Red Alert 3

[Bjorn]

Ok, got game... tried it out... and I am left wondering...

Game now freatures giant walking pwnzor japanese robots like from some bad anime... Not to mention power katanas on soldiers... and armored attack bears... I think developers took all that too far away.

There are lots of things that are... done wrong and useless. For instance, interface is divided rather wierdly... with minimap actually obstructing 1/8 of the screen, instead being incoorporated in interface that does not clip over play map, but is around it. All units have special ability now... yeah, ok great... but RA series was actually popular because of simple controls... required level of micromanagment needed to bring out maximum in units is taking out fun of living(or playing in this case).

Some unit designs (Sickle, guardian, almost all naval units) is... looking like its made for show more than for war(another thing on contrary to series).

Game is trying to force you to play it online... I appreciate the effort, but its too anoying... Even more so that all campaign maps are designed to be played in cooperative. Concept is good but trying to play whole game campaign with your average **** talking online games players is just plain optimism. Co-comander AI is good tho. Its fine enough to do the job, but its bad one when you are in support role(second soviet map for example).

Also there is lots of things that makes no sense or are rather tasteless:

1. If Eninstein is removed in 29... how did he defeat Hitler in 39? Since defeart of hitler before rise of 3rd Reich is reason soviets survived and developed like they did.

2. Soviets lost nuclear weapons due to fact atomic theory is undiscovered, but still they use enormous submarines... And energy building is called reactor.

3. Allies use police to do army work?

4. Empire hero... emo psyker college girl that can fly... WTF?

5. Bad russian accent faking with obvius british accent trying to be muffled on some actors.

6. Female clothing design... Trying to make into porn industry?

Also there are good sides of game as such. But they are all related to RA3 alone and set it too apart from original series.

Game is fairly balanced and difference between nations is big enough. Also there are some interesting stuff in it, like special abilities you can gain from fighting that was introduced in C&C: Generals, that is somewhat upgraded in RA3.
Even if you play single nation, switching nation does not require extensive practice of new theories, and game is rather intuitive on this part. But still keeping a difference is big win.
Even if uniqe abilities of each unit are tiresome to use, they are varied enough, and keep in theme. Also some of them are rather inovative. But on note here, some are probably intended as comic relief(shrink ray for example).
New ability to build most of structures on water is interesting change. It gives more strategical leeway.
Some of idle animations on infantry are really fun to watch.(like russian concript dancing Kozachok, or allies javelin trooper trying to balance its launcher on one hand)

Thats what i got from game. Its a good game, but it is not sort of sequel one would expect from Red Alert series.

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ISS-Zapotec