Coordinates | 15°48′00″N47°54′00″N |
---|---|
Title | Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 |
Developer | EA Los Angeles |
Publisher | Electronic Arts |
Designer | Robert Taylor (director) |
Composer | James HanniganFrank KlepackiTimothy Michael WynnMikael Sandgren |
Series | Command & Conquer (main)Red Alert (sub-series) |
Engine | SAGE |
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is a 2008 real-time strategy video game developed by EA Los Angeles and published by Electronic Arts. Announced on February 14, 2008, it was released on October 28, 2008 in the United States for Microsoft Windows-based PCs and three days later in Europe. A version for the Xbox 360 console was released in the U.S. on November 11. The PlayStation 3 version was delayed due to difficulties with the system's architecture. On January 21, 2009 EA officially announced Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Ultimate Edition, the PS3 version which contains bonus material extra to that of the Xbox 360 and PC versions. The Ultimate Edition has been released on March 23, 2009. Also announced for a late March release is the Mac OS version, converted to that platform by TransGaming. The game forms a part of the Red Alert sub-series within the Command & Conquer series of games. In early January, EA Los Angeles announced a new addition to the game: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising, a stand-alone single player expansion pack that was released for Windows in March 2009. It was offered via digital distribution.
The game is set in a parallel universe in which World War II never happened—in the original Red Alert, Albert Einstein travelled back in time and removed Hitler in the 1920s. After an Allied victory in Red Alert 2, the Soviet leaders travelled back in time and removed Albert Einstein in 1927, preventing the Allies from creating atomic weapons while the Soviet Union rose to power, battling the Allies in the 1950s. In this game, the Empire of the Rising Sun rises to power as a threat as well (an unintentional result of the Soviets' time travelling). All three factions are playable, with the main gameplay involving constructing a base, gathering resources, and training armies composed of land, sea, and airborne units to defeat other players. Each faction has a fully co-operative campaign, playable with an artificial intelligence or with another human player online. These campaigns follow a storyline, with specific mission objectives and unit restrictions applied. Unrestricted skirmish play against the computer and multiplayer via LAN or online is also available.
The game received mostly positive reviews, with reviewers citing the co-operative and multiplayer components as strengths, along with the enhanced role of naval combat compared to other real-time strategy games. Commonly cited weaknesses included aspects such as unit pathfinding.
The "single-player" campaign is now fully co-operative. Each mission is played alongside an ally. When played online, this is another human player. Offline it is one of several computer-controlled characters. Teams share income and generally start with the same forces. Computerized characters can be given simple commands, such as an order to take a specific position or to strike a specific target. The campaign has nine missions for each side. Each side's plotlines are mutually exclusive, unlike Tiberium Wars and its preceding and following expansion packs, but like the rest of the Command & Conquer games.
Naval warfare is emphasized as another front. Executive producer Chris Corry has stated that many units are now amphibious, trading effectiveness for increased flexibility. Buildings and entire bases can be constructed on water, save for such things as ground or naval unit production facilities (e.g. tank factories are ground-only, but Tsunami tanks are amphibious and can be produced in Naval Yards), and players who "ignore the ocean [are] likely forfeiting a significant part of their potential economy to their opponents." Further stressing this is the fact that, despite some campaign maps being entirely land based, all multiplayer maps have significant bodies of water in them.
The use of naval units and various unit abilities also helped players counter attack their opponent's units specific to that units strongpoint, for example a Soviet Stingray's second ability Tesla Surge sends a surge of electricity in the tesla boat's area, damaging units from attack dolphins to terror drones.
Manually controlled secondary abilities are common to each and every unit in the game. Their usage varies: some are toggled on or off, others are targeted, and still others are triggered the instant one presses the button. Imperial construction vehicles is able to deploy into buildings at any specified locations, a Soviet Hammer tank can leech HP from enemies (and allies as well) and, upon their destruction, their weapons to augment itself, and an Allied artillery piece can engage its shields with a button press but with a cooldown period before they can be used again. All abilities are bound to the same key. The game also features experience points that are used to upgrade unit types and to buy "commander abilities," which call in air strikes, recon sweeps, magnetic satellite beams, etc. Commander abilities have no resource costs but do have significant cooldown periods.
