Command & Conquer: Red Alert Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

The smash hit strategy game comes to mobile.

I am showing my age here, but I remember when Command and Conquer or C&C first came out. We had been playing Dune II on my friends PC and the next game up was C&C. It had a much better feel to it than Dune as you controlled the military and didn't have to fight against worms. The principles were the same though, and it was one of the first RTS or real time strategy games. And it was brilliant. This version is technically Red Alert 3 which was released sometime last year for PC and console.

Anyway, enough with the history lesson, how does C&C Red Alert fare on mobile? Well, we have reviewed a number of RTS games before and they have opted for two approaches. Larger graphics and less soldiers / vehicles so you can see what's going on or smaller graphics and more soldiers / vechiles so you can have all out war and mayhem. This game opts for the latter. The landscapes are large, the sprites are small and it's tough to tell an engineer from a laser trooper. Attack bears are easy to spot though.

The missions also vary somewhat from the standard C&C fare. Now, I never played Red Alert 3 so I can't gauge whether the missions have been accurately recreated, but in between the mayhem, there are some stealth missions where you have to get to a place without getting seen that much. Of course, you still have the standard C&C approach where you build up your resources, create an army that will block out the sun and go forth to destroy and demolish your opponent.

This version has achievements as well, as you complete each mission you unlock things. There are a few new vehicles like the Paladin tanks, but the time travel element seems the same. And you still have the Kirov airships and laser turrets and other normal C&C stuff. You play as the Soviets at first, but after you finish the game you can play as the Allies as well (I think). The game is controlled via the D or key pad and is the usual point and click fare. 0 will bring up your build menus and the left softkey switches between your battle groups.

Having never played the console version, I can't tell if the things like occupying types of buildings to give you additional elements have been ported over or are new. Well, they were new to me, e.g. if you occupy a hospital, your troops heal, and on one mission, if you occupied a certain building you will get access to veteran units. The missions start off very easy at first and the game will guide you through them, but they pick up the pace pretty sharpish after that.

I had to play some missions a fair few times with slow progress of extending my front lines and defending them well enough so I didn't have to keep rebuilding. But, this is exactly like the original game, so it's nice to see it on a mobile. Just don't expect to be done with the game in a few hours. And therein lies my biggest gripe of the game. If I had to give one criticism it's that you can't save mid level. Why oh why oh why is this the case?

Fair enough, some levels are quicker than others, and there was a stealth mission I finished in about 5 minutes, but when you spend a good 30 minutes consolidating your position, you want to be able to come back to it. Not start from the beginning of the level. And this is also frustrating if you get to a certain point, only to be defeated, as you will start from the beginning of the level as well. Aaarrggghh.

So to summarise, the game has great gameplay, lot's of longevity and is highly addictive. Graphics are decent if not spectacular although sound and effects are well above average. However, some missions are very tough, some take ages and you can't save the damn thing mid level. If this wasn't the case, it would get an award from me, as it is, I'm just giving it the score.