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COMMAND & CONQUER: RED ALERT 3 Posted by Dan Pearson on Nov 19, 2008 16:15 (Nov 19, 2008 16:15) |
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The long running and fan favourite Red Alert finally hits the Xbox 360 with Red Alert 3, but does this have the power to nuke your mind or is it another fizzling UXB.
Red Alert 3 starts off with the Soviet army on the back foot, they are about to be defeated but pull off one last ditch attempt at victory, using a time machine to go back in time and assassinate Einstein. In doing this they return home but to a very different time-line, where the Soviets are powerful but are now in a huge battle against two fronts, the Allies and Empire of the Rising Sun.
 There are 3 main story lines to choose from, each one has 10 levels to complete, but we all know now that the story is just the training ground, the main fun is in the skirmishes and of course the online mode. There are 12 maps to choose from, each has a varying degree of cover and hazards. There are some great classics like wastelands and cities plus a few new gems like beaches plus larger expanses of water. The online modes include co-op and 4 player skirmish, whilst the action is great, there is a little slowdown on the bigger fights, which can spoil some of the fiercer battles.
There have been plenty of improvements over the previous games, including more focused water based action and you the fact that you can now build most buildings on water, allowing for a more advantageous defence, in addition most vehicles are now able to traverse over water. A surprise addition to the game is the co-op commander, in single player the 2nd commander is AI controlled, you share the same funds and most of the time they will do their own thing, but you can control their actions with the d-pad. Bored of playing on your own, plug in another controller and you can have two people battle it out against the same threat, this is a great idea that is not really perfected as yet but is still a treat for 2 players.
Each faction has their own strengths and weaknesses like soviets build on the run, making them extremely vulnerable and the Rising Sun has some cool if not stereotypical kamikaze units. All vehicles and infantry also have secondary functions, some can pull out shields to help protect, others like the ore collector can become a supplementary mobile command unit while others can jump over large expanses of water.
From all of the ads on the net I am sure you have noticed a few familiar faces popping up including a blonde clone from Hollyoaks, the fella who threw Steve Buchemi into a wood chipper and Tim Rice who constantly switches from a Russian accent to an English accent. The acting itself is hammy and hilarious but it works and sits well with the over the top action of the game.
Controls have been refined again for the console market and this is so far the best RTS control set up to date. The A button selects units, hold it and hover over all the units you want to move en-masse. The LT will bring up your map for quick movement and the RT brings up the great dial menu, here you can make any choice, select all of a specific unit, build items and order infantry and vehicles. It’s a very easy system to use and is instantly comfortable, allowing for quick and precise choices without any hassle. There are shortcut buttons for some of the more popular choices but these do complicate the otherwise simple controls. I do have one little bug bear with this part, the camera control, use the LS to move around and RS to zoom, however with every other game like this, the zoom is so minimal it is rendered pointless as its either close or really close.
 The closeness of the camera does have its advantages though, it gets to show off a great graphics engine, all of the units and vehicles look and move great, the maps also have real character and with all that going on I have not experienced any slowdown on the single player mode.
There have been a few middle of the row RTS games released of late, however whilst the Red Alert 3 single player mode is short and sweet, with the online mode it seems that EA are here to show everyone how to make an RTS for a console
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