Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC, PS3, XBox 360, and OS X)

After World War II in his genius and his hubris Albert Einstein built a time machine and used it to go back in time to kill Hitler before his rise to power. Unfortunately without Hitler there was nothing to stop the meteoric rise of Stalin. Feeling personally responsible, Einstein used his genius to make the Allies new and incredible weapons that could crush the Soviet war machine. This left the Soviets desperate, but their network of spies was still good. They used these covert agents to steal the designs for the very time machine Einstein used to kill Hitler and a lowly aide uses it to go back in time to kill Einstein himself. Ignoring the grandfather paradox taking place here, if Einstein doesn’t exist, he doesn’t make nuclear weapons. If there are no nuclear weapons then the war with Japan did not end in their surrender. That’s right! Now it’s a three way free-for-all between the Tesla powered Soviets, the propaganda fueled Allies, and the crafty Empire of the Rising Sun. You play as an enterprising commander in the nation of your choice to take back the glory of your home and crush your enemies!

Behold, the leaders of the not so free world. Yes, that is George Takei as the Emperor of Japan and Tim Curry as the Premier of Russia.

History

Red Alert 3 was developed by Electronic Arts. It was unofficially announced in 2004 by Mark Skaggs after the release of The Battle for Middle Earth but Mark left EA soon after. Red Alert 3 wasn’t spoken of again until 2008 when PC Gamer had the game as their cover story. The most note-worthy aspect of the development of Red Alert 3 is that it used the controversial SecuROM system. So, check this, the SecuROM system makes it so each CD key could only be used five times. If you uninstall the game and reinstall it or change video drivers it might use up one of your 5 installs. Eventually backlash from the players caused EA to abolish the system’s use in this game over time.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 was released on October 28th, 2008. It’s competition was Fallout 3 (PS3, Xbox 360, and PC), World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC and Mac), and LittleBigPlanet (PS3).

Experiences

The live action segments are the best part of this game. It’s satire at its best and they got great actors to play all the characters. I stand by that the live action cast was only given their scripts moments before filming. It’s the only explanation that I can find for this scene.

Just… everything about it is comedy gold. The way Curry is trying to keep a straight face, the little false start he’s got before he delivers the final line, and the way he bellows “SPACE” like he didn’t know that was the line until it came out of his mouth.

Gameplay

Unlike Mob Rule, Red Alert 3 is your quintessential RTS. You build buildings, those buildings produce units, you manage your resources, and build an army that will counter your opponent’s. You’ve also got a bar that builds and accrues points which you can spend on your factions special abilities like an orbital launch or flash reinforcements from a splintered timeline– the bar builds faster the more combat you’re in so get to fighting.

First one to blow up your opponent’s base wins.

You can play against the AI or other players in skirmish maps online. The game has also got a story campaign with 10 unique missions per faction. Normally each map gives you an AI companion but you can replace that digital dummy with a real player if you want– an RTS first by my reckoning.

The Gush

I already mentioned how much I loved the live action cutscenes. They’ve got more camp than a hundred tents put together– a secret button is hidden in a bust of Lenin for goodness sake. The only thing better is watching all the behind the scenes outtakes and silliness.

Holy co-op Comrade, you can play the main campaign with a friend. I recommend doing this because the AI isn’t exactly reliable. But if you’re not feeling the love then the AI will be a competent ally.

Normally naval combat is a poorly designed tacked on thing — I’m looking at you Warcraft 2 — but Red Alert 3 throws in a bunch of interesting and useful amphibious units. As a matter of fact every factions unique Commando unit is amphibious as well. Why did it take us this long to think of naval artillery?

The Kvetch

This game is uncomfortably sexist sometimes. From the scantily clad and sexualized Commandos to Tim Curry checking out his secretary’s ass and grinning at the player it’s all just a little cringe-worthy. The allied campaign even ends with the commander being rewarded with a night with the Allied commando or the Allied communications officer– just… blugh.

Pictured is the Allied Commando and all the combat gear she isn’t wearing and her in game model is similar.

The Soviet campaign at least has got some insane difficulty spikes. It took me three tries to beat the fourth mission and then I breezed through the rest. Last I checked difficulty is supposed to be curve with the game getting more difficult as it goes on.

Spoilers, but the Soviet campaign culminates in the destruction of the Statue of Liberty. I was so excited and totally pumped to kick J.K. Simmons out of the White House but I dunno man, the whole thing just felt toothless. The mission is pretty easy and the ending is just such a let-down. There’s a toast and you’re suddenly the new Premier, nothing makes sense. I haven’t played the other campaigns but I hope their endings are more satisfying than the Soviet one.

The Verdict

I’d say that Red Alert 3 is worth it for the cut-scenes alone. If you’ve got any interest in real-time strategy games then I’d say go for it. But if they’re not your thing then you could just look up all the cut-scenes online. It’s $20 on Steam and it’s got a $20 expansion pack and I would suggest waiting for it to go on sale. They’re also available on PS3 and Xbos 360 and I can’t speak to the quality of the console ports but Starcraft 64 has always made me wary of console strategy games.

Next Week: Borderlands 2

The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age

Introduction

 There have been a few Lord of the rings games, from the disastrous Super Nintendo title –which should have been called Hobbits in Caves: The Game– to the Playstation 2 series of hack and slash games. It was time for The Lord of the Rings to be more than a game where you kill orcs one after another in real time. It was time for The Lord of the Rings to be a game where you killed orcs one after another with TURN BASED COMBAT. You play as a group of adventurers who totally aren’t the fellowship of the Ring — I mean, you don’t have a hobbit character so it’s totally not the same– and you must go… find Boromir for some reason. And then go do other things too… it’s… weird.

