Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Developer(s)	Westwood Studios
Publisher(s)	Virgin Interactive
Composer(s)	Frank Klepacki
Series	Command & Conquer
Platform(s)	MS-DOS, Windows, PlayStation, PSP
Release	PC October 31, 1996 PSP (PlayStation Portable) May 15, 2008 PlayStation 1996
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Command & Conquer: Red Alert is a real-time strategy computer game of the Command & Conquer franchise, produced by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive in 1996. The second game to bear the "C&C" title, Red Alert is the prequel to the original Command & Conquer of 1995, and takes place in the early history of the alternate universe of Command & Conquer when Allied Forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union for control over the European mainland. It was initially available for PC (MS-DOS & Windows 95 versions included in one package), and was subsequently ported to PlayStation. The PlayStation version was also re-released as a download for PSP. On Sunday, August 31, 2008, EA officially rendered Command & Conquer: Red Alert freeware.

Gameplay

Red Alert was praised for its user interface, which claimed to be more developed than the competing games of its time. Players could queue commands, create unit groups that could be selected by a number key, and control numerous units at a time. The game was known to be easy to control, simple to learn and responsive to users commands. It also featured two factions that had differing styles of play. Red Alert is also hailed as one of the first games to feature competitive online play. The single player campaign also received high praise for its detailed story line and missions which often required the player to defeat the enemy with various sets of circumstances before continuing. The single player campaign was also complemented by live action cinematic sequences that are a feature of all Command & Conquer RTS games since the original, except for Command and Conquer: Generals.

Game balancing

The game balance between the forces of the Allied and Soviet armies differed from other games at its time. Like the 'rock-paper-scissors' balancing of modern games, Red Alert required each player to use their side's strengths in order to compensate for their weaknesses. This stood in contrast to games such as Total Annihilation or Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, in which both sides had units with similar abilities and relied on outnumbering the opponent with more units of a certain kind.

The Soviets' vehicles have more hit points and firepower than Allied vehicles but are often slower moving. The Soviets also have superior defensive capabilities against both ground attacks (the devastating Tesla Coil) and air attacks (the long-ranged SAM). In online play and computer skirmish, they have access to two of the Allied side's most useful infantry: the Rocket Trooper and Tanya, a commando capable of easily killing infantry and destroying structures. They also have a wide selection of air units, and could deploy infantry by air through paratroops or by the Chinook transport helicopter (the latter only present in multiplayer). The Soviet "tank rush" was a popular strategy online, involving building many heavy tanks and overwhelming the opponent with sheer numbers.

In-game beta screenshot of a Soviet base on the PC version.

The Allies' forces are generally cheaper, faster to build and are more agile. Their mine layers destroy enemy armor and their infantry can survive longer with good use of their Medic unit. The Allies possess an advantage in naval power thanks to the cruiser, which has the longest-ranged and most powerful surface-to-surface attack in the game, and the destroyer, which is capable of adeptly taking on any type of unit type in the game, including submarines, air units and targets on land. The only offensive naval unit the Soviets have is the submarine, which cannot attack land-based targets or aircraft, and while normally invisible except when surfacing to attack, it can be detected by destroyers and gunboats. When heavily damaged it is not able to submerge. The Allies also possess several other tools, such as stealing enemy resources, hiding their own units and structures, or revealing the game map with satellite technology.

Setting & story

Command & Conquer: Red Alert takes place during an unspecified period in the 1950s of a parallel universe, which was inadvertently created by Albert Einstein in a failed attempt to prevent the horrors of World War II.

Starting off in the year of 1946, at the Trinity site of New Mexico in the United States of America, the opening to Red Alert shows Albert Einstein as he is preparing to travel backwards through space and time. After his experimental "chronosphere" device is activated, he finds himself in Landsberg, Germany, in the year 1924, where he meets a young Adolf Hitler just after the latter's release from Landsberg Prison. Following a brief conversation between the two, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand, with this somehow eliminating the man's existence from time and returning Einstein to his point of origin.

With the threat of Nazi Germany having been successfully removed from history, the Soviet Union began to grow increasingly powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Had Adolf Hitler risen to power, Nazi Germany would have emerged as a force standing in the way of Stalin's own ambitions of conquest. Instead, left unweakened, the USSR proceeds by seizing lands from China and then begins invading Eastern Europe, in order to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. In response, the nations of Europe form into the Alliance, and start a grim and desperate guerrilla war against the invading Soviet army. Over the course of the game's story, the Allies and Soviets fight out a devastating conflict for control over the European mainland, in what has become an alternate World War II.

Characters

Allies

• Grand Marshal Günther von Esling, German officer, Commander-in-Chief of European forces, and apparent leader of the military 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, USA officer. The player's commanding officer in Red Alert: Retaliation. Played by Barry Corbin.

Soviet

• Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Played by Eugene 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.
• General Topolov. High ranked Soviet military mastermind and mentor to the player in Red Alert: Retaliation. Played by Alan Charof.
• Kane, obscure advisor to Joseph Stalin. Played by Joseph D. Kucan.

