With Soviet conscripts threatening your front lines and terror drones eating away at your armor units, you finally decide to launch a major counter offensive with an array of Marine Harriers and grizzly battle tanks. But when you spot three Kirov bombers coming towards your base, you realize that you’ve forgotten to increase your precious air defenses! Your only hope is to fortify what’s left of your base with deployed GI’s and hope the Soviet’s new Apocalypse tanks don’t overrun your front lines.
Behold, finally the visionaries of Westwood gaming introduce “Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2” (RA2), the sequel to the best selling Red Alert strategy game. RA2 becomes the fifth installment of the Command and Conquer legacy that has received the critical acclaim of professional gamers around the world. Already RA2 has been swamped with awards, including being named “PC Gamer’s” strategy game of the year and multi-player game of the year. Its reviews mark the highest of any Westwood game so far, and personally it is not anything near an understatement.
RA2 is an interesting game with not only exciting meat grinding game play, but also an intricate story line that continues from Red Alert 1. Red Alert 1 installed an alternate timeline for the world as we know it. Famed scientist, Albert Einstein creates a time machine in 1947 and assassinates Hitler before he comes to power in Germany, allowing psycho killer Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union to invade Europe and create an alternate World War II. We win, of course, and that leads us to Red Alert 2, where the soviets that are supposed to be our buddies and led by a Romanov successor, try to attack us again. The story line offers an abundance of new cool characters played out by actors like Billy Corbin (the old NASA guy from “Northern Exposure”) and Ray Wise (“Twin Peaks”).
The game play of RA2 is fast paced and very intense, with cool units like Prism tanks and Telsa troopers to fuel its diversity from any game on the market. RA2 is also one of the best multi-player games I’ve ever played. It is set up with a constantly updated Internet player and ranking database, with an easily accessible gaming page that is totally free for all RA2 players! It allows you to play people from around the world and win cool prizes if your rank is the highest (I’ll never get there).
It is abundantly obvious that Westwood has learned its lesson from previous Command and Conquer games, for the game play is virtually impervious to cheaters and game tricks that could allow people to gain unfair advantages in battle.
If you are a strategy gaming fan, RA2 should be #1 on your next to buy list, and even if you just like playing cool PC games, check it out. I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.
WARNING: This game is highly addictive!