This is Berethor, the main character. Now that I look at this guy I don’t think he ever smiles. He’s actually got that scowl bolted to his face.

History

This game was made by Electronic Arts — put the torches and pitch forks down, you can go commit mob violence after this is done. They got Steve Gray on board, this guy worked on Final Fantasy VII and Parasite Eve, and he had wanted to make a Lord of the Rings RPG since the 90s so there was legitimate passion in this project.

EA owned the license to make games based on the movies and this created some weird snags in what they could depict. This meant that they could only use things that had been in the movies or WERE NOT in the books — this will important later.

Lord of the Rings: The Third Age was released on November 2nd 2004. It’s competition was Half-Life 2 (PC), Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines (PC), and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2).

Experiences

Gray said that he wanted this game to sort of dance around important events in the series, “You travel on a sort of “S” curve that weaves in and out of the path of the Fellowship through the story of the trilogy.” This meant that in moments that you’re closest to them you’d want to be doing the coolest things, right? That’s what I thought when I was 17. I wanted to fight the Balrog with Gandalf, defend Helm’s Deep, fight the Witch King of Angmar — which are all things you get to do in the game. But looking back on it, it seems so silly and so dumb.

It might be awesome to fight the Balrog but it’s established that Gandalf was the only one who held a candle to the being of fire and shadow– he’s really the only one in the in-game fight who can do any damage anyway. The Witch King was totally Eowyn’s fight, she had that guy’s number, and for some auburn haired dude with a sword and a shield to finish The Witch King off is just sort of insulting. I don’t know how it could have been done any other way but I think it might have been best not done at all.

So none-canon that it hurts.

Gameplay

The game is an RPG with turn based combat so there’s not much to talk about when it comes to the gameplay department. Each character has hit points and Action Points –mana points, basically– which they expend to use special abilities. Each of the characters follows Final Fantasy class design pretty closely. We got a warrior, red mage, blue mage, knight, thief, and… whatever Eaoden is — seriously he’s hard to encapsulate, it’s like the designers just gave him all the leftover abilities and called it good. You can have four party members out at any given time and can even switch them out in the middle of battles too.

That series of portraits in the upper right hand corner show what order the turns will be in.

Items are extremely valuable in this game. Although some are dropped by enemies you’ll mostly be relying on what you find in chests throughout the game. This game might not have given me potion paralysis — the reluctance to use items unless they’re truly needed– but it certainly didn’t help it either. Each character has unique equipment that actually alters their appearance.

What makes an RPG really shine is the story and the characters, in this department The Third Age is lacking hard. I struggle to remember any distinct traits about any of the characters and have a hard time remembering why their adventure was important for any reason other than that Fellowship thing being mighty important.

The Gush

Evil mode is the most original and incredible idea this game introduces. After you beat a chapter you can play through that chapter again in Evil Mode. Evil Mode is a series of fights where you play as the monsters fighting the heroes. Beating the good guys unlocks new equipment that just sort of teleports into your character’s inventory but the only thing that’s more awesome — even if it is dumb — than fighting the Balrog is being the Balrog.

“Pardon me, I think I’ll just pass if you don’t mind.”

Each character plays really differently, especially Eaoden — I mean, he’s got attacks that raise your opponents stats but do more damage. It’s really easy to make a team that matches your playstyle from the given characters.

The divergences between this game and the established series are actually pretty good. Helping the elves kill some orcs while they leave their homes is pretty cool. Killing Grima Wormtongue at a random Rohan town was sort of weird but not totally bad. You also take alternate routes through places Moria and other locations.

The Kvetch

Any dialogue voiced by a member of the Fellowship is either reused clips from the movie or was impersonated poorly. They got them into sound booths for the other games, I don’t know why they couldn’t do it for this one.

Attack animations are fluid and quick but spell animations take forever. I think an hour of gameplay was just waiting for Idrial or orcs to throw spells around. I would eventually stop using her spells just because their animations just took so damn long.

If I have to watch this troll beat his drum one more time…

When a character isn’t in combat they don’t get experience points. If you pick a team you’d best be ready to commit because those other shmucks are gonna get left in the experience point related dust. Character’s join at roughly the same level so they all get a fair shot but if you didn’t keep Elegost around then you can be sure that when you need his bow to fight someone then you won’t be having it.

I don’t know if it’s explained in the game, I didn’t catch it when I played through, but I had no idea what any of the stats did. Strength, Spirit, Constitution, Speed, and Dexterity aren’t exactly a good representation of what they do. I understand what Constitution and Strength do but what’s the difference between Speed and Dexterity and what does Spirit do at all?

The final boss is the fucking Eye of Sauron. There’s no real build up. You fight the Witch King and after he dies it’s just *bloop* fight this asshole. He’s big, got a lot of health, and is a total pushover. When he’s dead, cut to credits. It’s the dumbest thing in any Lord of the Rings game ever.

The Verdict

What it comes down to is that if fighting the Balrog alongside Gandalf doesn’t sound like the stupidest, canon breakingest, over the top thing that you’ve ever considered doing in a game then you’ll find this game palatable. Or at the very least, if you can look past doing stuff like that then there’s a solid RPG underneath.

Next Week: Killer 7