls that continue to improve. After Lord of the Rings, EA released Command & Conquer 3, followed by its expansion pack: Kane’s Wrath. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 makes the fourth RTS release on the 360 system courtesy of the EA Los Angeles studio. While Red Alert 3 was supposed to release on the PC, 360, and PS3 all around the same time, at the last minute EA put the PS3 version on hold. Many assumed that EA was having a lot of trouble developing it for the PS3, and would probably axe the game. Somehow, they’ve turned it around though so for PS3 owners that are eager for their first RTS game on the PS3, the ultimate version of Red Alert 3 will be releasing in a couple weeks on the PS3, containing more multiplayer maps and videos than the original PC and 360 release.

While Red Alert 3 debuted at a $59.99 pricepoint back in November, it’s sold very few numbers. In America alone, the 360 version of Red Alert 3 has sold only about 100,000 copies to date. If you remember, EA was complaining about how Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space didn’t sell enough. Well, Mirror’s Edge has sold over 300,000 copies in the U.S. and Dead Space has sold over 600,000 copies here. So what does that make Red Alert 3 then? Apparently it makes Red Alert 3 one of the fastest games to drop in price from EA, as each month since release it’s practically dropped $10 so it now retails for $29.99.

For a time, Red Alert 3 on the 360 was the best version to buy due to the DRM fiasco that EA began implementing with many of its PC games, including Red Alert 3 on the PC. In its most recent wave of published PC games, including Spore and Crysis Warhead, EA set it so that you would have only a limited number of installs of the game on a PC: 3. If you installed it, uninstalled it, and installed it again, you would have only one install remaining for the game. People thought it was completely ridiculous, and Red Alert 3 on the PC got a huge hit in public ratings simply due to the limited installs the game came with. What was even worse was the if you changed any of your hardware in your system, such as installing a new graphics card, the game would use up another install. Fortunately, EA has partially addressed the outcry of the public by allowing owners of the game to be able to unauthorize the game on their PC whenever they want, increasing the remaining number of installs left for the game again so you would theoretically never run out of installs. It’s not perfect, but it works enough that the PC version of Red Alert 3 is now the best version of the game to buy.

Gina Carano and Tim Curry lend their acting to the cutscenes of the Soviet campaign.

Storyline and Premise
What if World War II never happened? This is the question that the Red Alert series has always addressed since the initial Red Alert game was released in the Command & Conquer universe. While the main Command & Conquer series has moved towards the future, Red Alert still stays in the mid 1950′s in a world dominated by the Allied nations and Soviet superpowers due to the lack of the war. But apparently in Red Alert 3, Japan has become a superpower as well, and each of the three factions has its own storyline, missions, and accompanying cutscenes that tell the tale of how that superpower ends up besting the other two.

For those that are unfamiliar with real time strategy games, Red Alert 3 (as well as other RTS games) focuses on you building a base of buildings that either provide some sort of power or resource harvesting for your army, and the necessary production buildings that will let you produce this army. Certain units are strong against others, so the strategy of the game is that you have to figure out what to make to defeat your opponent’s units and destroy his base. Combine this with the fact that everything is real time instead of turn based, and you have yourself a war going where producing the wrong unit, not making enough resources to enable production of more units, or even simply not producing enough of the right unit type can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Red Alert 3 tends to emphasize more sea-based combat, due to structures now constructable on water.

Gameplay Mechanics
RA3′s RTS features
Red Alert 3 captures the tried and true gameplay elements of the series so for veterans of previous Red Alert or general Command & Conquer games, they should feel right at home. Returning to the game is a unique commando unit for each side (I still refer to all commando units as “the Tanya”), the ability to garrison infantry in buildings, engineers and their ability to capture enemy buildings, and the lack of electricity powering down buildings and defensive turrets. Units can also rank up if they kill enemy units and higher ranked units have better stats like increased damage. There are no upgrades in the game, so ranking up is the closest one can get to increasing stats on their units.

The first thing players may notice that takes a little bit of a departure from previous Command & Conquer games is that Red Alert 3 has more of an emphasis on naval combat in the game. The fact that several vehicles in the game are amphibious and that almost every building in the game can be constructed on water tiles changes the strategy a bit. The barracks (infantry producer) and the factory (vehicle producer) are perhaps the only two buildings that cannot be created on water. On top of that, most infantry units cannot swim and the most powerful vehicles in the game tend to be the heavy capital warships for each faction. Their range is ridiculous and can level entire bases from practically halfway across the map.

