Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is a 2008 real-time strategy video game developed by EA Los Angeles and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on October 28, 2008 in the United States for Microsoft Windows PCs and October 30, 2008 in Europe. An Xbox 360 version was released on November 11. On January 21, 2009 EA officially announced Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Ultimate Edition,[11] the PlayStation 3 version which contains bonus material extra to that of the Xbox 360 and PC versions and released on March 23, 2009 along with the OS X version by TransGaming. The game is a continuation of the Red Alert games within the Command & Conquer series. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 – Uprising, a stand-alone expansion pack, was released for Windows in March 2009. It was offered via digital distribution.[12]
Like the previous entries in the Red Alert series, the game is set in an alternate reality from World War II, in which the Western Allies fought the Soviet Union. In Red Alert 3 the Soviet leadership, facing defeat, goes back in time to kill Albert Einstein and prevent his assistance to the allies, paving the way for Soviet domination in the present. However as an unintended consequence, a third world power, the Empire of the Rising Sun, is created and all three sides go to war. All three factions are playable, with the gameplay involving constructing a base, gathering resources and training armies to defeat other players. Each faction has a fully co-operative campaign, playable with an artificial intelligence partner or with another human player online. The game intersperses strategy missions with full motion video footage featuring an ensemble castled by Jonathan Pryce, Tim Curry and George Takei as the leaders of the three adversaries.
The game received mostly positive reviews, with reviewers citing the co-operative and multiplayer components as strengths, along with the enhanced role of naval combat compared to other real-time strategy games. Commonly cited weaknesses included aspects such as unit pathfinding.
Gameplay[edit]
Red Alert 3 retains the core RTS mechanics of the Command & Conquer series. Warring factions harvest resources using vulnerable collectors and then use those resources to construct military bases and forces on-site. Structures form a shallow but wide tech tree with a variety of units and elusive superweapons. Weapon types are specialized to the point where a rifleman can withstand direct hits from an anti-tank cannon. Red Alert 3 's major refinements are the addition of the Empire of the Rising Sun to the factions of the sub-series (similar to what Tiberium Wars did with the Scrin faction), a co-operative campaign, and expanded naval warfare.
The "single-player" campaign is now fully co-operative. Each mission is played alongside an ally. When played online, this is another human player. Offline it is one of several computer-controlled characters. Teams share income and generally start with the same forces. Computerized characters can be given simple commands, such as an order to take a specific position or to strike a specific target. The campaign has nine missions for each side. Each side's plotlines are mutually exclusive, unlike Tiberium Wars and its preceding and following expansion packs, but like most of the other Command & Conquer games.
Naval warfare is emphasized as another front. Executive producer Chris Corry has stated that many units are now amphibious, trading effectiveness for increased flexibility. Buildings and entire bases can be constructed on water, save for such things as ground or naval unit production facilities (e.g. tank factories are ground-only, but Tsunami tanks are amphibious and can be produced in Naval Yards),[13] and players who "ignore the ocean [are] likely forfeiting a significant part of their potential economy to their opponents." Further stressing this is the fact that, despite some campaign maps being entirely land based, all multiplayer maps have significant bodies of water in them.
The use of naval units and various unit abilities also helped players counterattack their opponent's units specific to that unit's strongpoint; for example, a Soviet Stingray's secondary ability, Tesla Surge, sends a surge of electricity in the tesla boat's area, damaging units from attack dolphins to terror drones.
Almost every unit in the game has a secondary ability. Their usage varies: some are toggled on or off, others are targeted, and still others are triggered the instant one presses the button. Imperial construction vehicles are able to deploy into buildings at any specified location, a Soviet Hammer tank can toggle between an anti-tank gun and a leech beam that can leech HP from enemies, and an Allied artillery piece can engage its shields with a button press but with a cooldown period before they can be used again. All abilities are bound to the same key. The game also features experience points that are used to upgrade unit types and to buy "commander abilities," which call in air strikes, recon sweeps, magnetic satellite beams, etc. Commander abilities have no resource costs but do have significant cooldown periods.
Ore fields as resource sites have been removed. These originated in the first Red Alert as a functionally identical equivalent to Tiberium, and what were ostensibly strip mines had ore growing out of the ground. Gameplay mechanics haven't changed a great deal since fields have been replaced with stationary ore mines. Strategic ore-refinery placement and covert refining are impacted to an extent.
