Soviet kitsch.
Cons: Lack of any coherence or self-consistency; unit abilities are more of a liability than an asset; bone-headed unit pathfinding and AI; borderline offensive in its unoriginality.
If there is one thing the marketeers at Electronic Arts have gotten down pat over the last decade and a half, it's how to bleed a franchise until it's bone-dry, and then bleed it some more. Joining the proud ranks of the soulless zombies that are the "Medal of Honor," "Need for Speed," and "Madden" series is now "Command & Conquer: Red Alert," its latest installment complete with state-of-the-art sound and fury, and, as usual, signifying absolutely nothing.
What really hurts "Red Alert 3" isn't so much that it's a bad game. Compliant with the Electronic Arts board of standards, the game is all about polish: visual, aural, interface, you name it, they've got it. The problems "Red Alert 3" exhibits rather stem from an utter lack of any spark of creativity, imagination, or inspiration. While some companies wholeheartedly adhere to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" maxim, EA nails said maxim to the wall with foot-long railroad spikes with a vengeance, leaving it oozing blood and ichor for all to see what will happen if creativity ever accidentally stumbles into their game development process.
The nicest thing one can say about the plot of "Red Alert 3" is that it is, at least, mostly self-consistent. For the uninitiated, "Red Alert" games take place in an offshoot of the Command & Conquer universe, where Hitler never ascended to the position of Chancellor of German Reich, thus resulting in World War II never happening – at least, not in a traditional sense. Instead of the Nazi war machine, the resultant Soviet behemoth now threatens the Europe and America. That EA managed to not only slaughter this fascinating alternate-history premise, but do so over the course of two games and their respective add-ons should be encased in a museum as a work of art. Now, eight years later after "Red Alert 2," the "Red Alert" chronology is resuscitated and, like a zombie, let loose upon the unsuspecting gamer population (just as an aside, one should wonder whom "Red Alert 3" is aimed at, considering the gamers who grew up with the title have moved on to better and bigger things, and the newcomers to the franchise would more than likely not remember the first and second installments on account of being too young at the times of their release.)
Make no mistake: "Red Alert 3" looks and sounds top-notch. The outlandish story, which involves time travel, tesla coils, Soviet sniper babes, and panzerbjorn (strike that, "armored bears"), is suitably accented by the colorful palette and the outstanding sound design. The most unfortunate aspect of the presentation, however, is the FMV which the "Command & Conquer" series became so known for. This time around, J. K. Simmons, Jonathan Pryce, Autumn Reeser (who is -- make no mistake! -- a major-league hottie) and Gemma Atkinson round out the Allied faction as President Ackerman, Field Marshall Bingham, Commander Lisette Handley, and Adjutant Eva McKenna, respectively. That Simmons' acting chops are downright awful is as unfortunate as it is irrelevant, as he gets virtually no significant screen time in the game. Pryce is the saddest contestant of the bunch, as his illustrious theatrical career is effectively boiled down to a series of quips and britishisms along the lines of "Smashing!", "Jolly good," and "Pip pip tally ho!" by the horrid script. The Empire of the Rising Sun, embodied by Emperor Yoshiro (portrayed by George Takei, trying to do his absolute gosh-darndest to make the gamers believe he's still a real dramatic actor after all!) doesn't fare much better. This leaves the Soviet faction as the sole bright spot, with Tim Curry's devilish sneers and snarls as Prime Minister Cherdenko. Curry, apparently in an attempt to out-act even his own over-the-top style, breaks free from the screen, almost spittling "Moose and skvirrel!" at the gamer in every possible line he is given. The former Yugoslavian model Ivana Milicevic rounds out this parade of ludicrousness as Dasha with her minimal acting abilities and her very lovely appearance (as another side note, Gina Carano, the supposed mascot of "Red Alert 3," has precisely 3.5 seconds of on-screen time and no deliverable speaking lines – colossal waste of money, anyone?)
While "Red Alert 3" appears to stand its ground (albeit shakily) from an aesthetic standpoint, the gameplay is where the proper disappointment takes place. Again, polish is not an issue here: the interface is intuitive, unbroken, and, in most instances, fairly helpful. The visuals, while not jaw-dropping, are done in an extremely competent manner, and the frame rates are acceptable on the lower-end machines with most of the effects turned on and the resolution cranked up. One of the main problems is, once again, aesthetics; the game attempts to reconcile war and genocide on a massive scale with cartoony graphics and over-the-top voice and live-action performances. To make matters worse, the in-game problems, such as pathetic pathfinding and low-grade A.I., are all the more glaring in spite of the near-perfect superficial veneer of presentation. For the most part, units will competently perform their duties of moving or attacking, unless there's an obstacle in the way more complex than a bush. In these instances units tend to bunch up, get in each other's way, and generally present more of a hassle to control than it is worth. This begs the question: why all the special abilities? If every engagement simply devolves into a brawl that's decided by numbers, why not just crank out twenty of every unit and go to town? Sadly, this happens to be the preferred strategy du jour, and I've yet to encounter a player, online or off, who takes full advantage of the versatility one is afforded by these secondary abilities.
One might ultimately argue that the core appeal of "Red Alert 3" is in its multiplayer, but let's be fair: when there are so many more engaging (not to mention rewarding) real-time strategy games out on the market, both recent and old-school, why would anyone bother with this clunker? After all, there is a plethora of reasons why the "WarCraft III" Battle.net servers went down because of overflow on the launch date, and why "StarCraft" is still, to date, Korea's number one spectator sport. The very essence of "Red Alert 3"'s mediocrity is recapped in its multiplayer aspect, in that it does precisely what it should, and not an iota more.
Realistically, it is wholly possible that I am being far too hard on this game. Maybe it is because I've become so jaded by superior RTS titles such as "Dawn of War: Dark Crusade" and its spiritual follow-up, "Company of Heroes." Maybe, in expecting something that wasn't there, I inadvertently lowered my expectations of "Red Alert 3." Ultimately, it is wholly possible that I was just looking for things that weren't there, and missed the whole point of the "Red Alert 3" experience, panzerbjorn and all. Having said that, however, there is still no excuse for the utterly blasé and uninspired approach taken by EA day in, day out, to promote its desiccated franchises and collect its $40 a pop from the gamer demographic – and at that price, one can buy quite a few copies of "StarCraft."