Also new to Red Alert 3 is the use of special abilities – both at the unit level and the commander level. Nearly every unit in the game has a special ability that generally has a cooldown. For example, the main Allied infantry unit can turn on a special ability to use a riot shield, allowing them to move within melee distance of enemy ranged units. At the same time, the Empire of the Rising Sun has units that can transform between ground and air. Commando units also have special powers as well: the Allied Nation’s commando unit is able to reverse time, thus warping her back several frames should she find herself in danger while the Soviet Union’s commando unit can shoot pilots out of vehicles, allowing Soviet forces to commandeer the vehicle for Soviet use. There are also special abilities at the commander level, as each Faction has a 3-column special ability tree that you unlock using points you earned from simply fighting in game. The special abilities are all quite different, and can be customized to each player’s liking. Some may prefer the ability to warp a time bomb onto any visible location on the map, while others may prefer to have the ability to do a scanner sweep of an area they have not discovered. It’s all up to the player.

Finally, Red Alert 3 is the first Command & Conquer game to be built from the ground up to be a 2-player co-op game, so all missions involve yourself and an AI commander. The AI commander can be replaced by a human commander, but when you are playing solo, you are able to sort of give directions to the AI, telling it to attack a certain location, move to a certain location, etc. You have no control over what type of units the AI builds, and this can be quite frustrating as I played a couple levels with an AI partner on hard and it would just get destroyed by a couple of Soviet blimps because it didn’t make anti-air. Like most AI-partner games these days, I felt like I had to really babysit it on the harder levels (try beating the last Allied mission with an AI partner on hard). Fortunately, the one saving grace to playing solo is that you can save at any time, so if you save often enough, you can just revert back to an earlier save should the AI partner screw up (and it will) and you can make the units it should have made to save its own base.

Adapting a PC-based RTS game for the 360 controller
I’ve played a couple RTS games on the 360. Command & Conquer 3′s controls were adequate, and Red Alert 3 is even better than that. A lot of the mapping works out pretty well for the game and there are definite conveniences that were made with the controller in mind. For example, holding down the left trigger will increase the minimap on the screen, and then moving the analog stick will allow you to quickly scroll to a point on the map rather than having to actually watch the screen scroll all the way there. You can also queue up units and buildings using the wheel that appears with the right trigger. This minimizes the need to actually go back to your production buildings to make units. Most of the button mapping is also intuitive enough that it works. I’ve also tried out Warhammer: Battle March on the 360 and the control mapping to that was horrible. It required holding two buttons down, and then hitting a third button on the d-pad to perform certain tasks. Too ridiculous. Fortunately, RA 3 does not suffer a similar fate.

Unfortunately, it’s just not really possible to achieve a level of micro that comes with having a mouse and keyboard. Coordinating various groups on different parts of the screen at once, microing their special abilities so only certain units use abilities, pulling focus fired vehicles out of harm’s way, etc. just cannot really be accomplished with a controller. You end up simply massing as many of the powerful units as you can, and sending everything at once in an attack move formation. The most you can possibly micro is perhaps the commando, as she is one of the more valuable units in the game. But even then, the commando should only be a small part of a much larger army.

Factions
While Red Alert 2 had only two factions in the game, Red Alert 3 joins Command & Conquer 3 to bring about three playable factions: the Allied Nations, the Soviet Union, and the newcomers, the Empire of the Rising Sun. Each faction has different playstyles and interesting units, as well as amusing and sexy actors/actresses playing roles in the cutscenes. The Allied nations tend to play like traditional Allied forces, being heavily strong in the water with their aircraft carriers while the Soviets dominate the ground with their Apocalypse tanks. The Japanese tend to be the most adaptable, with large mech robots and units that can transform between air and ground/sea units as needed.

Each faction plays differently enough that they are all enjoyable in their own way. At first I detested the Japanese buildings, because they spawned as little carts that had to transform into buildings, but I grew to like it a lot after realizing how quickly the Japanese could lay out a base or expand. Besides each faction’s own unique units, technology, and special abilities, there are a total of 3 different co-commanders that will accompany you throughout the campaigns. Your co-commander is already set for each campaign level, but you can choose any one you want when you play skirmish mode. Each co-commander is defined with a certain playstyle strength – some may have a tendency to favor air units, while others are strong with sea units.

Skirmish & Online Modes
There are both skirmish and online modes for Red Alert 3. Skirmish is simply offline play, with up to 3 AI opponents. You can choose 2v2, 3v1,1v3, or even FFA. You are also able to pick which particular Commanders will play each AI, and the difficulty level for that AI. Saving is also permitted during skirmish mode. What isn’t possible is the ability to play with any other human players and AI players at the same time. You can’t just create an online match for you and your friend and flip the other two slots to AI. Seems like a curious limitation for something that could have easily been added. I’m sure there are definite fans out there of co-op “comp stomping” like the good old days but sadly, it will have to stay in the past.

Online is a pretty barebones affair, where you use EA’s servers to find or create matches for up to 4 players. Unfortunately, there’s no actual matchmaking except for maybe the 1v1 “quick match” option. But if you want to play 2v2 or FFA, you have to join a room and everyone has to agree to it before switching their teams around to facilitate the game mode. It’s relatively easy to find a 1v1v game, but 2v2 public games are very hard to come by for some reason. There’s also stats and Leaderboards, but it could be a lot better than simply stats that only you can see and Leaderboards that only track a player’s Win and Loss record while not taking into account gametypes or any sort of ranking system. Still, it works and it’s not bad if you just want to play human opponents without desiring to play seriously. For the console port of the game, I consider the main focus to be on its campaign and not the online.

