Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Red Alert box cover Red Alert box cover
Developer(s)	Westwood Studios
Publisher(s)	Virgin Interactive, Electronic Arts (Win)
Platform(s)	PC (MS-DOS & Windows 95), Sony PlayStation
Release	October 31, 1996, 1997, 2000
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player multiplayer

Command & Conquer: Red Alert is a landmark real-time strategy video game in the Command & Conquer series, released by Westwood Studios in 1996. The events of Red Alert take place in an alternate history, where Allied Forces defend Europe against an aggressive Soviet Union. It was initially available for PC (MS-DOS & Windows 95 versions included in one package), and was subsequently ported to PlayStation.

The Red Alert sub-series is certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the best selling real-time strategy game in the world, with over 12 million units sold. This makes up over half of the 21 million copies of C&C sold prior to the launch of Command & Conquer: Generals in 2003.

Setting & story

Red Alert is set in the 1950s, taking place in a pub alternate reality. Albert Einstein has recently developed (or has been supplied with, it is not specified aside from the fact that he has one and it is very new) a time machine called the "Chronosphere", which he uses to travel from Trinity, New Mexico in 1946 to Landsberg, Germany, in 1924, where he meets Adolf Hitler when he is being released from prison after his failed Beer Hall Putsch. Einstein removes Hitler from our dimension in an attempt to prevent World War II and returns to 1946. As intended, World War II never breaks out and Germany and Europe remain peaceful.

Einstein's scheme, however, backfires. The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin has grown increasingly powerful. Had Hitler risen to power, Germany would have emerged as the balancing power standing in the way of Stalin's ambitions. Instead, left unchecked, the Soviet Union proceeds by seizing lands from China and then invading Eastern Europe in order to achieve Stalin's dream of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. The nations of Europe form into the Alliance, and they start a grim guerilla war against the Soviets. Over the course of the game, the Allies and the Soviets battle for control of the European continent.

Characters

Allies

• Grand Marshal Gunther von Esling, German officer, Commander-in-Chief of European forces, and apparent leader of the military junta governing Europe. Played by Arthur Roberts.
• General Nikos Stavros, Greek officer, Second-in-Command to General von Esling. Played by Barry Kramer.
• Tanya Adams, a special ops. commando. Played by Lynne Litteer.
• Professor Albert Einstein, German physicist. Played by John Milford.
• General Carville. The player's commanding officer in Red Alert: Retaliation. Played by Barry Corbin.

Soviet

• Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Played by Gene Dynarski.
• Nadia, Chief of the NKVD. Played by Andrea C. Robinson.
• General Gradenko, Russian commander. Played by Alan Terry.
• Marshal Georgi Kukov, commander of the Red Army. Played by Craig Cavanah.
• Kane, obscure advisor to Stalin. Played by Joseph D. Kucan.
• General Topolov. High ranked Soviet military mastermind and mentor to the player in Red Alert: Retaliation. Played by Alan Charof.

Gameplay

In-game screenshot.

Red Alert is a real-time strategy series in which the player commands an army and is responsible for gathering resources, building bases, training units, and fighting the enemy's army.

Red Alert was praised for its user interface, which was much more developed than other games at the time. Players can, for example, queue commands, create unit formations and control dozens of units at a time.

Red Alert battles have three domains of fighting: air, land and sea. Each side (Allies or Soviets) can train naval units, aircraft, and land forces. Each side also has its unique capabilities, although in Red Alert 2 they were balanced so that each unit's ability was countered by a similar variant on the opposing side. For example, in Red Alert 2, the ultimate Soviet Tesla coil defensive towers were matched by the Allies' "Prism towers."

Both sides had access to assault rifle soldiers and engineers, but the Soviets had AK-47 riflemen, while the Allies have M-16 rifle soldiers.

Units of the Soviet side include the twin-barrel , the "Mammoth" heavy tank, the V-2 rocket launcher, flamethrower equipped infantry, attack dogs, the Hind attack helicopter, submarines, Badger bomber and MiG attack jet (the MiG-29 Fulcrum in cut scenes), and anti-infantry minelayer.