Ore fields as resource sites have been removed. These originated in the first Red Alert as a functionally identical equivalent to tiberium, and what were ostensibly strip mines had ore growing out of the ground. Gameplay mechanics haven't changed a great deal since fields have been replaced with stationary ore mines. Strategic ore-refinery placement and covert refining are impacted to an extent.
The Soviets and Allies have a mix of old and new features. Soviet units lean towards ruthlessness and brute force: giant Kirov airships are retained and flak troopers are now penal troops, while attack dogs are an Allied unit that the Soviets have replaced with functionally identical armored attack bears. New units include heavy tanks known as "Hammer Tanks" that can tear weapons from the enemies they destroy with a magnetic beam, light anti-infantry walkers known as "Sickles" that can jump over terrain elevations, the amphibious "Stingray" attack boats with twin-mounted tesla coils, and amphibious AA-only "Bullfrog" transports that can only shoot their passengers out of a "man cannon". The Soviets have lost their nuclear technology due to the events of the backstory, but can leverage their simple tech, cheap units and "quick fix" structures like the Super Reactor and Crusher Crane, enabling them to easily overwhelm enemy bases. Soviet armour are considerably tougher than Allied and Japanese on the whole, and augmented with their infamous Iron Curtain, can be extremely dangerous. A major revampment from Red Alert 2 is the Soviet airforce: in addition to Kirovs, the Soviets have access to MiG (Mikevich and Guroyan) fighters and versatile attack helicopters. In lieu of nuclear bombs, the Soviets have developed the Vacuum Imploder, a warhead which sucks humans, vehicles and damage buildings into a dense hole before exploding.
The Allies come with a wide variety of gadgetry (mostly nonlethal), much of it as a comeback of Red Alert 2
The Empire of the Rising Sun has infantrymen in samurai armor with energy rifles and lightsaber katanas, giant transforming mecha, ninjas, a psionic schoolgirl, and submersible planes/flying submarines. Several of the Empire's key units can change forms to switch from land-to-air or sea-to-air, giving them much greater versatility than Allied or Soviet units. Conversely, some of their "core units" are weaker than their counterparts, forcing the player to produce them in large numbers or use them effectively with support. Japanese naval units however are considerably capable, from dedicated anti-ship cruisers to heavy battleships. Their forward bases are easy to build and fully functional bases don't take much power. Their buildings also have no proximity requirements, allowing the Empire to expand its bases much more quickly and efficiently—and by extension to nab ore mines faster. Being in the altered timeline, the Japanese are now masters of psychic/psionic weaponry, not only in their commando, but in the Psionic Decimator. This ultimate weapon launches a wave of energy which can level a base. They are also equipped with a Nanoswarm, a machine that generates a nanoparticle shield, similar to an Iron Curtain, but is non-moving and prevents anything coming in or out.
The campaign mode maintains the theme of camp warfare played perfectly straight, with the occasional secret volcano lair, android infiltrator (Empire of the Rising Sun campaign) or an anti-Soviet madman (Allies; has to be killed) as the President of the United States, and more than one thing shooting lasers out of its eyes. It also uses Full motion videos featuring real-life actors. Filming started in April 2008.
The central premise of all three campaigns is the same, although each follows a different variation of the storyline. Facing defeat at the hands of the Allies (presumably after the end of Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge), Soviet General Nikolai Krukov and Colonel Anatoly Cherdenko use a time machine beneath the Kremlin to travel back to Brussels in the year 1927 at the International Physics Conference and eliminate Albert Einstein. This prevents him from creating the technology that allowed the Allies to defeat the Soviet Union in the previous games. Returning to the present, General Krukov discovers that Cherdenko is the Premier of the Soviet Union and that the Soviets are on the brink of conquering Europe. However in this alternate timeline a new faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun, has risen in Japan who declare war on the Soviets and Allies desiring complete world domination, something they perceive as their Divine Destiny. The world is then plunged into a three-way war between the Soviet Union, the Allies and the Empire.
The player-led coalition is able to retake the port of Gibraltar. The coalition then mounts an attack on the fortress in the North Atlantic and successfully disables it. At this time, Ackerman becomes angry at Marshall Bingham for his allying with the Soviets, instead of destroying them. He then takes the initiative to destroy Moscow with a laser superweapon controlled in Mount Rushmore. Bingham sends the player to disable the weapon and its defenses, destroy the firebase and kill Ackerman.