One of the Japanese special abilities is to drop bombs in parachutes anywhere on the map.

Achievement Design
I felt that the Achievements in the game were for the most part quite manageable. I applaud the developers for not having any multiplayer only Achievements in the game, as there is a healthy balance of campaign Achievements, skirmish Achievements, and multiplayer Achievements that can still be awarded from playing AI opponents on skirmish mode. The bulk of the game’s Achievements revolve around going through the game’s campaign with a friend on the hardest difficulty, which is about right. There’s Achievements for obtaining all of the bonus objectives on each mission in the game, but there’s no way to really track it so I would have liked if I knew which ones I missed in case I wanted to go back later to get it. This happened to cmfl3x and me, but luckily he found the one bonus objective we were missing, which saved us from having to replay through several levels.

I thought the Skimish Achievements were pretty interesting, as they forced you to check out every multiplayer map shipped in the game (there’s a ton), play against every Commander type (they play differently), and even see how well you can do against one AI set on the hardest difficulty or whether you can take on three AIs at once. The multiplayer Achievements were quite idiotic though, as they didn’t really make the most sense. Having to load every infantry type from two different factions into nine vehicles was stupid, and killing 25 infantry in less than a minute with a commando is equally farfetched. There are several more of these, and the reason people don’t like online Achievements like these in the first place is because they’re boostable and force people to play a certain way who are simply looking for the Achievement. Fortunately, you can get all of them by taking on an AI opponent in skirmish, but you need to be lucky that the uncooperative AI decides to do what you need in order to get the Achievements.

You think you can micro this battle with just a controller? Think again!

Final Thoughts
On the PC, I’d score this game a B+ due to its continuous support (just this past week a 2v2 matchmaking patch was released for the game, as well as more balance changes for the factions). With the 360 version, we have basically what happened with the Team Fortress 2 release on the 360: a packaged online product sent to retail to die. No updates, no balance changes, nothing. But fortunately, Red Alert 3 has a very lengthy campaign game that can entertain you and even a friend for many hours, as well as a skirmish mode that allows you to take on up three AI opponents if you wish. The multiplayer doesn’t receive updates so imbalanced tactics will still rule the day, but at least the game is functional from an online perspective which extends the replayability of the game.

I give the game a solid B. There’s plenty of gaming to be had, but is it A-level BioShock gaming? Not really, but in this day and age where most games end in 6-7 hours, it’s refreshing to actually play a game that makes you wonder when you will actually beat it. The Hard difficulty setting is no slouch at all, and I don’t know if it’s even possible to go at it without a human partner. The game doesn’t quite shake up the genre, but succeeds for being a RTS game. The only problems are that it is hampered with the limitations that come with being a console release – namely, the lack of updates and the lack of control that come from being able to use a keyboard and mouse. If you’re fine with that, the game is definitely enjoyable and worth the $30 it retails for today.

Second Final Thoughts
I think it took espion4ge and me a good 30 hours to finish the single player campaign, so I agree that it was a pretty hefty campaign. For the most part I really enjoyed the experience. I think I read somewhere that the gameplay felt kind of repetitive, but I never really experienced that. There was a mission or two that I thought were pretty annoying, but for the most part they seemed fair. My biggest complaint about the missions was that there were no checkpoints. I understand not being able to save in co-op, but a lot of missions feature two or three separate parts. Usually only one of the three parts is really difficult, but if you mess up you have to play through all of them over again.

We had some pretty intense moments in the campaign, including beating a timed stage (the last Allied mission) at the buzzer. I actually jumped up and cheered for that one, especially since it completed the campaign and there was the added bonus of 4 achievements unlocking at once for completing that mission. Now that I’m playing Halo Wars, there are definitely some things I miss from Red Alert 3, which has caused me to think of the latter more fondly. Red Alert 3 was definitely too complicated in parts, but not so complicated that it detracted from the overall experience.

I give the game a B+. The totally over the top acting, the co-op experience, and the lengthy campaign really left a positive impression on me. The biggest drawback was the lack of a full multiplayer experience, but on the console it probably would have devolved into attack-moving anyway. If you’ve played RTS on console before and enjoyed it I’d definitely recommend the game. If not, it comes down to whether you think you can handle complicated controls or not. Though it’s a bit of a different skillset, my guess is if you can pull off 12 hit combos in Street Fighter with a controller, you should be able to handle these controls no problem. You can get the game for pretty cheap now, so if you are interested, check it out! At worst, you will be buying yourself a horrible B-movie, at best, you’ll have an enjoyable gameplay experience to go along with it.

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