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RTS with a Side of Ham in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
Before you even jump into the game proper, there’s a lot to like about Red Alert 3. The game is set in an alternate timeline which occurs when a rascally Russian officer – played by the always-excellent Tim Curry – uses a time machine (built by Peter Stormare!!!) to erase scientist Albert Einstein from history. Returning to the new present, Cherdenko (Curry) learns that he now presides over Russia as its Premier. His nation is also involved in a bitter world war against the Western Allied Nations and the Empire of the Rising Sun in the East.
What all of this means is that Red Alert 3’s main factions all feature some creatively unique unit and building types, such as the Soviet Union’s “Scout Bear” and the Empire’s psychic schoolgirls. The gameplay is fundamentally the same – run through a series of missions set in faction-specific campaigns – but the farcical nature of the narrative makes C&C’s campy cutscenes all the more welcome.
Tweaking the Issues Away in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3
The biggest and most welcome change we saw during our demo of Red Alert 3 has to be the addition of an on-the-fly expandable map which allows easy, almost instant access to any part of the battlefield. Holding down the L trigger opens the on-screen minimap in a larger window. From here, players can use the left analog stick to adjust the positioning of the main viewing area and the right stick to move an on-map reticule. It’s a simple and highly effective method for managing large armies across the battlefield.
That said, large armies are not the main focus in Red Alert 3. We’ll need to log more play time to really judge if this is true, but the game’s missions and resource distribution have apparently been designed to support smaller, more efficient armies. If this turns out to be the case, micromanagement woes of previous games could be greatly diminished. Players can also now use the D-pad to cycle through any units on-screen, aiding those who want to micromanage but can’t thanks to the less-than-ideal analog stick cursor controls.
As is always the case with console-based RTS releases, there’s somewhat of a learning curve in nailing down all of the various button combinations. Players can set map bookmarks, access units by type thanks to an auto-control group feature, paint groups of enemy targets for destruction and quick access special abilities for any selected units, among other things. That said, button-based combo shortcuts are nothing new for C&C console releases.
It’s going to take more than just a short skirmish to give us a feel for how the old features mesh with the new. The game is visually on point – some of the wackier units are a joy to behold – and the few live action cutscenes we saw delivered exactly what fans of the series have come to expect: high camp. We’re more cautiously optimistic than falling over with anticipation at this point, but the gaming world will find out soon enough as Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 hits stores on November 11.
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