Starcraft II
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty, and its following expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void mark the long awaited continuation of Blizzard Entertainment’s landmark RTS title Starcraft, one of the most popular and successful real-time strategy games of all time. Starcraft II follows directly on the heels of the narrative setup by the original game with numerous characters returning to fill greatly expanded roles. Mechanically the sequel builds heavily off its predecessor, continuing and expanding on many classic mechanics and strategies.
When taken all together, Starcraft II’s campaign, formed of three individual campaigns each released with the base game or one of the expansions, is perhaps the greatest single RTS production element in the second decade of the 2nd millennium. Each campaign focuses on one of the game’s three main races, and follows iconic characters that were the movers and shakers from the previous game as they continue to chart their own paths, and those of their respective races, through the deepening conflicts in their home system. The various campaign sections feature new units, mechanics, and abilities beyond Starcraft II’s standard multiplayer fare; these variations not only keep the very large string of missions exciting and engaging, they also perfectly showcase how effectively the game’s design tools were implemented and thus the great level of customization available to modders. This is all in addition to watching a very colorful cast of characters interact between missions inside the “command ship”, a semi-interactive debriefing and prepping area that serves as the “lobby” for the campaign missions and the workshop were the player upgrades and customizes their units and abilities.
The downtime between missions is another great addition from Blizzard. Pacing is balanced between diverse and sometimes rather hectic missions and the controlled, casual environment of the command ship, without ever bringing the player out of the overall campaign experience. Aside from a slightly distorted sense of time, primarily due to “time-sensitive” missions being optional due to multiple choice selections, the game world and its nuances are continually in the fore of the player’s space. The interaction between the different points of the command ship, and the characters within, also serve as the perfect vehicles to establish plot points and the campaign’s narrative in an environment where the player would not be easily distracted and can engage or skip them at leisure.
Pacing is most certainly an element that Starcraft is known for, at least as far as action economy is concerned. The first Starcraft was famous of high-speed, knife-edge missions and matches where players had to be continually focused on balancing long-term goals while addressing short term needs. Starcraft II maintains this trend most obviously in its multiplayer, and in its campaigns to a lesser extent. Blizzard was very careful to preserve the design elements and mechanics that make this level of action possible, including a proliferation of hot-keyed commands and abilities. The campaign missions are for the most part a more casual sampling, which is entirely appropriate considering the highly detailed levels, colorful faction designs, and intricate plots. Of course varying levels of difficulty are still including to satiate more experienced players and some of the higher level missions include their own parameters for increased challenges such as time-limits and resource limitation.
Starcraft II’s developers were also able to take advantage of its famed multiplayer and stellar single player to introduce an element that was still in its infancy at the time. Cooperative play, in which two or more players join together through LAN or internet play to complete a single mission, was introduced in the form of a specific multiplayer option where players could each take control of a commander, represented by one of the notable characters from the campaign, and lead their specific roster of units alongside their ally against singular pre-built missions. With each completed mission, the particular commander that was used gained experience, unlocking new units and abilities, up to a final level of 15. Over the years Blizzard released more coop commanders, gradually increasing not only the unit options but also the very mechanics of gameplay for each commander. Players can not only use familiar units from the campaign and multiplayer lineups, but also experience completely new rosters and mechanics developed specifically for cooperative play.
All of this variety comes in a refreshingly concise and smooth package. Starcraft II demands its share of memory space, but can operate on most internet connections and high graphics settings are manageable on just about any gaming computer currently on the market. It also launches quickly, has very well developed tools to maintain internet play, and practically seamless party chat and matchmaking tools. Its graphics levels have also aged well, and while not up to the standards of modern FPS titles it can still provide enough grand explosions and minute, interactive details to more than satisfy any level of RTS gamer.
It’s always difficult to confidently say that a particular title is the greatest genre champion of its generations, but as one of the few RTS franchises still viable and active, Starcraft II most certainly deserves accolades as a game worthy of its fanbase and the legendary popularity it has boasted over the years. It is still supported by Blizzard and continues to receive new content. The base game is also free to play and its other assets are available at reasonable prices through Battle.net. The RTS genre may have faded, but Starcraft II should still hold a place among anyone’s game library as an enjoyable single player experience and a fun multiplayer excursion.
They Are Billions: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY?!
Numantian Games’ most recent publication, They Are Billions, has challenged, exhilarated, and frustrated thousands of gamers since its release with its careful blend of strategic management and maddening action.