Connection to the Tiberian games

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

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

During the course of the Soviet's campaign, Kane is seen to make infrequent appearances as a mysterious counsellor to Joseph Stalin, and the story implies that he has in fact been the instigator of the world war between the USSR and the Allied nations in order to further the long-term goals of the Brotherhood of Nod. Indeed -- Nadia, the head of the NKVD, Stalin's mistress and evidently a secretive 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 shoots her without warning, and proclaims to the player that he "[is] the future". Moreover, during the fifth cutscene of 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 bringing about a unique military task force aimed at preventing future globalized conflicts. This task force is heavily implied to have been "Special 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 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 instead would lead into the events of Red Alert 2. According to former C&C designer Adam Isgreen, however, Tiberian Dawn in fact is the story that follows the events of Red Alert's Allies campaign, while Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge are taking place in a second parallel universe, created by new attempts to alter the past in "Tiberian Incursion" (a version of C&C3 that was in development by Westwood before EA bought the franchise),

File:Kane rawin95 quote.png

The image seen at the conclusion of Red Alert's installation in Windows 95.

the working title of Westwood Studios' cancelled sequel to Tiberian Sun: Firestorm. Isgreen also implied that Nikola Tesla may have been responsible for inadvertently having attracted the attention of the Scrin through his experiments, and thus for the arrival of Tiberium on Earth.

When the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation pack was released in February 2006, Electronic Arts divided the Command & Conquer franchise into three distinct universes, with this apparently violating the storyline connections between Red Alert and Tiberian Dawn initially established by Westwood Studios. With the subsequent release of the title Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars in March 2007, however, Electronic Arts published a document pertaining to C&C 3's story in which an explicit reference to Kane's appearance in the 1950s of Command & Conquer: Red Alert is made.

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 designed by Westwood Studios with the "apprenticeship" of Intelligent Games, a London based game developer. Much of the development on multiplayer maps was undertaken by players from the Compuserve Red Alert ladder. New units, missions, maps, and music were included in the expansions.

Of particular note with the Counterstrike add-on is the addition of the secret Ant Missions titled "It came from Red Alert", where the player battles against giant red ants with Allied Forces and Soviet units. 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 multi player 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.

A cited difficulty 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 Counterstrike 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).

Compatibility issues

Command & Conquer: Red Alert can be directly installed on either Windows XP and Windows Vista. However, upon your first installation attempt you will receive a notice that "Red Alert can only be installed on Windows 95" if an installation is attempted on either of the two operating systems. It is possible to install the game with the assistance of the Red Alert Manager, a program that manages the installation, program updates and Vista compatibility in one easy installation.

When trying to operate the Red Alert Terrain Editor to create custom maps you will also run into initial compatibility issues. In order to successfully run this program under Windows Vista or Windows XP you need to right click on the .exe file and adjust the compatibility mode to Windows 95 or Windows 98. This will allow the program to operate smoothly under the Windows Vista OS.

It however, also remains possible to manually install the game and its expansion packs, by running Red Alert's executables in Windows 95 compatibility mode, and by replacing the "Thipx32.dll" file which the game installs within its main directory with an updated version[1]. On the other hand, EA Games had released Command & Conquer: First Decade on two double layer DVDs which consists of all of the C&C games up to and including C&C: Generals and its expansion. This compilation of all C&C games is the easiest way to install even the original C&C Tiberian Dawn, which came out when Windows 95 was popular. It is however possible to install the DOS version of the game by setting the setup in Windows 95 capability mode and then run it in MS-DOS.

All versions of Red Alert, as well as the demo, are rated gold in Wine and are marked as "supported" in DOSBox .

Internet Gameplay

Command & Conquer: Red Alert is recognized as many gamers first real time strategy game ever played online. Westwood Chat was supported up until 1996, when Mplayer.com was the dominant Multiplayer gaming platform. Mplayer hosted hundreds of thousands of online gamers until 2001 when Gamespy purchased the player.

Red Alert online gameplay was supported by many different multiplayer platforms such as Kali, Westwood, GameSpy, Ten, and Heat. Today the game is played on only one of the original platforms. Westwood Chat, which is now hosted by Strike-team.net [2].

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. Originally intended to be the theme for the Brotherhood of Nod faction in the original 1995 Command & Conquer game, the track ironically ended up enlisting itself as a staple in the Red Alert series instead, and a second version of "Hell March" was specifically created for Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. Another version of the said song, entitled "Hell March 3" is currently under production.

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

Track listing
Hell March – 6:26 Radio – 4:07 Crush – 3:51 Roll Out – 3:56 Mud – 4:50 Twin Cannon – 3:57 Face the Enemy – 5:38 Run – 5:15 Terminate – 5:22 Big Foot – 5:17 Workmen – 4:46 Militant Force – 1:52 Dense – 5:04 Vector – 4:20 Smash – 8:07

Released as freeware

To mark the 13th anniversary of Command and Conquer, EA has released Command and Conquer: Red Alert as freeware. The game can be downloaded as 2 x 500 MB .iso images from EA's website.

External links

• Official Red Alert FAQ List - The original Command & Conquer: Red Alert FAQ List from Westwood Studios
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert at Planet C&C
• Forever Red Alert - Last remaining resource for playing Command & Conquer: Red Alert online and an information and files archive (Reported by Mozilla Firefox as an Attack Site)
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert at IMDb
• Red Alert - A Path Beyond - A Modification for C&C Renegade based upon Red Alert 1