Red Alert 3

Over the top movie sequences, ridiculous weapons, terrible rock music and an insane, time bending story; Red Alert is back and this time it's turning Japanese. The story picks up with the Soviets facing defeat at the hands of the commie-bashing allies, only to use time travel to erase the man most responsible for the West's victories. In doing so the Russians manage to allow the unguarded Japanese, or Empire of the Rising Sun, to become a third superpower turning the games alternate reality into a dogged three way war for survival.

If you've played a Command and Conquer before then you'll know what to expect as very little has changed. You'll construct bases and rely on ore fields to fund your war machine as you grind away at the enemies defences. The troops are pretty similar as well, the soviets are built around brute force; tens of conscripts supported by giant mammoth tanks and Tesla coils. The allies focus on fancy technological units and aircraft, while the new Empire of the rising sun comes stocked with laser samurai, giant robots and a plethora of other anime influenced troops. They're all fairly well balanced and have more than enough unique attacks to keep things fresh for a while.

Of course the best bit about any Command and Conquer game has always been it's movie sequences. Just as in the PC games of yor, the designers have a cast number of stars to fill the shoes of the campaigns main characters, usually while shot against (obviously) dodgy looking cgi backgrounds. This time they've managed to drag in some decent talent including Jonathan Pryce, J.K. Simmons, George Takei and Tim Curry, who are all very aware of how ridiculous the game is and play along to great effect. Less fun however are the glamour models who have been dragged in to fill the female roles who, despite their alluringly cut outfits, seem to be considering this a way into the acting game and take it a bit too seriously.

As fun as the old formula is however, Red Alert 3 isn't without a number of problems. First of all, while the developers have tried hard to adapt what is essentially a PC genre, for the consoles, the controls aren't as smooth as they could be. The main problem is selecting your troops. Both the selection key and action key have been mapped to the same button which will often result in you ordering troops in the wrong direction when you are merely trying to select another unit. Also, whereas before the simple click of a mouse against your mini-map could give you quick access to any area on the battleground, you are now forced to drag your hud across the map slowly to where ever the action may be, it's slow and frustrating for a such fast-paced game.

Finally the game simply feels a little antiquated and very little has changed from the version of Red Alert 2 released in 2000. Many of the troops feel the same and a good old tank rush can still end the game with greater efficiency than any convoluted plan. Just like its cold war setting, Red Alert 3 feels like a bit of a relic, even its graphics are pretty lame and look substantially dated in comparison to most other recent releases. The developers have tried hard to bring traditional real time strategy to the console, but control issues and a dated feel diminish what is otherwise a fun title.