If you asked me what one of my strengths was in strategy games when I was younger and dumber, I would have puffed out my chest, and proclaimed proudly, “Turtling!“, causing all of my gamer friends to grumble in well-deserved frustration at my “irritatingly cheap tactics”. I don’t blame them at all (it was an annoying play style), but turtling still works as a viable tactic, and it is one that I could proudly say was part of my arsenal and one of the best tools I had. I felt unstoppable
Then I played They Are Billions…there goes THAT hard-earned point of pride.
On paper, They Are Billions sounds like it should be easy: You upgrade your colony of human survivors with impressive steampunk technology to survive in the zombie apocalypse for a set number of days. Okay, maybe not easy, but still manageable and easily comprehended.
Then you notice that you have eight resources to worry about on a procedurally generated map with limited land resources, and of course a metric TON of zombies (up to 20,000 on screen at once, an impressive feat in and of itself) of different shapes, sizes, and health bar lengths all around you.
And then you cry. Because it’s hard…very hard.
I bought They Are Billions when it was early-access, so I cut my teeth on the Survival mode. Basic setup is: Command Center, four Rangers, and a Soldier, go. A fine start, excepting the fact that if you could see the entire map, you would just see a literal OCEAN of red with a tiny piece of green in the middle (A bit too daunting for me, I think).
It won’t take long to learn that balancing your resources is critical, and sadly there are a few moments of getting bad placements that can be frustrating to impatient players. However you can just start another round if you’re feeling cheated, so the random map generation is not as problematic as I thought it would be.
Numantian Games created something special. I really wish I was better at it. I still have no idea if the developers actually intended the game to be beatable, but the time-sink still feels worth it for an experience that few, if any, RTS games have ever delivered, and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.
Epic Units: Part 2
This is the continuation of the epic units topic from previous post. Epic units had finally begun to enter mainstream Real-time Strategy gaming. Now it’s time to see what developers did with this growing concept.
When Electronic Arts defied expectations and made their RTS adaption of the Lord of the Rings film series an epic retelling with massive battles, grand fortresses, and larger than life heroes, it only stood to reason that such a game needed at least one super unit thrown in. The fiery demon of Moria, the Balrog, fulfilled this requirement in every way. The pinnacle of the evil forces’ power tree, the Balrog required a large number of power points to unlock (or successfully progressing through 2/3rds of the evil campaign). It was summoned rather than built, and only remained on the battlefield for a limited amount of time. Yet its raw power and special abilities gave it every advantage against whatever enemies it faced. Unless the great Gandalf was on the field, the Balrog was pretty much guaranteed to take the day.
By this point an epic unit of some kind was practically expected in any true RTS publication that was not a strictly historical/contemporary setting. If the game’s genre was sci-fi or fantasy, an epic unit was almost guaranteed to appear. This became readily apparent when Big Huge Games announced Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends, the series’ first foray away from historical settings. The epic units, or Master Units as they were called, were advertised from the beginning and no one was surprised at their inclusion. Indeed, their presence was a source of great excitement and anticipation among the RTS community; and they did not disappoint. Each unit was worth an army by itself, and possessed capabilities beyond what any other single unit-class in the game could deliver.
Now that epic units had become commonplace in RTS titles, it was time to make them a central part of game design. Gas Powered Games’ Supreme Commander was released to great excitement in the RTS community as it was billed as the spiritual successor to the much beloved Total Annihilation. Supreme Commander featured a full tier of epic units, dubbed experimental units (and buildings in the some cases), and a great deal of the game’s overall strategy revolved around acquiring these units quickly, or ensuring that opponents could not acquire them easily.
Some such units were so powerful that they were classified as “game-enders” and could be disabled in online or skirmish matches if the player(s) so choose. Surpreme Commander 2, a sequel released three years later, not only featured even more experimental units, but made them almost ubiquitous by going so far as to sideline conventional combat units to the pure rolls of cannon fodder and swarm tactics.
Even though the Command & Conquer franchise had been one of the first to introduce a super unit worthy of the title, it became rather anomalous by staying in production for over a decade without an epic unit of note. This would change with the release of Command & Conquer 3: Kane’s Wrath, which introduced three epic units, one for each game faction. These monstrous war machines physically and statistically dwarfed any other unit, and featured customization slots allowing them to be equipped with a variety of secondary weapons systems. Each epic unit could only be produced from an advanced version of the war factory and cost more credits than any other unit in the game.
Another Command & Conquer title, Red Alert 3, would be released later the same year. It never approached Kane’s Wrath’s level of epic integration, but it included a campaign only epic unit, the Shogun Executioner, that the player was allowed to control on a few occasions. On an interesting note, this would mark one of the rare times in all of RTS history that a campaign only epic unit was given freely to the player. In fairness, the Shogun Executioner was far from invincible, but its destructive capability surpassed even the faction super-weapons.
The epic units of RTS were the arcade bosses of old brought into the RTS genre. They were rarely the centerpiece of the game’s design or story, but each one almost always left a notable impression on the players that encountered them. As the years passed some players used them as a sort of handicap mode to test unique strategies or challenge themselves to defeat otherwise unbeatable opponents. Designers and producers that had grown up experiencing these battlefield giants in action now applied the concept to new genres and mediums; with movies, card games, literature, and video games on other platforms all featuring super units in one variation or another. The RTS genre may have become obscure as the new millennium moved on, but its contribution to the media presence of epic units is undeniable and will continue to be felt by gamers of all genres for generations to come.
Epic Units: Part 1
For a Real-Time Strategy player, there are few things more satisfying than the comprehensive act of causing immense digital destruction in a short amount of time. Traditionally this is accomplished utilizing super weapons like nuclear missiles or orbital bombardment, but starting in the mid-90s game developers provided players with a new way to devastate their opponents on the battlefield. Epic units, as they would come to be called, were powerful creatures or war machines that were incredibly durable, possessed immense destructive power, and were typically the pinnacle of the player’s economic and technological development. Their presentation and themes took different turns over the years, but the trend is unmistakable.
As with Westwood Studio’s iconic Mammoth Tank, the development of epic units had a slow and indeterminate start. In Blizzard’s landmark title Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, each race is able to use its highest tier caster to summon a powerful, temporary unit; the Water Elemental for the humans, and the Daemon for the orcs. While both units were not in the strictest sense epic, they were notable for requiring the highest possible concentration of resources to produce, and possessed combat abilities far beyond anything else the rest of the army rosters could muster. Despite this being something of a hallmark for things to come, Blizzard would never fully pickup on this trend.
That Westwood Studios would be the next developer to produce an example of a proto-epic unit is quite ironic given the rivalry it shared with Blizzard. Red Alert: The Aftermath, the second expansion to the popular Command & Conquer: Red Alert title, featured a single mission with three AI controlled “super tanks”. Although un-buildable and uncontrollable for the player, these tanks had all the features of an epic unit, which the mission proceeded to showcase as the tanks shrugged off tesla coils and nuclear warheads while laying waste to an extensive Soviet Base. Editing the unit files would allow modders to gain access to the super tanks, but as yet a true epic unit would remain out of reach of players for a few more months.
In March of 1998, Cavedog Entertainment would release the first expansion to its seminal product, Total Annihilation. The Core Contingency, as the pack was titled, introduced a host of new units to the base game, including the mighty and powerful Krogoth Experimental K-bot (k-bots being essentially single-purpose mechs). The Krogoth was a surprise for many Total Annihilation players as it had no direct counter or equivalent in the opposing faction. Additionally, its only weakness was its inability to cross water; in all other respects the Krogoth annihilated any form of opposition that could be sent against it aside from massed, accurate, long range firepower. The Commander unit could destroy it easily with its disintegrator, but only a skilled player could micro a Commander close enough without being obliterated in turn. Krogoths required immense time and resources to produce, and typically necessitated an immediate response by the opposition before the battle was swiftly resolved.
Westwood Studios would take a cue from the arcade and console traditions of the previous decade and introduce a “boss battle” in their Firestorm expansion to Tiberian Sun. The Core Defender was an enormous humanoid mech that towered over every unit and structure in the game. It activated after players completed the pen-ultimate objective in the final mission; with no warning or foreshadowing given that the Defender would even appear. Capable of dispatching the strongest units in seconds, the Defender’s only weakness was a lack of air defense, yet its enormous pool of hit points necessitated some very creative tactics that can still be found on various forums and videos today.
