Command & Conquer Red Alert 2

by Electronic Arts

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005QJDS
• Item Weight: 6.1 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: October 10, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (88 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,965 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #15 in Video Games > PC Games > Arcade
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Sticking firm to the old "if it ain't broke" philosophy, Westwood Studios conjures up memories of the original Command & Conquer games with Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. The game is set just a few years after the events of the original C&C: Red Alert, and opens with a surprise Soviet invasion of the U.S. mainland. Playing as the startled Americans, you must cobble together a resistance and beat the invaders back into the sea. Playing as the Soviets, you must quickly establish control of your new domain, wiping out all opposition you meet.

Red Alert 2 is very similar to the original Red Alert, with some visual enhancements and gameplay improvements brought in from the recent Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun game. You still lead a small group of infantry and armored units in most missions and you still have to assemble a base of operations in order to accomplish just about anything. This time around, however, you'll have a slew of new units to build and command in the field--most of which are pretty slick. The American Prism Tank, for example, can take out numerous enemy units with a single, branching attack. On the Soviet side, Tesla Troopers and Psychics help make ground troops a formidable asset.

Another nice addition to the game is the ability to garrison troops inside buildings. Because much of the fighting is on city streets, it helps to give your troops some cover from time to time. Also, there are a number of special buildings that provide unique advantages once occupied by engineer units. The airport allows you to call in air strikes, for example, while oil derricks provide a resource boost for your war machine.

Multiplayer support is still the calling card of this series, and fans of past C&C games will not be disappointed by Red Alert 2's multiplayer options. The basic free-for-all mode that the original Red Alert made famous is still intact, but the alternative multiplayer modes are the real treat. In Unholy Alliance, players get access to both American and Soviet tech trees, while the naval war variant starts each player off on a small island. In addition, the game includes special cooperative campaigns.

There's no denying Red Alert 2's charm, despite the lack of a funky 3-D engine and the game's reliance on ultracheeseball video cut scenes to tell the story (Kari Wuhrer or no Kari Wuhrer). For fast- paced, real-time strategy action that focuses on quick, intense firefights on American soil, no other game holds a candle to C&C: Red Alert 2. --Michael Ryan

Pros:

• More frenetic real-time strategy in the C&C universe
• Tons of new units and capabilities on both sides of the conflict
• Cool U.S. settings for most missions
• Great array of multiplayer modes

Cons:

• Not exactly a technical leap forward
• Video cut scenes are cheesy beyond description

Product Description

More ways to win than ever before!Product InformationThe explosive follow-up to one of the most popular PC Games of all time -Command & Conquer Red Alert.  The Cold War is heating up! Fight on theside of freedom or battle behind the Iron Curtain.  Exotic weaponry is atyour disposal. Soviet Cloning Vats and Allied Chrono Devices are just a few ofthe many devastating weapons.  Prism tanks Tesla Troopers Terror DronesDesolators Psychic Mind Control Giant Squid and Sonic Dolphins are just asmall part of your arsenal.Product Features Take your campaign over land sea and air with over 80 units and structures to deliver your fury. Enhanced veterancy quickly turns newbie forces into battle-hardened veterans. Unleash extra firepower and discover secret abilities. Cinematic movies with Hollywood actors reward your victories and brief you on your next mission. Play either side in the full solo-play campaign or play as one of the nine nations in eight modes of multiplay and skirmish mode. Wreak havoc with a friend through the specially designed co-op campaign. System Requirements Windows 95 98 Me XP (Home Edition) Pentium 266 MHz processor 64 MB of RAM minimum 350 MB free Hard Drive space 2 MB DirectX 7.0a compatible Graphics Card minimum DirectX 7.0a compatible Sound Card Mouse Keyboard Optional: Network play requires Pentium 450 MHz 128MB of RAM 56.6Kbps modem TCP/IP or IPX compliant 4X CD-ROM drive

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good fun, must buy for any and all PC gamers, February 13, 2002

By 

"hjos" (Colorado Springs, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 (CD-ROM)

Well this is Westwood's 4th C&C RTS game, and it's GREAT as usual. I gave this 4 1/2 stars, but I rounded that to 5 to display on the title.

Red Alert 2, like all it's predecesors, is a strategy/war game by Westwood,a strategy gaming company owned by the huge Electronic Arts for a while now. It features 2 campaigns, 1 for each side, that walk you through the plot and train you for the regular battles ahead. There is a skirmish mode, which lets you play a multiplayer-style game with the AI. I once used this mode to re-inact the Bay of Pigs invasion, there are so many little options. True fun comes, though, with multiplayer mode, which is the main focus of the game.

Although in previous C&Cs, especially Tiberian Sun, there was a quite a lot of blood and gore when an infantry guy got killed, Red Alert 2 has NO Blood and NO Gore. In fact, when an infantryman is killed now, sometimes he'll say things like "Do'h!" and then fall over and disappear. Still, it's rated "T"like most strategy games. No swearing, either; the president says in the intro movie, "I wouldn't give a wooden nickel about your legacy."

