Red Alert 3 asks the question “What If?” What if every bizarre research project and technology experiment for the last 70 years had actually borne fruit? What if the Philadelphia Experiment, time travel theory, teleportation, invisibility, Tesla technology, and a hundred other intriguing research projects had all paid off and gone mainstream? What if the Soviet Union survived and thrived; what would it look like 10 years in the future? What if the Japanese Empire had never fallen and instead became the ultimate high-tech military superpower? The end result is an imaginative and playful vision of an alternate future filled with possibility. The desperate leadership of a doomed Soviet Union travels back in time to change history and restore the glory of Mother Russia. The time travel mission goes awry, creating an alternate timeline where technology has followed an entirely different evolution, a new superpower has been thrust on to the world stage, and World War III is raging. The Empire of the Rising Sun has risen in the East, making World War III a three-way struggle between the Soviets, the Allies, and the Empire with armies fielding wacky and wonderful weapons and technologies like Tesla coils, heavily armed War Blimps, teleportation, armored bears, intelligent dolphins, floating island fortresses, and transforming tanks.Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 from EA brings back the fan-favorite real-time strategy game with new features, powers, technologies, and a different world, all for the Xbox 360. In this newest version, you can play not just by yourself but also cooperatively with a friend as you take on the enemy in this glorious, over-the-top romp.
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Co-operative mode lets you and a friend play together in campaign mode. View larger. |
Wage battle on sea as well as on land and in air. View larger. |
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Intriguing Plot Twists
In previous games, the war between the Allies and Soviets was coming to a close with the Allies nearing victory. In desperation, the Soviets created a time-travel device that they’ve used to assassinate Albert Einstein before he is able to develop the weapon technology the Allies later use to defeat the Soviets. Upon returning, they notice a new world, and there is a world war taking place between three groups for control of the world.
Red Alert 3 continues Command and Conquer’s tradition of using live-action video scenes to tell the story. Presented in beautiful, high-definition video, Red Alert 3 features of an hour of footage with the largest cast ever assembled in the franchise. Play As Three Different Factions for Varied game play
In Red Alert 3, you have the choice to play as the Allies, the Soviets, or the Empire of the Rising Sun. Each faction has its own story-line and distinct units with advantages and disadvantages that you have to master in order to win. The new faction to the series is the Empire of the Rising Sun, derived from Imperial Japan, with an all-new cast of units and characters.
The three factions have many differences, which is exemplified by their wildly different types of units. The Soviets, for example, have armored attack bears, Allies have the Dolphin ship which can high jump and use a sonic attack, and the Empire of the Rising Sun features such quirky units as a giant transforming mecha and ninjas. As they’ve done with the series, EA injects humor into the game when possible, keeping a smile on your face as you wage war.
Fight on Land, in the Air, and on Sea
Red Alert 3 has land units, air units, and naval units, all integral parts of the game. Unlike most strategy games that don’t bother with naval warfare, Red Alert 3 makes controlling the seas an essential part of the game. Controlling resources in the seas and mounting attacks from all directions are strategies that must be employed to achieve victory.
Cooperative Mode Lets You Team Up with Your Friends
Red Alert 3 has a fully co-operative campaign mode where you and a friend can play together to achieve victory. This means that you have to develop a strategy together, as well as execute it in synch in order to win. If your friends aren’t online, you can also choose one of several AI commanders as your teammate.
Play Against Your Friends in Multiplayer
With the different units and play mechanics of each faction, you and your friends will have a great time playing against each other, perfecting different strategies to best suit the units you have and the maps you play on. And thanks to the balanced game play, no one will have an unfair advantage.
Innovative Interface for Xbox 360
Real-time strategy games have traditionally been the PC gamer’s domain, but thanks to a new and enhanced version the CommandStick interface implemented in Red Alert 3, Xbox 360 gamers will have a control scheme that offers the speed and efficiency of the keyboard and mouse.
For previous fans of Command and Conquer, Red Alert 3 will provide the same light-hearted game play, but with more units, more strategies, and more fun. Newcomers to the game will soon see what all the fuss and laughter is about.