Design[edit]
The first Red Alert revolved around a down-to-earth World War II between the Allies (including Germany) and the Soviet Union, with some high-tech esoterica, such as weaponized tesla coils linked to Tesla's abortive death rays and limited time travel linked to the rumored Philadelphia Experiment. Red Alert 2 featured a Soviet invasion of North America with tanks, conscripts, gargantuan airships, and psychicallydominated anti-ship giant squids; its expansion, Yuri's Revenge, escalated matters up to UFOs and Soviets on the Moon. Executive producer Chris Corry stated in a pre-release interview that Red Alert 3 will further differentiate the playable factions from each other and "[play] up the silliness in their faction design whenever possible."[14]
The Soviets and Allies have a mix of old and new features. Soviet units lean towards ruthlessness and brute force: giant Kirov airships are retained and flak troopers are now penal troops, while attack dogs are an Allied unit that the Soviets have replaced with functionally identical armored war bears. New units include heavy tanks known as "Hammer Tanks" that can tear weapons from the enemies they destroy with a magnetic beam, light anti-infantry walkers known as "Sickles" that can jump over terrain elevations, the amphibious "Stingray" attack craft with twin-mounted tesla coils, and amphibious AA-only "Bullfrog" transports that can only shoot their passengers out of a "man cannon". The Soviets have lost their nuclear technology due to the events of the backstory, but can leverage their simple tech, cheap units and "quick fix" structures like the Super Reactor and Crusher Crane, enabling them to easily overwhelm enemy bases. Soviet armour are considerably tougher than Allied and Japanese on the whole, and augmented with their infamous Iron Curtain, can be extremely dangerous.
A major change from Red Alert 2 is the Soviet air force: in addition to Kirovs, the Soviets have access to MiG (Mikevich and Guroyan) fighters and versatile attack helicopters. In lieu of nuclear bombs, the Soviets have developed the Vacuum Imploder, a warhead which sucks humans, vehicles and damaged buildings into a dense hole before exploding.
The Allies come with a wide variety of gadgetry (mostly nonlethal), much of it as a comeback of Red Alert 2's advanced units. New units include Hydrofoils with weapon-scrambling rays, unarmed helicopters with freeze and shrink rays, and an amphibious destroyer with treads and magnetic armor that can draw enemy fire. Allied units have a variety of different accents and "good guy" overtones: their basic infantry unit is the Peacekeeper, which seems to have been derived from riot police. Red Alert 2's advanced chrono-technology has been largely but not completely lost, so that the Chronosphere superweapon remains and the returning Tanya unit is now equipped with a "time belt" that allows her to wind her location and health back a few seconds. Allied advances are driven by the FutureTech corporation in Einstein's absence. Since the tech and base building takes some time the Allies are more patience-friendly.[15] The Allies' predominant strength is in air power, with the best selection of aircraft available ranging from bombers to air superiority fighters. The Allies' ultimate weapon is now the Proton Collider, a cannon which utilises unknown physics to cause great destruction at an atomic level.
The Empire of the Rising Sun has infantrymen in samurai armor with energy rifles and katanas, giant transforming mecha, ninjas, a psionic schoolgirl, and submersible planes/flying submarines. Several of the Empire's key units can change forms to switch from land-to-air or sea-to-air, giving them much greater versatility than Allied or Soviet units. Conversely, some of their "core units" are weaker than their counterparts, forcing the player to produce them in large numbers or use them effectively with support. Japanese naval units, however, are considerably capable, from dedicated anti-ship cruisers to heavy battleships. Their forward bases are easy to build and fully functional bases don't take much power. Their buildings also have no proximity requirements, allowing the Empire to expand its bases much more quickly and efficiently—and by extension to nab ore mines faster. Being in the altered timeline, the Japanese are now masters of psychic/psionic weaponry, not only with their commando, but with their Psionic Decimator. This ultimate weapon launches a wave of energy which can level a base. They also have the Nanoswarm Hive, a machine that generates a nanoparticle shield, similar to an Iron Curtain, but which is stationary and prevents anything coming in or out.
The campaign mode maintains the theme of camp warfare played perfectly straight, with the occasional secret volcano lair, android infiltrator (Empire of the Rising Sun campaign) or an anti-Soviet madman (Allies; has to be killed) as the President of the United States, and more than one thing shooting lasers out of its eyes. It also uses Full motion videos featuring real-life actors. Filming started in April 2008.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar