Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Developer(s)	Westwood Studios
Publisher(s)	EA Games
Version	1.006, 25 May 2001
Released	October 23 2000 October 27 2000
Genre	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single player Multiplayer
Ratings	ESRB: Teen ELSPA: 15+ PEGI: 12+
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
Media	2x CD-ROM
System requirements	Windows 95/98/2000/NT, 266 MHz Pentium II Processor, 64 MB RAM (450 MHz processor and 128 MB RAM needed for 3-8 player multiplayer game), 4x CD-ROM, 2 MB video card, DirectSound-compatible soundcard
Input methods	Keyboard, Mouse

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is a 2.5D real-time strategy computer game by Westwood Studios, which was released for Microsoft Windows on September 28, 2000 ^[1] as the follow up to Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is the sequel to the RTS Computer Game Red Alert. The game picks up from the Allied ending of the previous game but this has led to debate amongst some fans. The game is centered around a Russian invasion of the United States of America and the American Military response to the threat. The game features several real-world monuments, including the World Trade Center, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triomphe. The game has received immense popularity in real-time strategy field over the past few years. A year after the release of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2, an expansion pack was released entitled Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge.

Storyline

Introduction

After the defeat of the Soviet Union, America and the other victors of the previous war established a puppet government to rule. This government was headed by Premier Alexander Romanov, who quickly established close ties to the United States, and whom the U.S considered a valuable ally. However, Romanov, with the help of his shadowy advisor Yuri, had other intentions for the United States and much of the world. Unlike other real-time strategy games, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 contains two distinct story lines depending on which faction the player wishes to play as. Both of the storylines alter in several distinct ways. However, the Allied storyline is canon because of how the expansion pack continues.

Allied Storyline

The Allied Storyline starts off with the U.S. Military being caught completely off guard by the Soviet invasion of the United States of America. The Military attempts to retaliate with the use of nuclear warheads, but Yuri, leader of the Soviet Psychic Corps, uses his mind control to manipulate the U.S. personnel charged with launching the warheads and leaves them to explode in their silos. Within hours, the Western and Eastern Coasts of the U.S. are infested with Red Army troops. In response, the President establishes an emergency response team headed by General Carville and the Commander. They go and liberate New York City and several key airbases in the Southwestern United States. After this, a Soviet psychic mind control device known as the Psychic Beacon controls the mind of the President and several key official in Washington, D.C.. However, a swift retaliation frees the President, but leaves D.C. under Soviet control. Then, the military launches a quick invasion of a second Soviet psychic device in Chicago before it can go off and place the whole of the United States under Soviet mind control. Unfortunately, the Soviets retaliate for this attack by launching a nuclear warhead against Chicago, leaving the city in ruins. Alarmed by the situation, leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom agree to help the United States if they disarm Soviet nuclear missile sites in Poland. After doing so, the U.S. Military is bolstered with men and supplies from the Europeans. This allows the Americans to recapture several areas such as Washington, D.C. and several areas in Mexico which were under Soviet rule. Wanting to end the situation, Allied leaders send troops to protect Albert Einstein and retrieve his Chronosphere plans. After doing this, they deploy his Chronosphere in Florida and proceed to use its teleportation capabilities to take an Allied strike team to Moscow. Once in Moscow, Allied Forces promptly disable the Kremlin's defenses and Chrono in a strike team to retrieve the Soviet leadership.