As the development era of the 2000s came into full swing, developers knew that super units were a rare but accepted aspect. The only challenge was balancing them, if they were available to the player at all. Ensemble Studio’s Age of Mythology featured several in-game cutscenes were deities and similar beings appeared on the battlefield and wrecked havoc, but it wasn’t until The Titans expansion came out that the enormous Titan units were made available to the player. Titans were far from invincible as they lacked air defense and the ability to traverse water. Yet they had the largest hit point pool of any buildable unit by a vast margin, and their attack could level buildings and finish off most units in a couple of hits. The most impressive feature of the titan was its scale, the enormous model was quite often the largest single object on the map.
After the success of Starcraft, and the publishing of expansions like the Core Contingency or The Titans, two developments became increasingly apparent. Firstly it was possible to safely provide players with epic units, secondly the standard “heavy” or “high tier” units like Terran Battlecruisers had slowly become just expensive cannon fodder in the faster paced meta of modern RTS games. Relic Entertainment’s Warhammer 40k franchise, Dawn of War, took this to heart by providing each playable faction in the base game and its expansions with a top tier unit. Typically these took the form of super heavy armored vehicles or supernatural gods and demons.
Each of them was, by default the last thing unlocked in a battle and required more resources than any other technology or unit. Additionally, players had to control at least one relic resource on the battlefield in order to even build these epic units, and only one such unit could be built at any time. Once constructed, these epic monsters and machines typically required an opposing epic unit to stop them, otherwise the battle was often resolved quickly. Another new development was the uniqueness of each epic unit. Each had its own quirks and mechanics, and they were not balanced around each other, but around their faction as a whole. Some were more effective as support weapons, others as frontline units or building destroyers. For the first time, epic units had transitioned from a class or type to an actual unit tier.
This topic turned out to be a bit longer than expected, so it’s being broken up into two releases. Now that we’ve had a chance to see where RTS epic units got their start, next time we’ll see what they turned into as the concept entered mainstream RTS gaming in force.
Cossacks: European Wars
With the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation’s commencement fast approaching, it seemed appropriate to reminisce on the Renaissance period with a game that covers a large portion of that period. Cossacks: European Wars was developed by GSC Gameworld and published CDV Software Entertainment in 2000. Two expansions, The Art of War and Back to War, appeared in 2002 expanding game content with new nations, units, and missions.
European Wars is the first title in the Cossacks series and, like many of its contemporaries, features many of the standard mechanics and conventions that defined RTS titles of the era. Factions appear as different historical nations from the 17th and 18th centuries and each brings a few unique units and/or buildings to differentiate their approaches to the battlefield. Base building and resource collection are accomplished by peasant worker units that are trained from the central town hall.
Axis & Allies
Axis & Allies is a video game adaption of Milton Bradley’s Axis & Allies strategy board game of the same name. Both games simulate the broad strategic situation of World War II at the beginning of 1942. Players take on the role of one of the five great powers: Germany, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The original board game focused on the strategic aspects of gameplay, while Axis & Allies the video game emphasizes real time strategy combat.
Axis & Allies features three single player modes. These include the campaign, in which the player takes the role of various Allied or Axis factions in key battles throughout WWII, with fictional “what-fi” scenarios serving as the majority of the Axis missions. Skirmish mode is a one-off match between the player and up to seven AIs played out on of the maps featured in the campaign or in WWII mode. Since there is no resource harvesting in Axis & Allies the size of the map is the only limiting factor for the number of players.
Command & Conquer Online: Westwood Classics
This December marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the landmark Real-Time Strategy game Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty by Westwood Studios. Dune II was not the first RTS game to be developed but its release marked the beginning of RTS as a major genre in PC, and to a lesser degree console, gaming. It introduced the mechanics and style that would be utilized in RTS games for the next decade, only being superseded by Blizzard’s variation of the genre after the release of Command & Conquer: Generals in 2003.
Since Dune II’s release Westwood Studios developed several RTS titles, with accompanying sequels, before its closure by Electronic Arts in early 2003. These included the seminal Command & Conquer and its associate spinoff Command & Conquer: Red Alert, as well as a remake of Dune II titled Dune 2000 which featured enhanced graphics and improved gameplay taken from the development of Red Alert. All of these titles stayed true to their original RTS format and nourished a thriving RTS community.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ in 2009 is the spiritual successor to Relic’s initial adaptation of Games Workshop’s dystopian sci-fi tabletop game, Warhammer 40,000. Dawn of War II has enough relation to previous titles in the series, namely in the its single player narrative, to warrant its claims as a sequel, but fans of the series will quickly recognize the numerous differences that make this follow-on radically different from its forebears.