The Allied forces have the light tank, a medium tank (M1 Abrams in cut scenes), Tanya Adams (a female commando wielding dual pistols that fire at an incredible rate), an unarmed, James Bond-like spy, an anti-tank minelayer, an APC, the Ranger Jeep, artillery, Gunboats, Destroyers, Cruiser and the Longbow attack helicopter.

Units and structures

Further information: Allied technology of Command & Conquer and Soviet technology of Command & Conquer

Game balancing

The game balance between the strengths of the Allied and Soviet armies was innovative in its time.

In an ironic role-reversal (given that the GDI were the "good guys" of the Tiberian series and Nod the "bad guys"), the Soviets can in some areas be matched to the GDI in the previous game Tiberian Dawn in the fact that they rely on heavy firepower and pure aggression (all of their vehicles, with the exception of the mine layer, have heavy armor) to win, the Allies can in some areas be matched to the Brotherhood of Nod (Allies must rely on guerilla tactics to be effective.) Allies use covert ops troopers to commit acts of sabotage to render their enemies helpless. Different sides also gain more power over the other over time in a game.

Unlike the 'rock-paper-scissors' balancing of more recent games, Red Alert requires each player to make best use of their side's strengths to compensate for their weaknesses. Tacticians would prefer the Allies as they rely on stealth, speed, and their special abilities to take down their enemies. Headstrong generals would side with the Soviets with their pure aggression, sheer firepower, and heavy armour.

This shows how Red Alert stood in contrast to games such as Total Annihilation or Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, in which both sides had units with practically identical abilities.

Land

The Soviets are formidable in land-based combat because of their brute force: their weakest tank is still more powerful (slower, more firepower, same armour) than the best Allied equivalent, even though it is only marginally more expensive. This means that the Allies are at a significant disadvantage during a straight stand-up engagement.

Allied armour does have some advantages, as their light and medium tanks are quicker (they can avoid direct hits if they are on the move), have a faster rate of fire (so they will inflict more cumulative damage if they can survive long enough), and are cheaper (allowing them to be built faster, and thus, more of them can be built). Medium tanks are often used as cannon fodder, drawing the enemy's attacks whilst allowing the more mobile and faster-firing light tanks to pummel an opponent (although medium tanks are somewhat costly.)

Furthermore, Allies also have anti-vehicle mines which can be used to cut off choke points and can severely damage enemy tanks (the mines instantly destroy any vehicle lighter than a heavy tank, and heavier tanks will still take heavy damage.) As the mines are hidden, this forces the Soviet commander into a dilemma; sweeping ahead with firepower to uncover potential mines will slow down the detachment and ruin the element of surprise, while the sacrifice of even one heavy tank is a costly endeavor (heavy tanks cost 950 credits each.)

Comparing defensive structures, Soviet players rely chiefly upon the lethal Tesla Coil, which is powerful and accurate against vehicles and infantry alike (often described as a bug zapper, and it fries infantry with one hit, and vehicles in 2 to 3 hits). However, the Tesla Coil is expensive, and particularly vulnerable to power shortages and air strikes from Allied attack helicopters. Early in the game, Soviets must make do with Flame Towers, which are heavily armoured but are only moderately effective against troops at close range and do pitiful damage against even the lightest vehicles. Later on, Flame Towers are mostly useful as cannon fodder in front of the more vulnerable Coils. Soviet SAM sites must also be built if the Soviet commander needs to protect the coils from air strikes. Flame Towers are also known to explode and damage any units or structures (friendly and hostile) close to it when destroyed.

