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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 Review November 7, 2000 Red Alert 2 features two seperate campaigns, one for the Allies and one for the Soviets. Each mission within a campaign is introduced with a live-action FMV, sometimes mixed with a bit of CGI (you don't expect them to use REAL aircraft carriers, do you?). The acting is simply superb, and each character has his or her own distinct personality. For instance, a certain bald Whitehouse General in the Allied missions is extremely proud and doesn't think America needs any help with the Soviet threat. Tanya is especially rebeliious and demanding, but she's the best in her field. Each mission presents the player with a new set of objectives that must be completed to progress to the next mission. The goals are usually nicely varied and not repetetive, ranging from using just Tanya and some Spies to take out a couple of Soviet nuclear missile silos, to re-capturing the Pentagon, to your standard "eliminate all Soviet forces in the area" missions. Almost all of the units in Red Alert 2 are brand new, introducing new strategies and tactics to figure out with the new tanks, ships, and planes. Each race of the Allies and Soviet Union has their own special unit or building. For instance, the Americans can para-drop a bunch of GIs anywhere on the battlefield, the Koreans have the best jets available in the game, the Black Eagles, and the British have access to the Sniper, a unit that excels in picking of enemy infantry from a great distance. None of the units of Red Alert 2 are "useless", and each has their niche. The simple GI is useful throughout the entire game, first serving as your main attack force and later as distractions and cannon fodder. You may think that the Grizzly Tank is easily outmatched by its big brother, the Prism Tank, but a horde of Grizzly Tanks excellent at taking out enemy defenses and buildings. The units are nicely animated and move smoothly about the terrain. One of the features of Red Alert 2 is the "3D" terrain; that is, terrain with hills and craters that your units will move over realistically. Looking at the slopes of a crater, you can see blocky terrain tiles, showing that Red Alert 2's terrain was meant to be flat, and should've been left that way. It isn't really noticeable unless you specifically look for it, so its nothing to really worry about. The game's AI is actually very good. On the easiest difficulty setting, it'll feel like you're fighting a 6-year old, as the computer will constantly send around seven to ten soldiers to your heavily-defended base, only to be shot down. They will utilize their special weapons such as the Iron Curtain and Nuclear Missile, though wasting an Iron Curtain (a device which makes a group of units invincible for a set amount of time) on two low-grade tanks reminds you of what difficulty setting you're on. Up the ante, say, to its highest level, and you're in for a near-impossible battle. The enemy gets very smart, very fast, and seems to pre-calculate the next one million moves you'll try against it, and seems prepared for everything. It can be outsmarted, however, though doing so is a very challenging ordeal. The main part of Red Alert 2, that is, the building part, is very intuitive and simple. Your MCV is a mobile base that looks like a big truck, and can deploy into a Construction Yard. From there you can build a wide selection of buildings. Resources come in the form of Tiberium, a locally-growing mineral which is harvested by ore trucks. Having duplicates of a certain kind of building, such as a pair of War Factories, will simply increase the speed that units from it are built as opposed to allowing you to build out of both of them simultaneously. If you've ever played a Command & Conquer game in the past, you'll feel right at home. Otherwise, the game's Tutorial will show you all you need to know.
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