Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2

This time with crazier technologies!

Having lost the first war, the Russians have come back now with a vengeance and their secret weapon: a mind controlling wizard named Yuri. It's great to see the cut scene acting and prop department got a boost, with for Kari Wuhrer as Tanya and Ray Wise as the US President. There's definitely a more comedic spin than last time too.

Airship bombers are just one of the WTF moments.

While the selective progression map is still absent from this game and combat seems very fast-forwarded animation wise, it is quite a fun experience to play through (I played as the Allies again). The big change from its predecessor is that infantry can garrison buildings (like in Generals) - making them quite useful in certain situations.

The short campaign in the Yuri's Revenge expansion ups the difficulty somewhat, but I still played through all of it mainly because it still had live action cut scenes. Have to admit, I'm a big fan of those now. Thanks to all the above and the faster build times (less player idling), Red Alert 2 gets 4 clones out of 5 and my recommendation to any RTS enthusiasts who haven't yet played it.

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.