Product Description

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7458 in Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Model: 11873
• Released on: 2000-08-08
• ESRB Rating: Teen
• Platforms: Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 95
• Format: CD-ROM

Amazon.com Product Description
Dark 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.

GameSpot Review
The 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 aren't mere copies of each other, but instead maintain a sort of karmic balance. For example, the Allies' aptly-named Destroyer, which can relentlessly attack land, sea, and air units from long distances, is countered by the Soviet MiG, which packs a powerful punch and is absolutely devastating in numbers. The Allies' Medic, who can literally restore life to the barely breathing foot units, is eerily matched by the Soviet's brutal Attack Dogs, calamitous canines that can wipe out a half dozen troops in matter of seconds. This not-the-same-but-somehow-related unit design permeates the game, and gives Red Alert a level of depth and complexity that will keep players occupied for months on end.

Another huge plus is the level design found in Red Alert's one-player game. The forty or so levels consistently strike the right balance between long, drawn out wars of building and attrition, and short intense bursts of behind-the-lines conflict, convoy protection, and hostage rescue. The levels are also fair: You won't need to send troops out to explore the undiscovered regions, then restart the scenario with this illegitimately acquired knowledge. You also won't be forced into using any particular strategy to "solve" the "puzzle" a mission presents - the number and variety of units means there are literally dozens of ways to take any given piece of territory. And last but not least, Red Alert doesn't require overwhelming force to win. With the right mix of troops, the right plan, and the right timing, you can handily win battles that would otherwise appear to be heavily tilted against you. All of these factors encourage exploration and risk-taking relatively early in each scenario - bringing a sense of unpredictability and adventure to Red Alert that is all too often missing from games of this type.

The action is punctuated by cutscenes which dramatically illustrate a key moment from or result of the previous mission - an Allied bridge being blown to smithereens or a Russian sign being crushed by an Allied truck. As you might expect from Westwood, the animated cutscenes are simply awesome. The mission briefings with live actors are less impressive - the writing and story are fine, but the acting is awkward at times (Stalin's romantic interlude with a female aide is particularly difficult to watch).

The cutscenes are beautifully complemented by Red Alert's SVGA gameplay graphics. Whether the smoke trailing behind an air-to-air missile, the fiery glow of an explosive chain reaction, or swarms of HIND helicopters mercilessly gunning down a land-based target, the visuals are consistently smooth and convincing. The higher resolution also means that a large portion of the battlefield is visible onscreen, allowing quick and easy monitoring and control of units over relatively vast stretches of territory (Luddites who disagree with the above are welcome to play the DOS VGA version of the game, included at no charge for nostalgia's sake and for the benefit of those with less advanced systems). And Red Alert is as much fun to listen to as it is to watch, with crisp, realistic sound effects and more of the Westwood's trademark techno-cum-military musical accompaniments.

As you'd expect, Red Alert includes a full array of multiplayer options, and compatibility with just about every type of network protocol. We've only scratched the surface of the multiplayer game, but we can report that it is so good that Quake's reign as king of the hill at the GameSpot office may be nearing an end. There's also a skirmish option that can be used for practicing on multiplayer maps even if no one else is around - and the computer AI is good enough to offer legitimate preparation for a human opponent.

It's a compelling package - one of the best you'll find in the world of PC games. Red Alert belongs in the same category as Civilization II and Quake, games that followed legendary predecessors and immediately eclipsed them. One can only wonder where Westwood can take us from here.--Vince Broady
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Manufacturer Description
World 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-winning Command & Conquer series. Over a map that's double the size of Command & 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.

Customer Reviews

Better than Age of Empires and Tiberian Sun combined!
Command & Conquer: Red Alert is the best strategy game out there. Use tanks, infantry, Tesla Coils, planes, subs, and more to blow the computer apart, or take on a friend (or seven) in multiplayer Head-To-Head (to head-to-head...) Play as the Soviets and crush the Allies. Or be the Allies and save the world from the Soviets. Make sure you have enough power to keep your important buildings (such as radar and SAM sites) in case of a surprise attack. There are three things you need to do: 1) Make sure you have food close by; you don't want things like hunger distacting you. 2) Make all your phone calls NOW; you will be using the modem so much you can't call them. 3)BUY THE GAME!

Don't buy this package....
Red alert is a great game and certainly worth buying but you can pick it up in a variety of packages and prices here on amazon and this one is NOT the most economical. I'll explain later.

Now to the game. Yes red alert is now an old game by PC standards. The graphics are still ok but not obviously up to snuff compared to tiberian sun or it's sequal red alert 2. Never the less red alert is a blast and might still be the most enjoyable, playable game in the whole command and conquer seris including those newer games. Anybody familiar with any one CnC game basically knows how to play them all because the concept is the same. You need two resources to function. The most important resource is had by making refineries and sending out harvesters to gather it. In this game it is called ore, in tiberian sun it is called tiberian but it all doesn't matter because the entire game is focused on getting as many harvesters at work as possible and protecting them so you have the credits neccesary to build your military. From an offensive perspective of course you want to try and cut off your opponents harvesters and that's at least half the game. The other resource is power which is easily had by building power plants from time to time.

The game features two very evenly matched sides in a mostly conventional military battle. The russians and the ukrainians on one side and the allies on the other with germany, france and england. The russians and the ukrainians have the bigger more powerful tanks, a heavy tank and the mammoth. The allies have tanks that are smaller quicker and cheaper. The russians can make deadly telsa coils for defense which electrocute the enemy while the ally countries can make cheaper better armoured conventional turrets and pill boxes. The russians can make a substantial air attack with fast flying mig bombers and yaks. The allies are limited to helecopters but can make a real navy with destroyers and crusiers while the other side can only make defensive submarines. The sides are balanced and which country you choose to play with will be determined by the map. If the map has lot's of water on it you may prefer to be one of the ally countries so you can build a navy.

Overall the action is constant and the battles can be intense. One of the things that sets this game and all the CnC games apart from other rts games is that these games are much more base camp limited. In this game you have a command center and you build around it. You can make a sevice depot and then make an mcv but you still have to place it down some place and build around it. Those who are more used to games like total annililation or age of empires may find this confining. In those games you have mobile units that allow you to build anything anywhere on the map irregardless of how close or far they may be from another structure or unit. Here you have to build within the camp and while you can make mcv's and build other camps they are not easy to protect and mcv's are expensive. Normally in the course of a game you may have your major camp and one smaller additional one whose purpose is to protect you harvesters as they have to go out further and further for ore.

Overall red alert is a very fun well balanced game that still has many followers today. Go on mplayer or westwood and you will find dozens even hundreds of players. There are dozens of good downloads available online including mega maps and desktop theme packs. I highly recommend the coop maps which allow you and a bud to ally and take on a super charged AI opponent. With coop you can really play as a single team where each player can control the others units and the maps are great.

Finally, don't buy this game package. You can buy just red alert for $ so why pay more for this? Also red alert is now available in a couple of nice game packages. You can buy red alert and gettysburg along with another rts game in one package and another package allows you to buy 10 games including this one.

World War 2 Just Changed...
In C&C: Red Alert (in case you don't already know) you fight an alternate World War 2, in which Germany, Britain, Greece and all the other Western European countries fight against the might of the Soviet Union. The game is a classic, and the scientific details are well thought out. (Tesla now devotes his time to weapons research for the Soviets, while Einstein is the key to a secret Allied weapon) Buy the game - you won't regret it.