The Allies have the pillbox and an anti-tank gun turret. The pillbox is excellent for mowing down enemy troops, though it only offers token resistance to enemy armour. The turret, which is similar in appearance to a tank turret supported by a reinforced concrete base, is mediocre against its intended target of vehicles in small numbers, and it proves more useful as cannon fodder to divert firepower away from pill boxes. Turrets also serve as bastions that reinforcing units can rally around. Pill boxes also come in a camouflaged version that cannot be auto-targeted by enemy units and is very difficult to see, even by the owner. The main advantage of these defensive structures is that they do not require power to run.

Air

This is repeated in the field of aerial engagements where the Soviets have various specialized planes. For short and powerful strikes (hit-and-run), there is the inexpensive Yak WWII Attack Plane for dispatching infantry and light buildings, and the MiG-23 for use against armour, ships, and heavy buildings alike. Building an airfield also gives them access to the Spy Plane, Paratroopers, and Parabombs, which "recharge" after a certain period of time. The Soviets also have the Hind helicopter whose chaingun makes it an all-purpose vehicle with staying power against both armour and infantry.

The Allies simply have one helicopter, the Longbow, which is best suited to staying power against armour and buildings; its AGM-114 Hellfire missiles gives it more firepower than the Hind but make it ineffective against troops.

Like minelayers, air units are forced to return to base to reload after releasing their payload (they are still forced to return to base even if they don't have a target.) The MiG uses up all of its ammo in one powerful strike, while the YaK utilizes strafing attacks that cover a large area. The Hind and Longbow helicopters can control their ammo expenditures, though they cannot discharge a large amount of firepower at once like the planes. The MiG deserves special mention because it has a quick reload rate compared to other air units (while the Yak is the slowest). Six MiGs will also destroy any structure or unit in the game, such as a Construction Yard, Cruiser, or Ore Truck which are cited as the toughest of their types. The main disadvantage of the Soviet's air power are airfields-one airfield can only hold one aircraft, so to build numerous planes, the Soviet commander must build multiple airfields, which can be costly.

However, the Allies have a variety of strong air defenses, including powerful anti-aircraft guns, destroyer-launched missiles, and missile-armed rocket infantry, which can provide a deterrent to Soviet air strikes, particularly fragile MiGs and Yaks. Furthermore, destroyers and rocket infantry are units and thus can be deployed throughout the map. A semi-mobile air defence can be created by filling an APC with rocket soldiers and unloading them when needed.

Though the Soviet SAM launchers are effective (slightly greater range than Allied AA guns), they generally lack mobile AA units aside from the limited capabilities of the Mammoth Tank which is also slow. While their airfields are heavily armoured, the fragile planes on it are easily destroyed, and it is costly to replace MiGs.

In multiplayer, the Soviets have the CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter which can carry five infantry units. Although unbuildable in single player, the Chinook is seen in many Allied missions.

Naval

Naval warfare, however, is another matter and the Allies are the dominant side. The Allies have three ships: the Gunboat, which is armed with a 2-inch deck gun and depth charges; the Destroyer, which is armed with guided missiles and depth charges; and the Cruiser, which is armed with 8 inch (203 mm) guns in two twin turrets. The gunboat is a cheap but mediocre vessel; with limited surface-bombardment capabilities, it functions mainly as an inexpensive and expendable ASW platform. The Destroyer is a flexible vessel with the capability of engaging aircraft, submarines, and land targets. The Cruiser is slow, inaccurate, but heavily armored, and its (extremely) long-range guns can bombard an enemy base to rubble within minutes, but is unable to defend itself against aircraft and submarines, and must be escorted by other ships with that capability. However, by using force-fire (ctrl-click) on the water next to a submarine, the commander can turn the inaccuracy of the cruiser to his advantage and land a stray shot on a submarine. This tactic can prove deadly for Soviet wolf packs where subs tend to be clustered together.

The Soviet submarine exists mainly as a counter to Allied naval power. Its stealth enables it to move undetected (it does not surface until it attacks or get damaged) and its torpedoes have a long range compared to the Allied depth charge's point blank distance, allowing it to fire off the first shot; a Wolf pack of subs using surprise can sink an Allied warship or two before the latter can react. Indeed, the mere presence of Soviet submarines often forces the Allied commander to carefully deploy naval units and build escort vessels. If the submarine is severely damaged, it takes a while before the submarine can submerge.

