Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

Conclusions

To a degree, we’re not sure that Red Alert 3 really ever needed to be made and that’s something which is bothering us as we try to score this fiery and super-camp strategy.

Red Alert 3 uses the same engine as Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, albeit slightly tweaked, so on the technical front there’s no real advantage. The game still looks good and the water is startlingly beautiful, but there’s still no real breakthroughs here.

In terms of the gameplay, there’s nothing wholly new for two of the campaigns either. The Allies and the Soviets are still just the same as they ever were – Attack Dogs, Tanya and so on. It’s all here with a few more modern twists. Sonic Dolphins and Armoured Grizzly Bears are old hat and while the new superweapons help give these campaigns a fresh gloss, that’s really all it is – gloss.

The Japanese campaign is a little different, both in design and gameplay. Learning to move your units around and how to make the best use of them in both modes is a real strategic challenge as you have to constantly remind yourself that your tanks are also planes and your boats are also tanks.


Unfortunately, while that makes the Imperial campaign a more advanced choice in the singleplayer side, it also makes them a slightly unbalanced opponent in multiplayer. It isn’t entirely fair for the Soviets when half of their enemies tanks suddenly fly over their heads and start carpet bombing them from out of range. An even vaguely confident commander can keep his enemy off balance by just switching his units around a lot and preventing an assault.

On the other hand, Red Alert 3 is a fun and enjoyable game. The campaigns are interesting enough to be enticing and there’s the constant lure of cleavage to make you play through to the next mission. This isn’t exactly Command and Conquer: Red Light District 3, but there’s plentiful beautiful ladies to grease your screen up for.

Red Alert 3 doesn’t take itself too seriously either, which is another thing that we like. Just like the old games in the Red Alert series, it keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek and the game benefits extraordinarily from the obvious twists, geek in-jokes and plentiful boob.

All of the actors play their parts beautifully too – hamming everything up to maximum and doing their best fake accents and ridiculous voices. Gemma Atkinson is desperately trying to look earnest when she tells you to defend Brighton Beach and Jenny McCarthy really thinks she looks threatening with a fake knife and a tank-top, to the extent that you can’t help but chuckle and just go along with it all.

In the end, Red Alert 3 perhaps isn’t all it could have been. A more expansive tech tree for basic ground and air units would have been a slightly better choice than giving players dozens of super weapons to choose from, fun as it is to point a screen-sized crosshair at your enemy’s base.

Red Alert 3 ticks all the right boxes – it has co-op, it has armoured bears, a funny plot and some good, basic strategy gameplay – but overall it fails to really pull together to be something we haven’t already seen before and that’s a shame.

If you’re after some quick real-time strategy this Christmas then Red Alert 3 will definitely see you right, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it failed to stand the test of time.

Score Guide