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Command & Conquer: Red Alert

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Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Red Alert box cover
Red Alert box cover
Developer(s)Westwood Studios
Publisher(s)Virgin Interactive
Electronic Arts (Windows)
Platform(s)PC (MS-DOS & Windows 95), Sony PlayStation
ReleaseOctober 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.[citation needed] This makes up over half of the 21 million copies of C&C sold prior to the launch of Command & Conquer: Generals in 2003.[1]

Setting & story

Red Alert takes place in the 1950s in a parallel universe, inadvertently created by Albert Einstein in a failed attempt to prevent World War II.

Starting in the "real world" in 1946 at the Trinity site in New Mexico, the opening to Red Alert 's story shows Einstein preparing to travel backwards through time. When the time machine is activated, he appears in Landsberg, Germany, in 1924, where he meets Adolf Hitler just after his release from prison. After a brief conversation, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand, eliminating him and returning Einstein to his time of origin. Upon Einstein's return to New Mexico in 1946, Red Alert's storyline takes place early in the history of the "Tiberian" universe.[2]

With the threat of Nazi Germany removed from history, the Soviet Union had grown increasingly powerful under Joseph Stalin. 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 begins 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 the Alliance, and start a grim guerrilla war against the Soviets. Over the course of the game, the Allies and Soviets fight a devastating conflict for control of the European continent.

Characters

Allies

Soviet

Gameplay

In-game screenshot.

Red Alert was praised for its user interface, which was much more developed than other games at the time. Players could queue commands, create unit formations and control dozens of units at a time. The commands for the game were easy to learn and utilize, and the game also featured one-click mouse movement. It also featured two completely unique factions with their own styles of usage, and is one of the first games to feature online play. The single player campaign was also highly regarded, with an intriguing plot fleshed out by the live action sequences that are a feature of most C&C games since the original Command & Conquer game. The missions were also well done, featuring unique objectives that had to be fulfilled in order to attain victory.

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, and forms an important part of gameplay. 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, and virtually every unit in the game was unique with little resemblance to another. This 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, but were countered by a specific unit or type of unit.

The Soviets possess the advantage in head-on confrontations on land, as their vehicles are more powerful than any Allied equipment. They have the Tesla Coil, undoubtedly the most powerful defensive structure in the game, and the Mammoth Tank, the most powerful land unit in the game. In multiplayer, 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 more powerful and varied selection of air units, and could deploy infantry by air through dropping paratroops or by usage of the Chinook transport helicopter (the latter only present in multiplayer).

On the other hand, although almost all Allied units are weaker compared to Soviet equipment, they are generally cheaper and faster to build, and are more agile (which sometimes allows them to avoid being hit). Their mine layers can negate the parity in armour and their infantry are generally more useful thanks to the Medic. The Allies possess an enormous advantage in naval power thanks to the cruiser, a naval vessel possessing the longest ranged and most powerful attack in game, and the destroyer, which is capable of adeptly taking on any type of unit type in the game. The only offensive naval unit the Soviets have is the submarine, which has no capability to attack land-based targets or aircraft, and while normally invisible except when surfacing to attack, it can be detected by destroyers and when heavily damaged, will not be able to submerge. The Allies also possess several other useful capabilities, such as stealing enemy resources, hiding their units and structures, or revealing the entire map with a satellite available from their tech center.

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. Much of the development works on the multiplayer maps was undertaken by players from the Compuserve Red Alert ladder. New units, missions, maps, 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). Of particular note is the addition of the secret Ant Missions titled "It came from Red Alert" to this add-on, 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 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.

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.[3] 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 designed Command & Conquer: Red Alert as the prequel to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn[2], 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 counsellor 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.

According to former C&C designer Adam "Ishmael" Isgreen, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn follows the events of Red Alert's Allied campaign,[4] while Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge take place in a parallel universe created by an attempt to alter the past in Westwood's cancelled sequel, Tiberian Incursion", known to be the working title of a cancelled sequel to Tiberian Sun: Firestorm.[5], which was known under the working title of "Tiberian Incursion".[6] Isgreen also implied that Nikola Tesla was responsible for attracting the attention of the Scrin through his experiments, and thus for the arrival of Tiberium on Earth.[7]

When the Command & Conquer: The First Decade compilation was released in February of 2006, Electronic Arts divided the Command & Conquer series 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 storyline in which a reference to Kane's appearance in the 1950s of Command & Conquer: Red Alert was made.[8] On July 25th of the same year, a Command & Conquer: Renegade-themed modification for the game Crysis was officially announced by Electronic Arts, which is stated to directly link the first Red Alert game to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn;[9] the original storyline connection between the two titles with this on the verge of being officially reestablished by the franchise's current owners.

References

  1. ^ Stephen Coleman (2003-02-11). "Command & Conquer Generals Ships". IGN. Retrieved 2006-11-26.
  2. ^ a b Westwood Studios (1997-10-24). "Westwood Studios Official Command & Conquer: Red Alert FAQ List". Westwood Studios. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Frank Klepacki. "COMMENTARY: Behind the Red Alert Soundtrack". frankklepacki.com. {{cite web}}: External link in |work= (help); Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ Adam Isgreen (2006-10-17). "C&C Story". Petroglyph Games. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  5. ^ Adam Isgreen (2006-12-18). "C&C Timeline (i)". Petroglyph Games. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  6. ^ Adam Isgreen (2006-12-18). "C&C Timeline (ii)". Petroglyph Games. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  7. ^ Adam Isgreen (2006-12-21). "C&C Timeline (iii)". Petroglyph Games. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  8. ^ "Kane's Dossier". EA Games, Command and Conquer 3 official website. 2006-10-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ Electronic Arts Los Angeles (2007-07-25). "Command & Conquer 3 News Announcement". EALA. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |accessdaymonth= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

See also

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