However, Allies do have others options for actively seeking out subs as opposed to passively reacting to them. They can use the Longbow helicopter to take out attacking subs and even sweep suspect bodies of water with force-fire (damaging subs will force them to surface), since subs lack air defense and are often far from AA base defenses. Allies can also sneak a spy to the Soviets' sub pen to get a sonar pulse which will temporarily reveal the location of submarines. Furthermore, using the maneuverable gunboats and destroyers to draw the torpedoes fire while using the cruiser to force-fire on the submarines can be a very effective tactic, particularly if a player attacks with their submarines right next to each other.

The Soviets' air power is perhaps one of the most effective (powerful and quick) counters against Allied vessels, though air sorties can be costly if there are Destroyers. Soviet commanders nonetheless find this tradeoff appealing as they can replace MiGs faster than Allied warships of similar expense. That said, a MiG flying directly over or in between two destroyers stands a high chance of being shot down with just one salvo, assuming the player is trying to target the cruisers.

The Allies' naval advantage is nullified by maps that lack bodies of water.

Subterfuge

The Allies' second strength is their ability to indulge in acts of subterfuge; Allied commanders can build units and structures to recreate the "fog of war", effectively blinding the enemy. They themselves can launch a GPS satellite into space to see the whole battlefield. Other Allied units can jam radar, steal money, spy on the enemy, and plant explosive charges that can level buildings immediately (Tanya).

The main Soviet counter to such saboteurs is deploying anti-infantry mines around crucial buildings, and having attack dogs which can detect spies on sight. The Soviets also have reconnaissance abilities in the form of spy planes and paratroopers; the latter can deploy in remote areas to retrieve powerup crates or even sabotage vulnerable areas of an enemy base.

Expansion packs

Counterstrike & Aftermath (1997)

In 1997, two expansion packs for Red Alert were released for the PC, Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Counterstrike, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert: The Aftermath. The expansion packs were mostly designed by Westwood Studios with the "apprenticeship" of Intelligent Games, London based game developer. IG built a good number of the multi player maps on both the Aftermath disk and also the Counterstrike disk. New units, missions, and music were included in the expansions. While the Counterstrike add-on adds many more multiplayer maps, it lacks originality as its single player missions appeared to have been scrapped from modified units (Red Alert units can be modified by editing the game's internal text files) and bundled together to give a feel of new and more powerful units than its predecessor. Of particular note is the addition of the secret Ant Missions to this add-on, where the player battles against giant red ants with super weapon capabilities. An interesting thing to note is that the units used in this mode are colored yellow; the color of the GDI in the original Command & Conquer. Also, the mixture of Allied and Soviet Units available, such as medium and mammoth tanks, roughly mirrors the arsenal of the GDI. The Secret Ant Missions themselves can be accessed by pressing the SHIFT key and left-clicking simultaneously on the speaker in the top right corner of the main menu.

The Aftermath add-on, however, added many new units available in single and multiplay modes. New Allied units include the Field Mechanic and the Chrono Tank. New Soviet units include the Missile Sub, the Shock Trooper, the M.A.D Tank and the Tesla Tank. Also, both sides receive the Demolition Truck. The add-on also includes hundreds of new maps as well as maps with huge map sizes. The Field mechanic can repair vehicles in the field, it functions like the Field Medic but 'heals' vehicles instead of infantry. The Chrono tank is not really a tank but a tracked missile carrier with chronosphere technology integrated into it. It can chronoshift itself and has powerful anti-armor missiles that are also effective against aircraft. The Shock trooper is an infantry unit which carries an electrical rifle, similar to the Tesla coil but smaller. These heavy infantry units can not be crushed. The missile sub is a submarine with sea-to-ground missiles. Like the Allied cruiser its missiles are powerful and have a long range but it is lightly armored and relies on regular Victor class submarines to defend it against Allied ships, since it is helpless against Allied ships alone. The M.A.D. tank is based on a Mammoth tank hull with a large shockwave device. When activated the pilot escapes and the device creates a massive shockwave damaging all nearby units and structures (infantry is unharmed). The shock effect is so great that it destroys the M.A.D. tank in the process. The Tesla tank is not really a tank but a half-track which carries an electrical weapon similar to that of the Tesla coil but less powerful. Whereas the Tesla tank prototypes were captured Allied Radar jammers which were modified with Tesla equipment the production Tesla tanks are totally new vehicles. They do look somewhat like the Radar jammer but are a lot larger. The Demo truck is a remote-controlled truck which carries a nuclear warhead that detonates when destroyed or when it reaches its target. Since it has no crew, no unit is lost when activated.

