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My experience with the Real Time Strategy genre began not amongst the spice-filled hills of Dune II. Nor did it begin at the side of Kane, crushing my enemies under the Iron hand of NOD. No – it all began amidst the star-spangled banners of the allies, charging the front lines even as the colossal front of Soviet Mammoth Tanks pushed forward against all that stood before it – be it tanks, helicopters or infantry. Such is the affection towards the game that if my heart were considered an Italian mafia restaurant, the best table would always be reserved for the boss of the place and his son, Red Alert 2. No other game – regardless of how powerful or good - would dare to eat at that table, lest find themselves at the bottom of the creek with their feet in cement blocks.
And yet today I find myself in a dilemma of sorts. When I was given the opportunity to partake in the Red Alert 3 beta thanks to the bossman, I was nothing short of elated and excited. To finally see the continuation of the series and the third installment – to relive part of that experience along with something more – it was and still is an exciting opportunity. However… I seemed to have fallen into a trap.
There is something I try to keep reminding myself everyday: to stop falling prey to hype, flashy banners and pimped-out sites. Unfortunately, those constant reminders failed with Red Alert 3 (RA3) as I got into my sub and dived into the beta, completely ignoring the warning signs along the way. By the time I emerged back from the murky depths, my impressions of the game had changed significantly – both for better and for worse.
The journey into the depths of this game seemed straight out of a Jules Vernes book – such was it’s difficulty. The first obstacle was the strange, horrible squid-like entity that was FilePlanet, which constantly refused to dispense its product. After 3 days of wrestling, the Beta finally installed on my desk – but that’s all it did. Oh yes, I’d launch the game and get to stare at that sweet, sexy picture of Natasha on the forefront – but then the game would just sit there, staring at me as it belched an Invalid ID error that denied my every attempt at getting online. Nine days of struggling later, the 1.03 patch came out and fixed the problem. At last, with my hopes raised and with eager anticipating, I was able to get in and get online!
Of course, disappointment tends to be a flat brick wall that, for some strange reason, I end up eventually running into quite often these days. As I continued to play over the next few days, the RA3 beta just proved to be another example of that in quite a few ways – but where do I start with this? There is so much that was done right – yet, so much that wasn’t.
Perhaps the best place to begin is the most obvious: the graphics. From what I can tell, RA3 uses a similar engine to that of C&C 3, so there is a bit of familiarity for those that have stuck with the C&C franchise so far, so there’s nothing new nor any complaints in that department. In fact, there are some bits I have to compliment the devs on; the models are well made, the lighting is pretty neat and what caught my eye most though, were the building animations. The building animations for the Soviets are incredibly well detailed and animated, making them a treat to watch especially up close. The basic animations for the units were quite dynamic and interesting as well. It is the art direction however, that I find a major issue with.
There is something about RA3’s art style that is completely wrong. Its hard to describe – RA1 and 2 had this grittiness to it – a realism in the style of their vehicles even when the vehicles themselves were the most ridiculous things ever conceived. In RA2 (and it’s add-on, Yuri’s Revenge) Both the allied and soviet’s designs were always grounded in reality in terms of their looks.
The prism tank for instance was actually that – a tank, with the prism cannon on top. The Soviet V3 launcher was a flatbed truck with an oversized missile on it, just like one would expect from the military today, while even Yuri’s mastermind tank had a similar design philosophy. This grittiness was part of the charm of the previous entries and allowed one to escape into the game where there was at least some visual similarity to the reality around us.
Whereas in Red Alert 3 a lot of this has been abstracted to a ridiculous extreme. I honestly would not have minded a completely new set of units – after all, change is good as they say – as long as the old art style was kept intact… but this? This is just… it just feels wrong on so many levels.
The sad part is that they’ve done the extra-crazy in all the utterly wrong places, while leaving everything else bland and boring. Take the gameplay, for instance. For one, the economy has been utterly reduced – rather than use the old harvester + field combination, they decided to go the same route as Dawn of War and keeping the resources as static emplacements – ore mines that can be harvested by whomever can control them. It’s an interesting departure from the old dynamic – one of the only changes that really appeals to me in the game. It lets you focus more on the battle and tactics than it does your economy, which is neat. Kinda. Sorta.
The way the collection works is pretty weak, however. The interesting bit in RA2 used to be the differences in the three side’s harvesters. Yuri’s slave collectors used to go out, have slaves harvest the minerals and then come back. The Soviet harvesters used to have guns that protected them against opponents, while the Allied Harvester was weaker but had a Chrono Teleporter that let it get to base easily. This diversity lent itself to giving each side a bit of personality and uniqueness – something that is sorely lacking here. None of those interesting dynamics come into play here save for the Allied Collector, which can setup a forward base when deployed. Otherwise it’s rather boring, to be honest.