With the alliance secured, the Allies plan an attack on Tokyo in order to wipe out the entire Empire military leadership with one stroke. It is a critical battle because the Japanese High Command is about to order the destruction of several Western cities. Around this time, the Soviets led by General Krukov were supposed to bring the "entire might" of the Soviet navy to assist the Allied forces. After many delays, however, the Soviets noted that with their fleet so far away and with them experiencing "personnel troubles," they decided not to participate and would leave the player alone to deal with the Empire's forces.
After the battle, Dr. Zelinsky defects to the Allies, informing them of the Soviet Premier having traveled back in time to alter the present, the complications due to the use of the time machine, and warns them of a Soviet invasion force building up in Cuba, proving that Ackerman was right in his belief and that the Soviets have betrayed them. After destroying the invasion force in Cuba, the Allies launch Operation Chronostorm and teleport their forces to destroy Premier Cherdenko's fortress in Leningrad in order to stop Cherdenko from fleeing to outer space. In the end, Cherdenko and his General are placed in a Cryo-prison for life due to crimes against humanity. Meanwhile, Lt. Eva and Tanya both ask the Commander out to a date. The Vice President of the United States, played by David Hasselhoff, then accepts power as the new American President in a public speech.
As the Empire of the Rising Sun surges into Allied and Soviet territory the Allies make a desperate pact and try to garner enough forces to counterattack. The Emperor believes he has crushed all hope of freedom for the Allies. The Empire's forces take over much of western Russia and brutally massacre anyone who resists. A Soviet General in the city of Odessa refuses to surrender, and as a result the city is destroyed by a three legged prototype robot named the Shogun Executioner. Landmarks such as a cathedral, an opera hall, and a hospital are targets for destruction. However, the Emperor's complacency soon forces the Empire onto the defensive against the forces of the Allies, who still had enough strength to mount full-scale attacks on Pearl Harbor at the Imperial islands of Hawaii and on one of the Empire's Floating Fortresses. Though both attacks are repelled, a joint Allied-Soviet task force successfully gains a foothold in Yokohama.
Having replaced President Ackerman with an android doppelganger, the Emperor learns of Zelinsky's defection and how he helped Cherdenko alter history through time-travel. This devastates the Emperor, as there can be no Divine Destiny if history can be altered. He surrenders command of the Shogunate (the Empire's military leaders) to his son, destroying the android Ackerman in the process. Under Prince Tatsu's command, the Allied-Soviet invasion of Tokyo is repelled, and a full-scale attack on the Kremlin results in the deaths of Premier Cherdenko and General Krukov—despite a last minute attempt to airlift the time machine to safety after the Kremlin's destruction. This ends the battle against the Soviets with the Soviet Union (and their allies) surrendering to the Empire. The Empire's continued success allows Yoshiro to overcome his guilt and opens him to Tatsu's idea that the Empire can create its own destiny.
In the final mission, the player is ordered to launch an attack against the remaining Allied forces in Amsterdam as they make their last stand defending the Allied Headquarters as well as the FutureTech Headquarters—the company responsible for much of the Allies' technological advances. Fierce house to house fighting results in destroying all of the city and millions of deaths. Despite the Allies being outnumbered at least four hundred to one, most of the Japanese invasion force is annihilated. Despite Dr. Zelinsky's arrival with Soviet reinforcements and the deployment of a prototype FutureTech ultraweapon that annihilates everything in the city, the Empire succeeds in defeating the Allies and destroying FutureTech and what remains of the Soviets—leaving the Empire of the Rising Sun free to rule the world. The commander is given the title of "Supreme Shogun". The commander's briefer, Intelligence Officer Suki Toyama, invites the commander to a private spot on the north shore of Oahu for some time off, heavily implying that she has romantic feelings for him.
In November 2008, Crispy Gamer reported that James Hannigan and Timothy Michael Wynn wrote the bulk of the game's remaining 114 minutes of music, with Hannigan composing the 'Soviet March' menu theme along with music for the Empire of the Rising Sun Faction, and Wynn the music of the Allies and the remaining Soviet tracks. Music4Games has also covered the game's music score.
A song in the soundtrack by James Hannigan is called "All Your Base Are Belong To Us", a reference to Zero Wing and the internet meme.
In the aftermath of Spore's SecuROM controversy, there was an outcry amongst some circles of customers who began threatening to boycott Red Alert 3 if this game was bundled with such digital rights management mechanisms as well. In response, EA announced that in Red Alert 3 the activation limit would be increased from 3 to 5 activations per machine. Many customers remained unsatisfied, stating that for all intents and purposes they will be "renting" the game from EA at full price. The 1.05 patch provided users the ability to de-authorize the game in the game settings menu.