A problem with the add-ons is that the Counterstrike and Aftermath missions are put into a single list in the game menu, which makes it hard to see which missions are from which expansion. This issue is fixed with the Red Alert v3.03 (beta) patch, which separates the single "New Missions" list into two lists; one for each expansion.

Retaliation (1998)

On August 28, 1998, Westwood Studios released Red Alert Retaliation for the Sony PlayStation, this was a compilation of the two PC expansion packs. It even retained the secret Ant Missions.

It included 19 exclusive FMV full-motion video clips that were not in any of the PC expansion packs, which virtually had none as instead a text briefing was presented for the missions. The FMVs had a general (for both sides) telling you what your objectives were. The Allied General was General Carville who would later appear in Red Alert 2, the Soviet General known as General Topolov on the other hand is not seen afterwards.

The Retaliation videos are available for the PC Red Alert in the Red Alert modification Red Alert: The Lost Files. This modification adds the Retaliation videos to the Counterstike and Aftermath missions. It requires Red Alert patch v3.03 or Red Alert patch v3.03 TFD (for the Red Alert version of the C&C The First Decade package).

Soundtrack

The game's original score was composed by Frank Klepacki and was voted the best video game soundtrack of 1996 by PC Gamer and Gameslice magazines. Among his most famous songs from the series is the theme of Red Alert, titled "Hell March", which accents the style of the game with adrenalized riffs of electric guitar, the sounds of marching feet and synthesizers to a dramatic chant. It alone has enlisted itself as a staple in the Red Alert series, and a second version of Hell March was specifically created for Red Alert 2.

When playing the single-player campaign, a limited number of tracks are initially available, and more are unlocked as the player progresses through missions. When playing in a multiplayer or 'skirmish' game, however, all tracks are available from the start. More tracks were included in the Red Alert expansion packs: Counterstrike, The Aftermath and Retaliation. The music tracks can be listened to on Frank Klepacki's website.

An official soundtrack was released containing all 15 songs plus a hidden bonus track:

1. Hell March
2. Radio
3. Crush
4. Roll Out
5. Mud
6. Twin Cannon
7. Face the Enemy
8. Run
9. Terminate
10. Big Foot
11. Workmen
12. Militant Force
13. Dense
14. Vector
15. Smash

Half a minute after the end of track 15 plays a unnamed bonus track. Its melodramatic opening was used in the secret campaign, and the track itself is a tribute to Misirlou. In the media player on Frank Klepacki's website, the track is titled "Surf No Mercy".

Connections to the Tiberian series

File:Rapic.jpg

Kane (standing) advises Stalin (centre), with Nadia (left) and Gradenko (right).

Westwood Studios originally designed Command & Conquer: Red Alert to be the canonical prequel to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn, and by proxy of the Tiberian series as a whole.