Dawn of War II takes much of the inspiration for its gameplay mechanics from Relic’s other successful series: Company of Heroes. Combat consists of controlling a single, iconic commander unit and small squads (three to four soldiers) of specialized units. Cover is scattered around the map and divided into light and heavy cover which are identified by yellow and green movement markers respectively. Larger units and some special abilities demolish cover, exposing any troops that were sheltering behind it.
Each unit available to the player fulfills a particular role and is rarely, if ever, made obsolete by advances in production tiers. The standard format for each faction’s army consists of light scouts, adaptable main infantry, fire support and anti-armor infantry, super-heavy infantry, and light and heavy vehicles. The average combat force generally consists of six to eight infantry and one to two vehicles, in the campaign missions the force is limited to four units and the commander.
This style of gameplay actually hearkens more to the tabletop game’s most common format than it does to the original Dawn of War. The Warhammer 40k universe is well suited to this style and it allows the campaign missions to come off as flavorful, immersive, and dynamic. The characters take on more importance to the mission and to the player when each individual unit counts for something when the lead starts flying.
Yet this small squad format departs heavily from Dawn of War II’s predecessors. Large scale combat between armies was far more frequent in previous games and hero units, while still strong, served more as unique tactical assets rather than linchpins around which to form a strike team. In emphasizing small unit tactics Dawn of War II removed the galactic scale and sense of endless war from Warhammer 40k. Missions are engaging, but the player rarely gets a sense of how great an impact the victories are having on the conflict as a whole. Enemy forces, while always numerically superior and still dangerous, seem passive and underwhelming.
Dawn of War II’s campaign follows loosely after the events of the previous Dawn of War series and continues to follow the series’ protagonist faction, the Blood Ravens space marines. Several characters from previous campaigns appear as AI controlled allies or in cutscenes. The player controls a Force Commander that serves as his/her avatar and can be named by the player. Several squads of space marines, each representing a different combat type, serve as the force under the player’s command and are each led by a character that provides flavor and narrative throughout the campaign.
The campaign is played out over three planets. More missions with varying objectives, including side missions that provide benefits but do not advance the main story, become available as the campaign progresses. Strategic play is measured in days, with players allowed one deployment per day, although they can gain additional deployments by achieving a high score in missions or completing certain objectives. Most missions consist of the Force Commander, and whatever squads the player chose before launching the mission, landing planet-side on a tactical map representing desert, jungle, or urban terrain. The player’s forces progress across the map taking tactically important locations before progressing towards a final objective like a powerful enemy that needs to be eliminated or a strategic location in need of defense.
Dawn of War II’s single player experience is nothing if not character driven. The slinking and slug fests of the missions would seem meaningless and wearisome where it not for the thematic import that the characters’ perspectives and personalities applied to it. Cutscenes and in-game commentary bring the dark universe of Warhammer 40k to life, give meaning to the objectives, and explain the motivations and behaviors of the various antagonists.
These squads are also heavily customizable, gaining experience for levels with each mission allowing players to increase their squads combat and support abilities and even defining if the squad is optimized for melee or ranged combat. Armor and weapons, in the form of Wargear, is randomly dropped by enemies or acquired as a reward for completing missions. Wargear can be equipped to a squad during the strategic phase of the campaign and each piece of Wargear lists which squads it is suited for.
Skirmish mode lacks this character-driven narrative and noticeably suffers for it. Skirmish battles are wearisome tug-of-war matches over resource production nodes until the player has built up a strong enough army to actually destroy the enemy’s command center. In fact the command center, while poorly defended, has so much health and armor that a match’s finale usually consists of one to two minutes of units shooting at a building. All races and units are available in Skirmish mode thus maintaining some interest for players willing to put up with the repetition for a chance to try out new units and abilities. However these flashy toys are wasted on a predictable and repetitive AI.
Multiplayer serves as a balance between the two, with the presence and challenge of human opponents compensating for the simple objectives and generic maps. Dawn of War II is well supported for online play and its integration with Steam’s network makes matchmaking and setup a simple process. Players are likely to get the most enjoyment out of head to head matches, as opposed to team games against the AI, but this certainly decreases appeal among casual gamers.
Dawn of War II’s close-in, tactical focus demands high performance from graphic and audio processors. Modern machines are sufficient to run the game smoothly, but any models introduced before Dawn of War II’s release will struggle at higher performance settings.