Prior to the game's release, Corry noted the longevity of other Command & Conquer titles and acknowledged that it was unlikely that authentication servers would remain online in years to come, which would prevent future users from authenticating. Corry stated that "once the game has lived its natural life and the risk for piracy has died down, we... [will] decide to decommission the authentication servers [and] we will first make a patch available that will disable copy protection from the game."
On January 8, 2009, the game became available via the Steam platform with SecuROM. However on February 19, 2009 a patch was released removing SecuROM from the game, it remains protected by the Steam DRM.
If you are trying to install Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 and the code is only 19 characters long, then it is missing the last letter or number. This was due to a misprint on a small number of manuals and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.In order to get a replacement code, please click the "Contact Us" link on the left side of the page to send an e-mail to our team.
If you would like you can also contact us by phone using the number found on page 28 of your manual.
Later EA opened a page where the missing digit can be obtained without need to contact the support, but a free account on the EA site is required.
In Taiwan, an exclusive limited Premier Edition was released, featuring an additional item, the Dicota Red Alert 3 backpack.
On September 18, 2008, EA announced that copies of Red Alert 3 would include a code to unlock an exclusive item in Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning known as the "Kossar's Helm" for a limited time.
EA Singapore as well as 'Gamers.com.my' had also announced that they would be launching an exclusive Red Alert 3 Commander's Pack in Singapore and Malaysia. It was launched on October 27, 2008 for Singapore and October 28, 2008 for Malaysia. This Commander's Pack includes the C&C; Red Alert 3 Premier Edition, C&C; Red Alert 3 Dicota Notebook BacPac, and a Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Gaming Keyboard with Garskin Red Alert 3 decals. Exclusive posters and Soviet T-Shirts were given to those who arrived earliest at the game's launch. A smaller and cheaper edition of the Commander's Pack called the Officer's Pack was also released. The Officer's Pack contained the C&C; Red Alert 3 Premier Edition and C&C; Red Alert 3 Dicota Notebook BacPac.
According to EA, Red Alert 3 would have better graphics and performance on PlayStation 3 than the Xbox 360, thanks to the complex renderer from the PC version.
However, the request of many potential customers to take advantage of the PlayStation's capability of using a mouse and a keyboard for gaming purposes, even with threats of not buying the product, does not seem to be fulfilled. Seeholzer rather refers to the "step forward" made in developing the control interface for console, than giving a clear answer to the question in an interview with IGN.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 has received generally positive reviews, citing a strong cooperative and multiplayer component. Although the game does not innovate much on its two predecessors and basically follows the same road of Red Alert 2, this wasn't seen as a bad thing by everyone. It has been praised for seamlessly integrating naval warfare into gameplay, generally a neglected feature in real-time strategy games, though alternately excessive focus on this aspect has been criticized as well. The game has been praised for its less serious story and brighter, more colorful environments than those found in Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. The decision by developers to use more "strip mines" instead of the traditional ore field has been met with a positive response.
Category:2008 video games Category:Alternate history video games * 09 Category:Cooperative video games Category:Electronic Arts games Category:Mac OS X games Category:PlayStation 3 games Category:Real-time strategy video games Category:SAGE engine games Category:Time travel video games Category:Video game sequels Category:Video games with collector's edition Category:Video games with expansion packs Category:Video games set in Chile Category:Video games set in Cuba Category:Video games set in England Category:Video games set in France Category:Video games set in Germany Category:Video games set in Greece Category:Video games set in Iceland Category:Video games set in Japan Category:Video games set in The Netherlands Category:Video games set in Switzerland Category:Video games set in Ukraine Category:Video games set in the United Kingdom Category:Video games set in the United States Category:Windows games Category:Xbox 360 games Category:Soviet Union in fiction
es:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 fr:Command & Conquer : Alerte rouge 3 ko:커맨드 앤 컨커: 레드 얼럿 3 id:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 it:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 he:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 hu:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 ms:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 nl:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 no:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 pl:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 ru:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 si:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 fi:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 sv:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 th:คอมมานด์ & คองเคอร์: เรดอเลิร์ท 3 tr:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 uk:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 vi:Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 zh:終極動員令:紅色警戒3This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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