Product Description

• Latest Red Alert game for the PC

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #441 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2008-10-31
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: DVD-ROM
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English

Manufacturer's Description
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.

Customer Reviews

A (hopefully) balanced review... it's not just about DRM
The DRM issue has led to a lot of negative press, and a lot of one star reviews. My review will tackle DRM, but I've also tried to fairly review the game itself. Firstly the game itself...

Red Alert 3 follows on from its predecessor really well. That camp fun of Soviets, Terror Drones and psychics is back. I think it works well that the main C&C series takes on the more serious tone, while the Red Alert franchise takes on the ridiculous-but-fun stories. The game designers obviously know their stuff, and have followed on from RA2 with great respect. Fans of RA2 will be familiar with lots of the sound effects, characters and units.

There's also a new faction to keep things fresh, the Japanese, which I can't help but feel the game designers liked best -- there seemed to be more ingenuity when it came to this new faction.

There's a great sense of humour in the game. In addition to all the campy cut scenes, humour pervades the game. Dog units can "maul with impunity", and a special upgrade where Terror Drones erupt from the wreckage of vehicles is aptly named a "Terror Drone Surprise". I love the attention to detail.

Graphically, the game is gorgeous. Keeping the style of RA2, but modernised, it looks lovely and somehow doesn't seem to cause levels to take five hours to load!

On a production level, it's really gone up a notch. There are a lot of very well produced cut scenes, including some "I know them from somewhere..." actors, including faces from the O.C., 24 and UK TV soap Hollyoaks. There's a really nice guest spot with the actor who plays the American VP -- I won't spoil the surprise.

But for all the polished production values, and game designers who were obviously very much into RA2, the game does fall down in many ways.

Level difficulties seem to vary wildly. There was the odd level which I found quite hard, and had to use many savepoints to keep rolling back and avoiding disaster. Then the very next level it's over in 5 minutes. This isn't helped in the Japanese missions when on two levels they give you this stupidly powerful unit that makes it unchallenging.

The introduction of co-commanders doesn't really work. The idea is that you can play a level with a friend, which is a good idea, but if you don't play with a friend you have to have a computer ally. And that can be annoying. The computer is either interfering too much (for example I want to take over a building yet it keeps attacking it) or too useless, where they are destroyed too soon then you are 1 vs 2.

This continues into the skirmish mode, where I was just playing a multiplayer game with 3 computer AI characters (1 on my team), and my team member is obliterated in about 5 minutes and the game is rather futile then.

There's also no sense of you having any freedom of the game. I didn't trust an ally, so bombed their bases. They didn't react, and at the end of the cut scene they said how I hadn't betrayed them. Yet I had! It'd be nice to have a sense of freedom to push the game into different directions. Sadly there is only one direction: the one the game lays out for you. At times it was so predictable that they would "spring a surprise" on me that I would hold back from finishing my mission, build up huge forces and when the "surprise" came I was better prepared. In short, it could be predictable!

Fundamentally, I'm not sure the game brings much new to the table. There's some cool special abilities (like raining dead satellites on to an enemy), but nothing really new for the genre.

(And they changed the actress from Tanya, it's no longer Kari Wuhrer. Of that I do not approve!)

And to the new DRM. Dum-dum-dum. I'm surprised by the amount of hatred against this. I do think EA has got a slightly raw deal. After all they are doing what Microsoft does with Windows, and Windows users are reviewing this game with one star. Why the double standards?

But do I approve of this new form of DRM? No. The fact that EA think they will be around in five years time to authorise the game in a time when banks are going bust is arrogance. EA should have agreed some sort of time limit to the DRM as a compromise. After 2011, no activation required perhaps? But whatever the outcome, EA has handled the DRM situation badly. But I also do fear that EA will just see the PC as a lost cause and stick to consoles, and that will not benefit PC gamers at all.

I think overall the game is fun. It's not groundbreaking, but it will particularly appeal to RA2 fans. The DRM while not brilliant is nothing new, and if you're using Windows you've already accepted this form of DRM.

My advice: pick the game up on the cheap, and have a little fun. Just don't expect too much in the way of new appeal.

Do not buy as EA games is forcing spyware upon you
I have bought all the C&C titles since the beginning and have loved each one - and yes they were all genuine purchases paying full price at launch.

However I will not buy a title which is for my own use and be treated as a criminal by forcing EA 'Spyware' upon me and my PC.

If the Fanatics at EA games think that DRM is a solution to piracy, its not ! If they bothered to do some research on the web, they would have seen that by doing this has created a 'challenge' to every hacker out there to unlock it and make the software available to all.

If they are pesistant in their approach, they will lose their loyal customers and in the current financial markets, its us you really need to keep us customers so your income stream for the future will still be there.

Spyware is bad news for us all.

One last point, if you do go ahead to buy this software and in the future you need a new activation code e.g. you buy a new laptop or desktop PC, who's to say EA games will exist at that time. No EA games, no activation code !

Do not take this warning lightly as during the 80's and 90's we saw gaming companies come and go and EA games will follow them to insolvency if they carry on this approach to their customers.

Thank you and I hope this review stops at least 1 person from making a very costly mistake.

DRM ruins yet another game.
Customers really need to know how bad the EA securom DRM system is with this game. There's a reason this, Spore, and Crysis Warhead have thousands of negative reviews building up, its because consumers simply will not tolerate spyware/malware rootkits being installed on their PCs without their permission which are impossible to remove. (Without fiddling about inside the registry.)

Don't buy this game. Force EA to change their policy.