Superman: Red Son

In mother Russia arms are crossed behind back, not in front.

What a different world it would be in the Kryptonian who would become Superman crash landed in Russia instead of the USA. This movie follows the comic of the same name, with a few liberties of course, to show what a Russian Kal-El might do differently. The answer is "a lot". Voice acting is good and the art is around the regular level of these DC shows, with some decent fights to boot.

Too bad he doesn't actually wield a hammer and sickle.

The story has a few things I'd like to nitpick, like Lex, and how the hell did this version of X beat Y? You'll know those variables when you see the movie and guess what, it's never explained, but I guess that's just canon? All up its a rather "meh" outing, especially as it's a stand alone story which is disappointing. DC and animated superman fans might enjoy it but otherwise feel free to skip. I give it 2.5 Stalin's out of 5.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Without Hitler there is Stalin.

This refined version of the original takes a step back from the Tiberium future and sees Russia fighting the Allies (who I played to victory - as before I only play 1 side). Just the ore trucks (which collect gems and ore for funding) are a good example - as they dump their load into the refinery in under 3 seconds as opposed to the harvesters that used a straw.

Keep walking Hitler, you aren't in this game.

It's also interesting that the Allies get the "light" units this time around while Russia gets the "heavies", an inversion of the GDI/Nod arsenal from the first game. Along with some indoor maps there are also new units, most of which are good or mandatory thanks to having water now on the map - the rest are very situational. The engineer rush tactic is also gone here as are the commandos who are replaced by the uber-hero unit: Tanya. It's worth mentioning that I've killed more dogs in this game than any other.

The quality of the video cut scenes has also improved, and the best part is they fixed my complaint from the first game where you need to hunt everything down. Here at some point, the AI just "surrenders" and sends everything your way. Not as good as an immediate "you win" but good enough.

I cherry picked through the expansions and found that Counterstrike, while having missions come in small 2-3 set bundles for story purposes was still just more of the same just with full tech trees unlocked on both sides (which only happens in the last mission of the regular campaign).

Aftermath was more fun for me (at least for Allies), as there are more zero-construction missions. It also adds more ridiculous units though - like a nuke truck. It's exactly what it sounds like. There's no launcher either, it's a suicide unit. Good times! All up, Red Alert is a big step forward from the original and I give it 3.5 Tesla coils out of 5.