The shift in mechanical style the Dawn of War II introduces ultimately produces a dichotomy in the game’s appeal to fanbases. Players that enjoyed Company of Heroes will likely enjoy Dawn of War II’s single player experience if they choose to enjoy Warhammer 40k’s narrative. Fans of previous Dawn of War titles can still get a thoroughly satisfying experience out of the bloody, lore-heavy storyline but will find skirmish and multiplayer to be lackluster, repetitive, and restrictive.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was developed by Westwood Studios, officially re titled Westwood Pacific, and published by Electronic Arts in 2000. The fourth Real-Time Strategy title in the Command & Conquer franchise; Red Alert 2 was the direct sequel to Red Alert and followed its predecessor thematically and mechanically. It would be followed in 2001 by an expansion pack, Command & Conquer: Yuri’s Revenge, which added a third faction as well as additional units and fourteen new single player missions split up into two campaigns.
Red Alert 2 was also the first title to be finalized after Westwood and Electronic Arts had completed their merger and did not suffer the development problems that had plagued the previous title in the series: Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. It also reflects some of the design changes that EA would begin to implement in the series, such as an increased focus on setting-based tropes (in this case Golden Age America and the Cold War) as well as a gradual lessening of the dichotomy that factions had displayed in previous games. Yet EA wisely chose to keep the story premise largely intact and to build closely off of developments that had occurred in Red Alert.
Red Alert 2 picks up where its predecessor left off. The Allies defeated the aggressive Soviet Union and established a puppet government to oversee reconstruction. Thus the Allies, including the newly arrived United States, were caught completely off guard when the Soviets began a secret re-militarization and launched a surprise attack on the United States from three directions. Initially the other Allied nations are not involved, but gradually join the war effort as Soviet aggression continues.
The player takes the role of a specially appointed American commander in the Allied campaign, or an up-and-coming Soviet commander in the Soviet campaign. Most of the missions take place in the United States and its territories, with Europe and Russia itself also featuring a number of locales in various missions. The missions, and the regions they take place in, are heavily thematic and geared towards making the game’s challenge, and Cold War feel, the centerpieces of design.
The Command & Conquer series always did a masterful job keeping the player at the center of the campaign’s narrative. The most important battles of the conflict serve as the missions of each campaign, with the commander taking a pivotal role in either stopping the Red Menace for good or completing the final conquest of the various Allied nations. The cutscenes and in-game cinematics are campy and perfectly reflect Golden Age Cinema techniques; they also don’t distract the commander from the RTS experience, keeping such elements as moral choice and NPC involvement to a minimum.
The portrayal of in-game units in the cinematics, as well as the perception that the commander is one of the first officers to gain access to new technology when it becomes available, keeps the immersion throughout cutscenes and missions. Some missions contain segments where particular units are required, but for the most part the player may choose whatever strategy that their current unit roster will facilitate. More advanced units and buildings are unlocked as the player progresses through the campaign; in multiplayer each faction’s roster is completely available for use.
Westwood RTS products have always been a little finicky when it comes to multiplayer games, but Red Alert 2 had a strong online following in its heyday, although it was admitted that the vanilla game was unbalanced in several aspects. Connection issues once a match has begun are rare and often more indicative of localized malfunctions instead of issues with the game itself. In the present day no public servers exist for online matches, but community run servers are still available for games between friends.
Red Alert 2’s AI does what it can given the conventions of RTS design at the time. In the campaign the AI can prove to be a very enjoyable opponent given its terrain advantages and often superior positioning. Most campaign missions are also of a substantial duration and can be accomplished through multiple strategies and tricks, warranting each faction’s campaign at least two-playthroughs. The Skirmish AI suffers without its campaign bonuses, as it follows predictable patterns and often fails to keep consistent pressure on the player. There are even cases where the AI will stop trying after a suffering a certain degree of setbacks. Yet for all its weaknesses, Skirmish mode does allow players to explore the game’s nuances at their leisure and test the capabilities of units in a more relaxed environment.
Red Alert 2 is widely considered to be one the of best Command & Conquer titles of all time. Its combination of fast-paced dynamic combat, traditional mechanics, and campy fun appealed to a wide range of gamers and also made it easy to learn and enjoyable to explore. Ironically the expansion pack Yuri’s Revenge upset that balance in the online arena, but self-imposed moderation in the online community as well as a host of balancing mods have kept the core game’s online experience intact. Red Alert 2 marks the high point of RTS gaming in the industry’s history and rightly remains one of the most beloved RTS titles of the first decade.