Soviet Storyline

The Soviet storyline begins with the player being debriefed by the Premier himself. After this, the Soviets launch invasions of key Allied positions such as Washington, D.C, Florida, and New York City. With these stunning victories, the Americans flee back in retreat. Alarmed by the situation, leaders of France and Germany agree to send troops to the border with Poland to help the Americans fight the Red Army. The Soviets send a special forces team to quickly capture Paris while the French Army is busy else where. With this and other key victories in Europe, Europe is in a position of needing help itself rather than giving help to America. During this time, The Premier's top adviser Yuri begins gaining more and more power. Soon, the Premier gives all military authority to Yuri. Some Soviet generals are alarmed at this power shift and begin to rebel. Top Soviet Commander General Vladimir flees to captured Washington, D.C. where he plots a strike against Yuri. However, two Soviet strikes teams make their way to D.C. and San Antonio and capture the U.S. President and General Vladimir. It is revealed that Yuri is indeed a traitor and the Red Army engages in a civil war between Yuri's forces and forces still loyal to Russia. The epicenter of the civil war is in Moscow where Yuri is located. Soviet troops reach him and a devastating attack is launched on his base and he is believed to have died. The Soviets then capture the last remaining Allied forces still holed up in Alaska.

Cast & Characters

Allies

Main article: Allied characters of Command & Conquer

Soviets

Main article: Soviet characters of Command & Conquer

Gameplay

Every aspect of gameplay in the game is based on the collection of money. In the game, money can be collected by several means. The most common is using Miner trucks to gather Ore and/or Gems and transport them to a Refinery. A player can also gain a lasting income by capturing Oil drills (neutral buildings that are present in some maps). There also are two one-time sources of money, namely collecting random crates which are present in the map and selling off enemy buildings which have been captured by one of the player's Engineers. The money is spent on constructing and repairing buildings and units. In both cases one can start construction before having the full cost in one's reserves, as construction pauses if one runs short of money. There are 4 types of "constructor" building: Construction Yard (for buildings); Barracks (non-mechanized units); War Factory (mechanized units); and, only for the Allies, Air Force Command (Harriers or Black Eagles). At any point in the game one can construct a maximum of one building/unit in each category—having more "constructor" buildings simply speeds up production. The various nations are members of either the Soviet or the Allied faction. The factions have similar basic buildings but different sets of advanced and defensive buildings. In addition, each nation has a special ability—usually a unique unit, but the USA gets free para-drops of Marines every few minutes and France can build a defensive super-gun, the Grand Cannon. Even the basic buildings produce different sets of mobile units for the Soviet and Allied factions. To build more advanced units one must first construct more advanced buildings. The advanced and defensive buildings can only be constructed if specific basic buildings are present.

Main articles: Allied technology of Command & Conquer and Soviet technology of Command & Conquer

Game balance

Soviet forces launching a nuclear weapon in the Red Alert 2 Demo version.

Like previous Command & Conquer games, the two factions in Red Alert 2 have unique armies with their own strengths and weaknesses. To achieve victory, a player must play to their faction's strengths and exploit the other faction's weaknesses. In general, the Soviet faction (group of nations) is superior in the early game in and land wars because of their more powerful tanks, while the Allied faction is better in the late game with more advanced units, in naval wars, and on large maps.^[2] In particular, the Soviets are better for early game rushes, which are very common in online games.^[3]

Allied Advantages

• Military Intelligence: The Allies are focused on being able to gather enemy positions and shroud their own. They can use this with weapons such as the spy satellite or the gap generator.
• Mobility: Almost all the Allied land units are very fast, while the Soviet units are slower. This gives them an improved ability to use guerrilla tactics, as their units can destroy an undefended target of opportunity and escape before the enemy can bring reinforcements to the area.
• Air Superiority: The Allied air force is greatly superior compared to the their Soviet counterpart. This allows them to attack enemy positions without fighting their way through tedious land defenses.
• Prism Technology: Allies have access to the Prism Tower and Prism tank, both powerful weapons. The Prism Tower is a ground base defense that increases in strength as more towers are built in close proximity.
• Efficient Ore Miners: The Allied ore miner, the Chrono Miner, has the ability to teleport back to the Ore Refinery, cutting its travel time in half. The Allies can also construct the Ore Purifier. This building increases the amount of money the Allied player receives when a Chrono Miner unloads its resources.
• Siege Weapons: The Allies have also siege weapons such as the Prism Tank and the Aircraft Carrier. The Prism Tank is 1/3 more expensive than the Soviet V3 Rocket Launcher Truck, but its light beam attack cannot be stopped like the V3's rocket.