The story is simple: after Red Alert (original), where the Soviets invade Europe in about 1940 instead of Germany because of some complex time-travel assasination that nobody really understands, the Allies install a puppet leader
in Russia. Seeming at first to be an advocate of peace, he later invades the Allies' main supplier and most important fighter the U.S.A. using mind-control and quite a few other intresting technologies. FMV movies will tell you most of the plot.

Once again, Westwod has included graphics that succeed in telling the player what is happening, but not state-of-the-art. They have continued to use their MegaVoxel technology, which models the game in a sort of 2D/3D cross but makes
the units look like an army of mold campared to conventional graphics. (Well that's an exaggeration but they're still quite bad-looking). But as I said before, they still let the player see what's happening, and that's enough,
I think.

The good news is that it needs no such 3D graphics cards that some conventional graphics games do.

Like in the original Red Alert you can pick the Allies or Soviets on a quest for world domination. The Soviets have more in the way of general power, the Allies have intresting technologies to counter that, usually involving prisms
or time travel.

The gameplay is fun and easy to learn. Veterans of C&C will know the interface as soon as they load up the game, it's pratically the same except the the waypoints have gotten confusing and a new cursor has been added to tell you if you are in range to fire or if your units must move first. The tank rush
is easier to resist now, you now have better base defenses and you can garrison buildings with troops. Garrisons are extremely powerful, underestimation of them will lead to a failed assualt that costs you 100,000 credits. The gameplay has been made quicker now, allowing you to finish in about 30 minutes to 1 hour. New multiplayer modes include team alliance and others.

The sound is still sharp, and each class of units has a different selection of random words to say when they are selected, moved, and fired. The music is good, provides ambience and has more speach than any other C&C games. No,
not like somebody is actually singing, but rather every once in a while someone'll say something like, "Gentlemen, it's a nuclear device," or something inaudible in the background.

The game is stable, but like all games you'll get a complete hang once in a while.

This game is a good buy and I had some great fun. It has its set of disadvantages, like all games, but it's gotten better and C&C is starting to get better each release. Obviously destined to be in a museum one of these years. The Last Remaining Copy will behind glass, with a demonstration on a computer to the side. The sign'll say, "Red Alert 2. Archeologists confirm
that it was probobly the best game of the year in 2000."

Pros

+Fast paced, action gameplay
+Easy to learn
+Another bumper crop of new units

Cons
-Graphics not quite, eh, state of the art
-Confusing Waypoints.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Game Rocks!, October 4, 2001

By 

John D. Stewart (Brooklyn Center, Minnesota) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 (CD-ROM)

(Note: This is Writer50's son)

Red Alert 2 features a new storyline (not pertaining to the old one), new units, new graphics, new sounds, and more depth, all of which are pretty good! Some of the old units have new features which add depth to the game. Like a Chrono Miner and the engineers ability to fix bridgers. The graphics are great for a game of this kind and if you know how to, you can edit the game in nearly every way. If you like war-strategy games or you liked Red Alert- Get This!

Some people (like those other than me that wrote a review for this game) don't know what their talking about!
1. For those you complained about the story, they use the word DECEPTION, it isn't cheesy! It could happen!
2. People complaining about new weapons and the year: It's kind of hard to tell what year it takes place in, but the new units used in the game could be developed in the future!
3. Yuri is added to the game as the Second in Command for Russia, is that hard to understand? In the next game, Yuri wants to take over the world :)

This Game Is Great!

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Come for the action, stay for the cheese, January 25, 2007

By 

David Lim "space_hamster" (Hobart, Tasmania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Command & Conquer Red Alert 2 (CD-ROM)

Just out of curiousity I pulled Red Alert 2 out of mothballs. Especially in light of Generals, does RA2 still hold up? The answer, surprisingly enough, is yes!

The two big attractions for Red Alert 2 are its unique units and its unashamedly B-Grade Movie Acting cheese factor. Firstly - to the units. Because RA2 isn't based on any real-life scenarios (Soviet Union invades America? Please.), this gives the developers creative freedom to create the craziest units imaginable. So we have soldiers with rocket packs (Rocketeers), Tanks that can camouflage themselves (Mirage tanks), and shock troopers that fire lightning bolts (Tesla Troopers). To this very day, the units in Red Alert 2 are still my favourites of all time.

The second big attraction is how RA2 revels in its B-Grade movie roots. It was a huge surprise because so many game developers take the "grim and gritty" route. Red Alert 2 wallows unashamedly in its own cheesiness. It also introduced some very memorable characters. Udo Kier is suitably very creepy (in a cheesy way) as the Pscyhic Yuri. Tanya (played by Kari Wuhrer) - in addition to being a useful unit in the game, she's played with real charm and feistiness. There's Ray Wise as the US President, who's clearly sending up Bill Clinton. And finally, one of my favourite game characters of all time - General Carville, played brilliantly by Barry Corbin. He gets some great lines - one of my favourites is "I'm sick and tired of living in Canada. Get me my office back!". And his delivery really fires you up and makes you want to kick some Soviet [...].

That (to me) is what separates Red Alert 2 from any other game before or since. It flatly refuses to take itself seriously and invites the player to have a lot of fun. The graphics may not be as advanced as Generals, but the gameplay and memorable characters more than make up for it.