Red Alert 3
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is a real-time strategy game developed and produced by Electronic Arts, released in late 2008. EA had finally gone back to a longtime staple of the RTS genre, eight years after the release of the previous title in the series, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, and five years after closing down Westwood Studios, the original developer of the Command & Conquer franchise. EA had already released Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in 2007 to great success and was wisely pursuing its foray into RTS with a revival of the other half of Westwood’s RTS legacy.
Red Alert 3 follows roughly the same formula of its predecessors. Players construct their chosen faction’s base around a central building alongside such requirements as power and proximity between structures, as well as requirements for unlocking higher level structures and units. Units are produced from their respective production facilities and Red Alert 3 features land, air, and naval combat, with many units capable of transitioning between these battle spaces. Resources take the form of ore, which in previous Red Alert titles was represented by fields of golden nuggets, but in Red Alert 3 has been boiled down to a neutral mine structure, reminiscent of Warcraft style gold mines, that harvesters automatically collect from.
Three factions are playable in Red Alert 3. The Allies and Soviets return with many familiar units as well as completely new developments, and the Japanese Empire of the Rising Sun is introduced combining tactical and strategic elements of both sides. The Soviet faction focuses on overwhelming numbers and powerful tanks and warships. The Allied faction features more heavy combat units than in previous Red Alert titles but still emphasizes defense and long ranged, powerful attacks. The Empire of the Rising Sun strikes a balance between the two with large numbers of adaptable, hard hitting units.
Three story campaigns allows players to fully utilize each faction as they play through the faction’s path to eventual victory in the three-way war that dominates the main plot. Here is where Red Alert 3’s innovative failures start to show. Instead of picking up where the series last left off, the current story begins by erasing everything that occurred in the previous games. The campaigns commence with a three-way brawl that plays out as a series of loosely connected missions chosen more for their memorable locales than for their relevance in the strategy of global war.
Red Alert 3 is the first Command & Conquer title to introduce campaign co-operative play, allowing two players to proceed through the missions against the AI. In single player mode a friendly AI represented by one of the faction’s characters takes the place of the second human player. This marks one of the first RTS titles to take the step into co-operative story modes and the missions are well balanced around them.
Unfortunately they are a bit too well balanced and suffer when a co-op player is not present. The AI replacement for a second player tends to lack the strategic finesse and resilience of a human player. While the player is still fully capable of handling the mission alone the imbalance of proficiency makes many of the challenges, especially timed missions, frustrating and stressful. Additionally the co-op feature was hosted through GamepSpy servers which were shutdown in 2013, rending the feature useless without a third party server hosting.
EA didn’t spare any expense when adding its own innovations to the Command & Conquer formula. The shift to mine based resource harvesting, the addition of unique abilities and modes for each unit, and the emphasis on rapid, high cost battles are all new to Command & Conquer’s style of play; and they don’t necessarily mix well. Strategic management and defensive tactics take a backseat to rapid key-binding skills and fast paced reactions. Units are, on average, lightly armored and heavily armed making battles costly and quick. The one-dimensional resource system also prevents the player from increasing or otherwise modifying their income without simply capturing more mines, a situation compounded by the fact that the limited income is rarely able to supply enough forces to hold off enemy attacks and secure a new location simultaneously.
Red Alert 3’s graphics introduce another of EA’s innovations, the Sage 2.0 graphics engine. The engine provides bright and somewhat cartoonish effects, which given the game’s camp portrayal is actually appropriate. The graphics moved easily even on modern machines of the time and most devices should have no trouble operating it. Sadly multiplayer for Red Alert 3 is officially non-existent, although third party servers provided by C&C Online support multiplayer and co-op.
As far as strategy games go Red Alert 3 is a fair presentation. One of EA’s traditional failings is to take familiar titles and re-brand them with what it believes to be market selling points, usually patterned off of Blizzard games. This is effectively what has been done here and many Starcraft players would recognize familiar traits and tropes in Red Alert 3’s gaming style. The game itself is entertaining although the story-line sacrifices immersion for comedic presentation. Yet as it is Red Alert 3 falls from a continuation of a legendary RTS series to just one more title among many in the strategy gaming market.