Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (PC)
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11/3/2008 9:30 PM | 31 Comments | Page 3 of 4
What's Hot: Superfast gameplay, if you're into that sort of thing
What's Not: Bad pacing; Uninspired design; Derivative units; Cartoony graphics; Juvenile cut scenes
Traveling in pairs
Typically scripted mission on typically maze-like maps
The single-player campaign is a collection of typical missions with no meaningful way of hanging together. The twist in
Red Alert 3 is that every single mission can be played cooperatively (I guess EALA figured the usual "comp stomp" multiplayer matches weren't enough). Some of these are scripted so that one player might have to play a typical commando mission while another player plays a typical base building mission. Sometimes they'll mix it up, so the other player plays a typical base building mission and his companion plays a typical commando mission. Sometimes the typical base building missions are played using different factions. All the missions are built with brittle scripting that can be beaten by brute force or by figuring out the puzzle solution. In most of these situations, it hardly matters whether you can manage the units' special abilities -- so for dumb fun, you could do worse. A bad RTS alone is worse than a bad RTS cooperatively.
The live-action cut scenes between missions used to be a guilty pleasure, but the schtick is so played out. These aren't the 1990s anymore, when we were grateful for any C-level celebrity who deigned to appear in a videogame. It's such a terrible waste that EALA has absolutely nothing clever or entertaining for this handful of accomplished actors, who wear silly costumes and deliver dull mission briefings at the camera. They rarely interact, and almost without exception, they look uncomfortable. Only Peter Stormare and Tim Curry, veterans of C-grade schlock, seem to be enjoying themselves. Everyone else looks out of place and confused and mostly waiting for the cameras to stop shooting. And it's such transparent and shameless pandering when EA insists that all the women neglect to button up their blouses. Do they assume we all have the mentality of 14-year-old boys? Don't answer that question, by the way. It was strictly rhetorical.
Gingerbread tanks
Units as colorful and as durable as candy
And as for the game's graphics, there's pretty much nothing here. You get the typical tanks and soldiers in broad strokes, but with bright cartoon colors, like candy or toys. It just reinforces the idea that these units are throwaway bits, fragile and disposable. It's a sad state of affairs when the best graphics are used in the menu screens. There is almost nothing clever or creative in how the units work, either. I suppose a Terror Drone destroying a tank from within is still pretty entertaining, and it's gratifying to see Dolphins destroy an enemy navy, but 90 percent of the units feel uninspired. The same is true of many of the global powers you can use during a game. They're mostly too fiddly or too mild.