Throughout the Soviet's campaign, Kane is seen to make infrequent appearances as a mysterious counselor to Joseph Stalin, and the story subtly implies that he may in fact have been instigating the world war between the Soviet Union and the Allied nations in order to secure a future power base for the Brotherhood of Nod. Indeed -- Nadia, one of Stalin's other closest advisors and evidently a member of the Brotherhood herself as early as the 1950s, instructs the player to "keep the peace" until Nod would "tire of the USSR in the early 1990s" upon the campaign's successful conclusion. Kane however then shoots her without provocation or warning, and proclaims to the player that he "[is] the future". Moreover, during the Allied campaign, a news announcer reporting on the Allies' loss of Greece is suddenly heard stating that the United Nations are in the process of creating a special military task force intended to deal with future globalized conflicts. This task force is commonly assumed to have been "Operations Group Echo: Black Ops 9" -- the covert and international peace enforcing unit of the United Nations and the precursor of the Global Defense Initiative, one of the two main and iconic factions of the Tiberian series along with the Brotherhood of Nod.

A much debated theory intended to resolve the apparent timeline error which came to exist between Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is to consider Red Alert as the genesis of two parallel storylines. If the Soviet campaign were to be successfully completed in Red Alert, then the USSR would emerge as the dominant Eurasian power and Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod would subsequently take control of this new empire. Conversely, if the Allied campaign were to be completed in Red Alert, the Allies would emerge victorious and the timeline would instead lead into the events of Red Alert 2. It should be noted however that this theory is in direct contradiction to the official Tiberian Dawn manual, which states that Nod is an African group in its origins, making no mention of the Soviet Union whatsoever. Additionally, a GDI FMV mission briefing sequence in Tiberian Dawn features a map with all of the GDI member states of the time, with one of them being Russia itself and by that name. Also, as mentioned above, during Red Alert's Allied campaign a newscaster refers to the United Nations having approved "a unique military funding initiative", calling for the formation of a "global defense agency", both being vociferous references to the international military alliance of identical naming in Tiberian Dawn, which nonetheless is not featured in Red Alert 2 in any form. A further apparent flaw of this theory is that if the Allies had been defeated by the Soviet Union in Red Alert, the future Group of Eight would not have existed to have first set up the Global Defense Initiative by becoming its primary founding nations.

When considered, this theory additionally is unable to explain the massive loss of technology between Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Dawn. According to early reports, it was to be explained by a worldwide economic crash caused by the depletion of natural resources (notably "ore") in Red Alert and Red Alert 2. With no money to maintain high-end weapons systems such as chronosphere, weather control and iron curtain technology, these devices fell into disrepair. When Tiberium arrived in the 1990s, the world leaped at the new opportunities the alien plant possessed and old technology was quickly forgotten. It however seems unlikely that technology of such advanced levels could be lost completely in this short space of time as the result of a mere lack of funds; Tiberium would provide an equal if not greater economic advantage, and designs would have remained that could be accessed for reference as well.

The storyline apparently became further complicated by the addition of Red Alert 2's expansion pack Yuri's Revenge, which developed characters such as Yuri and this new villain's attempts to conquer the world, thwarted by a pact between the Soviets and the Allies.

Former Westwood employees have claimed that they were working on a timeline which seamlessly linked the entire series together.. When the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation pack was released however, Electronic Arts divided the Command & Conquer series into three distinct universes, apparently further violating the storyline connections between Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn initially established by Westwood Studios.

With the release of the title of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, Electronic Arts published an official featured document pertaining to C&C 3's storyline in which a direct reference to Kane's appearance in the 1950s of Command & Conquer: Red Alert was made. Whether or not it is EA's intent to re-establish the original storyline connection between Command & Conquer: Red Alert and the Tiberian series through Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars, remains unknown at present.

In conclusion, it must be noted that as the body of work is either one or two timelines involving an entire series of games worked on by different teams, it is arguable that no completely 'canon' explanation is possible, and that a retcon explanation at this stage would not necessarily be agreed with by the original creators.

See also

• Command & Conquer series
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert series
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian series
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
• Kane

External links

• Official Red Alert FAQ List - The original Command & Conquer: Red Alert FAQ List from Westwood Studios
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert at IMDb
• Forever red alert - Download red alert 1 and information about the game.