Product Features
- Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 for the Xbox 360 brings back the fan-favorite real-time strategy game
- The Soviets created a time-travel device which creates interesting plot twists
- Play as the Allies, the Soviets, or the Empire of the Rising Sun
- Red Alert 3 has land units, air units, and naval units, all integral parts of the game
- Cooperative campaign and head-to-head multiplayer modes provide hours of fun gameplay
Battle Hymn of the Mother Land!! For many real time strategy (RTS) games, the Command and Conquer franchise is something akin to Final Fantasy of the RPG genre or how Madden is to sports; they ARE the standard in their respective genre. Since the mid 1990s Command and Conquer set the bar high on how RTS games should be with building menus, console interface (ever tried to command whole units with just a cumbersome controller?), cut scenes, and story. Command and Conquer traditionally also have a stellar cast of characters played by big Hollywood actors including James Earl Jones, Michael Beihn, Michael Ironside, Billy Dee Williams, etc.That said, after finishing up the last of the Empire of the Rising Sun (Japanese) campaigns, I am happy to say that Red Alert 3 lives up to the tradition set forth by its predacessors.For those of you, who are not familiar with Command and Conquer or are a casual gamer, here is what you need to know. Red Alert 3 is a real time strategy game where you, utilizing a bird’s-eye-view, build a base for your faction, raise an army and quell your enemies into proverbial dust. Simple enough?Well, RTS games are typically for more advanced players (unless you’re playing Starcraft j/k) but Red Alert 3 has an easy enough interface and, better yet, a multi-part interactive turtorial where the tanks from each faction teach you how to play. Despite being an avid RTS gamer, I thought I’d utilize the tutorial to see the new changes made to the interface (that and you get a gamer score for completing all tutorials) and it was worth it. Between the witty banter between the tanks (I swear, the Allied tank sounds just like Jeremy Clarkson from Top Gear) and the gamer score, listening to what they had to say was worth it.Once you have memorized how to play, you’ll realize that Electronic Arts really improved the console interface. One of the largest problems with RTS games on a console as opposed to a PC is a loss of control. Ever tried to simultaneously command numerous units with a cumbersome controller? It can turn a great game into a nightmare and by that I’m refering to Supreme Commander. You feel like a lobster with oven mits on as you would traditionally try to carefully select the units you want, which would necessitate you move individual units first into a staging area to be selected in one group. Meanwhile, some 14-year-old in Germany is kicking your backside and cursing at you like some demon child in a foreign language.EA considerably simplified the interface by allowing the player to hold down the “A” button and a small green circle appears that the user can move around the battlefield and select any units he or she wishes. Now, if you want to control a specific kind of unit, while having the units selected you hold the right trigger and a menu pops up allowing you to only select that kind of unit. As opposed to other interfaces, this makes things a LOT less cumbersome.*On a side note, I have not yet played Kane’s Wrath so I am unfamiliar with their interface so anyone feel free to correct me if they did it first*To makes matters more simplified, EA fixed several issues that have riddled RTS games for well over a decade. One of them was that in many RTS games if the unit is moving to a location they will blatantly ignore everyone firing at them or plow clean through them. With Red Alert 3, a player can select a fire-move order that allows the unit to engage any unit they encounter along the way but continue once they have eliminated said unit. This makes a bounding overwatch movement (one covers while the other moves than roles are reversed) and other movements MUCH easier.So, the controller interface is very much improved for console systems and makes commanding individual units and smaller squads MUCH easier. The next interface issue is the balance of power between the three factions. In Red Alert 3 you have the option of playing as the traditional Soviet Union or the Allies but EA has introduced the Empire of the Rising Sun or the Japanese. This makes the game much more interesting as you now have to rotate your tactics MUCH more now although I anticipate more gamers will play as the Japanese given their unique nature (that and, for some reason, gamers are obsessed with that bloody island of copy/cats).Normally, RTS games with more than two factions fail due to a lack of balance. Even Starcraft possessed balance problems with the three factions they had. For once, the balance seems almost perfect whether it be the advantages and disadvantages of how buildings can be placed or how some weapons have secondary weapons. For instance, the most basic display of balance is how the construction yards work. For the Allies the construction yard takes a traditional method as buildings are built out of site, then you can place them on the field but they take a while. Meanwhile, the Soviet…
Great fun I have been a long time RTS player on the PC and played and mastered skirmishes in games like AOE, AOM, Star Wars RTS, Red Alert 2 among others. This game stands its own among these. I would say compared to these games on the PC, options like number of factions, or unit types, or even buildings are few. Also resource collection in the Red Alert series is lame (have only one type of resource and an ore collector – most probably there will be a resource crunch throughout). Having said that I would still highly recommend this game for the skill level and the fun factor. The factions are very well thought out and designed. The graphics are great too. This game requires channelling all the resources to the war! So beware and be ready…