Command & Conquer: Red Alert – PC

Author: Westwood Studioes

Brand: Electronic Arts

Edition: Standard

Format: CD-ROM

Details: Amazon.comDark experiments have permanently altered time. Or have they? Now, Soviet tanks crush city after city while Allied cruisers shell bases. Spies lurk, land mines wait, and strange new technologies aid both sides in their struggle for ultimate control. Command & Conquer: Red Alert gives you the opportunity to be more devious, cunning, and ruthless than ever before. Easy to play and highly addictive, Red Alert puts the fate of the world in your hands.From the ManufacturerWorld War II never happened. Hitler never rose to power. Instead, Joseph Stalin and his Red Army are plunging Europe into a bloodbath of terror. Do you command the Allied Forces? Or side with the Soviets? The future of Western civilization is in your hands in this adrenaline-pumping, tension-mounting addition to the award-winningCommand & Conquer series. Over a map that’s double the size ofCommand & Conquer’s, you and up to 5 other players will have complete control over action in the air, on land, and at sea. Challenge the foes with an all-new arsenal of destroyers, bombers, coils, mobile radar jammers, and submarines. Set up patrols with multiple way points and units in formation. No more relying on old strategies and cheats–you will have to keep changing your tactics from moment to moment, game to game.Red Alert’s advanced artificial intelligence comes at you with a vengeance, making each game a whole new challenge.ReviewThe real-time strategy genre is a victim of its own success, suffering the same unfortunate fate as first-person action games in the post-Doom era. Publishers know the category is hot, and have responded by firing salvo after salvo of copycat designs and lookalike games at unwary players. There will be no less than a dozen new entries into the real-time strategy market this holiday season alone – and trying to pick the right one is like playing Russian Roulette with five chambers loaded. That is, unless you pick Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Developed by Westwood Studios – whose seminal Dune II created the real-time strategy category, and whose Command & Conquer (along with Blizzard’s Warcraft II) represents the highest achievement in the genre to date – Red Alert has the pedigree of a champion and a premise to match: Albert Einstein applies his theories of relativity to time travel, hurtling back in time to assassinate Hitler before he ever comes to power. The plan works, and with Hitler out of the picture, Nazi Germany never materializes. But unfortunately, the Red Menace does, with Russia’s Stalin turning a burgeoning war machine towards the West, raining destruction and terror on those unfortunate enough to find themselves standing in his way.And that’s where you come in, on either the Allied or Soviet side. Allied players will rely on stealth and surprise, while those aligning themselves with the Soviets will place their bets on brutal force. Overall, we like the Soviet side better, especially since players are given the freedom to play the bad guy to the hilt. In the first Russian mission, for example, the player is informed of a partisan uprising in a small village, and gets marching orders that only a sadist could love. “They are enemies of the people,” intones a cold-hearted Stalin, “Destroy the town, and kill everyone in it.” The meeting room slowly dissolves to the now familiar overhead map, covered with tanks, soldiers, and assorted other perpetrators of mass mayhem, all eagerly awaiting the player’s command to exterminate the enemy.The design and functionality of these units is arguably the best ever in a real-time strategy game, and certainly the best since the aforementioned Dune II. The variety of forces and structures is unmatched, providing players with an almost unlimited palette with which to paint their strategic strokes (the only flawed unit is the Soviet sub, which inexplicably will not attack ships that come within its weapons’ range). Better yet, the units of the two opposing sides a

Release Date: 08-08-2000

Package Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches

Binding: Video Game