Looking back - Red Alert 2
Posted by Chris Evans on 02.09.2008
I take a trip down memory lane to Red Alert 2!
I have just reinstalled C&C: The First Decade and played some Red Alert 2 and remembered what a great game it is. I take a ‘Look Back' at the game and give my thoughts on why it was so damn good!
Looking Back – Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2….what a great game….what a damn great game. It is kind of sad that this was the first C&C game I owned, I had played demos of the original Command and Conquer and had really enjoyed the gameplay and such like. So once I saw previews of Red Alert 2 I was overjoyed, it looked fantastic and the premise of the game seemed really cool.
I got this for Christmas, must have been the Christmas just after it was released and installed it as soon as I could. And that was a mighty cool installation, sadly I don't have the original disc anymore so I can only play it via The First Decade and as such I don't get to see the brilliance of the installation showing off the different units and structures and their abilities. Anyway, that installation is pure brilliance and is just a taste of what else is to come.
The opening FMV has to go down in gaming folklore as one of the best there is. It so brilliantly sets up the game plot, introduces some of the characters and plays some excellent music from Frank Klepacki. The live-action sequence is classic Command and Conquer, low-budget look, C-list (or worse?) actors but damn good writing for a game. Particularly memorable is the shot introducing Yuri to the game; his voice is quite chilling in some ways. The CGI part is even better as you see the Soviet invasion of America, while the Cold War may in real life be over, the sight of thousands of Soviet troops, tanks and ships launching a full-scale assault of the US are quite impressive, and the effect of the Apocalypse tank shooting the screen is sheer brilliance!
This continues a trend a throughout the rest of the game of excellent live-action and CGI based FMVs. Some are really quite humorous; some further the plot expertly from the Allied and Soviet perspective, and hell they are all damn good fun! These FMVs are really part of the heart and soul of the early (i.e pre Generals) Command and Conquer games, and for me these are some of the best there are. While there may not be any sign of Kane, they are just damn good fun and not as serious as the Tiberian universe based ones.
Playing the game itself is a joy to behold, the units are all super-cool , you can't beat the ‘I Love to Camp' British Sniper and the Tesla Trooper, the Apocalypse tank is one of my favourite units ever in any game, seriously good fun to play with. While some C&C purists may claim it didn't follow canon and ‘pro' gamers may criticise it for not being balanced properly, it didn't matter. The charm of the game was enough to win me over.
I had some great battles in campaigns; often I would just drag them out for a good few hours just to continue pummelling whichever opponent I was against just to rack up the carnage meter. I fondly remember retaking Washington (how many times did we do that!) and the missions in the Germany forests were pretty darn cool. I loved booting up the map editor and creating a truly outrageously un-balanced map giving me access to both Allied and Soviet tech trees from the off and letting a whole host of enemies battle it out amongst each other before I sent in my Nukes and Weather Storms. Great times!
This for me is the peak of the C&C series, Yuri's Revenge the expansion pack took things a bit too OTT, Tiberian Sun was too bland at times for me, Generals was lacking in C&C traditions and C&C3 just didn't grab my attention as it should've. I highly recommend anyone reading this go back and play some Red Alert 2, you won't regret it!