What is even more upsetting is the sheer blandness in the unit varieties as well. Despite each side having a neat selection of units, their very limited with few of the classics we know and recognize – nor is there much difference between them. There is no prism tank; instead replaced by the Athena that is 10% the coolness. The Apocalypse no longer has an anti-air function and now its main cannons are useless since it’s always easier to just harpoon enemy tanks. In fact, the only units in the game that I’d dare say is more awesome than its predecessor is the Kirov, which now has a booster ability, and the Mirage tank, which is finally made to be more than a nuisance at best. Also, last minute addition: the Bullfrog is no-holds barred pure awesome when it’s catapulting Soviet Bears over an enemy’s walls.
Every other unit seems… bland, in comparison to what it was like in RA2. Consequently, this had made the game itself quite boring – at least in multiplayer. I remember many fond games in RA2, against other new people that had barely figured out the game and the sheer hilarity that used to come from those games thanks to the variety of tactics available – it was really ridiculous, insane fun.
There’s none of that here – for some reason it all feels like “serious business”. There’s no Yuri here, which given the context of the story, I can understand – but the new Japanese side hardly add the same kind of dynamics that Yuri’s side did. Sure, they have greater mobility in their transforming units – but that feels like a cheap copout. It also seriously feels like Japanophile Mecha Wanking as well – which just adds to the earlier mentioned feeling of disconnection to the game.
Hell, all my games in the RA3 beta thus far have involved nothing but spamming units, taking out the enemy’s base and then mopping up the rest of his units or having the same inflicted upon me. The Generals style “reward” system and special abilities is neat – but at the same time, it hardly adds anything to the gameplay save a bit of randomness. The super weapons it affords aren’t very spectacular either – most disturbing is the utter lack of nukes. Part of the Soviet’s entire spiel in RA2 were the end-game nukes, which were awesome, while the Allies had the equally awesome weather control device – which, too, is lacking from here.
But the one thing in all of this that annoys me the most, above all else: Where the hell is Crazy Ivan?! Using Crazy Ivan was, well, crazy! Sticking C4 on cows and then sending them to the enemy’s base? Explosively hilarious! Sticking C4 onto the prism tank as you successfully sneaked on them from behind? Nothing but an absolute blast! Where are the Libyan Demolition Trucks? The German Tank Destroyers? Where the hell are the Squids?
There’s just so much missing from RA3 that could’ve made it so much more dandy that it’s a damn shame. But I digress. I’ve gone on ranting too much on how much it’s not like RA2, when by right it probably shouldn’t be. Instead, I should be judging it based on its own merits: the only problem is, I can’t find any.
Okay, sure there is the neat, simplified economy, the faster pace of gameplay and maybe some of the cool graphics. The fact that you can now build on the sea and that essentially the entire map is now your playground is another good thing that I’m particularly happy about, especially the large number of amphibious units that can make or break a game.
But at the same time, this has come at the cost of diversity. They really could’ve had potential for massive sea battles – in essence hot battleship-on-battleship action that could’ve made every single complaint mentioned so far utterly null and void. But no, EA doesn’t want to give you that kind of experience.
The only side that gets anything remotely resembling battleships is the Japanese. The Soviets get the missile dreadnought, while the Allies get their Carrier. While I’m all for sticking to one’s roots, putting emphasis on the sea combat should’ve been more important by creating a larger diversity of units dedicated to fighting there – as it stands, a large percentage of the sea units are amphibious; while the really big ones can be just knocked out by air units too easily.
I honestly would not have minded them dropping the aircraft carrier and dreadnought in favor of watching the sheer force of an Iowa vs. Yamamato scenario, duking it out with fantastic broadsides. Hell, if at all possible, I’d buy the game just to see that happen.
Everything else is either reinterpreted from C&C3 or Generals and doesn’t represent anything new, notable or fun (at least, to me) while at the same time, representing a style that doesn’t fit in with what one would expect from the Red Alert franchise.
All the craziness is in all the wrong places and as it stands now the multiplayer is at best mediocre – I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody above Dawn of War or World in Conflict, both of which have far superior diversity than this. My hopes have almost completely been dashed by this dull offering – at least, that is, till I saw the theatrical trailer for the SP campaign, which looks extremely promising.
In fact, I can go so far as to summarize this entire thing in one paragraph:
There is no Red Alert here. The entire thing is just C&C3/Generals covered by a cardboard cutout with the words “Red Alert 3” written onto it with a pencil. If you’re looking for a good multiplayer game, go for either of the aforementioned. The only reason you should in your right mind check out RA3 will be its single player campaign – which just by judging from the cast and trailer, really promises to rock on.
At least I hope it will.
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| By N2H | |||||||||
September 17th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
OUCH !! This is not good news.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Depressing. I had hoped the Red Alert franchise would still be going “strong”, Singh, but from what you’ve mentioned that’s just a failed expectation of better times.
October 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 am
dont listen to this guy… the game s awesome.. been playin the beta for quite sometime. IT WAS AWESOME!!! i ve been a huge RA fan(almost 13 yrs) and this game is certainly a game worthy of it s name. SINGH u suck. learn how to review a game.
November 5th, 2008 at 2:49 am
What, learn from you? Your typing skills are a nightmare. We don’t listen to people like you no matter what they have to say.