Soviet Advantages

• Tanks: The Rhino Tank is the backbone of the Soviet army. It is more expensive than the Allied Grizzly Tank, and does not move as fast, but its superior armour and weapons make up for this.
• Anti-Aircraft capability: While the Allies have the only fast-moving attack aircraft in the game, the Soviet forces have superior anti-aircraft weapons. Soviet AA is mostly flak cannons in various sizes, ranging from shoulder-mounted to naval guns.
• Cheap infantry: The Soviet Conscript is half the price of the Allied GI.
• Siege weapons: The Soviet Dreadnought naval unit is an effective siege weapon, capable of firing two powerful missiles at a very long range.
• Power Plants: Soviet forces can construct nuclear reactors that provide 2000 power units. When destroyed however, the area surrounding the reactor is contaminated for a period of time.
• Auto-Healing units: Most high class Soviet units have the ability to self-repair (like the Kirov Airship and Apocalypse tank.) All Allied units lack self repair (with the exception of the Chrono Miner) unless they are promoted to elite status. This tactic helps a Soviet player to save money on repairs for highly-expensive units.
• Kirov Airship: The Kirov Airship is a large, expensive, heavily armoured zeppelin capable of carpet bombing an area. It is used by the Soviet side as a bomber aircraft and is one of the most feared units in the game.
• Cloning Vats: The Cloning Vats provide the player with a copy of every infantry unit produced.
• Apocalypse Tank: Though it is slow and not very maneuverable, the Apocalypse Tank is extremely well-armoured and armed. It wields two cannons with incendiary bonuses and anti-air capability, establishing it as the most powerful tank in the game.
• War Miner: Though it cannot teleport back to the Ore Refinary as the Allied Chrono Miner, it can carry twice as much as the Chrono Miner can. And it can take out a Grizzly Tank with no problem with its gun on the roof.

Mods/Maps

Red Alert 2 is a popular game for modding. Hidden within the ra2.mix (ra2.mix\local.mix\rule*.ini) is a configuration file called rules.ini. This file can be extracted using a tool called the XCC mixer and edited after extraction. The rules.ini is constructed in such a way that it is very easy to modify; no programming skills are required. There are tags which refer to the strength of a unit, such as its hit points, which can be modified with the program. It is also possible to create whole new units. There are other .ini files, such as the art.ini and ai.ini, which allow for further modification, like adding a cameo to one's units and making the AI use them. FinalAlert is a map editor for Red Alert 2 that went through numerous revisions. First came FinalAlert, developed independently by Wagner. It was later replaced by FinalAlert 2, a collaboration between Wagner and Westwood Studios, which was in turn upgraded to FinalAlert 2 Yuri's Revenge to allow support for Yuri's Revenge—this version was still an official utility. Wagner later released a tweaked version which had some bug fixes and included tunnels–leftover code from Tiberian Sun—although this version was no longer classed as an official Westwood utility.

XCC WOL IRC Server (XWIS)

In 2005, control of online play for Red Alert 2, and a number of older C&C games was passed over from EA to XWIS, a well-established community run server that now organizes the ladder, and with the help of a community reporting scheme, bans cheaters. The server is sponsored by the EA Germany Community Team.

Relationship to other Command & Conquer games

There are various other games that Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 has a relationship to. The most prominent of these is Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert series

This is the series which Red Alert 2 is in. The series was established in 1996 with the release of Command & Conquer: Red Alert. Red Alert 2 takes place 20 years later, continuing from the Allied ending where the Soviets were defeated by the Allies and peace was restored. Following Red Alert 2 in the series is Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge, released in 2001. The basis of this story is Yuri evading intelligence organizations around the world to set up his own secret army. A string of powerful mind control machines are set up across the world ready to be initiated. A time machine must be used to go back in time and stop the madman's conquest.

Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series

The Tiberian series was originally supposed to be a series of games which take place 50 years after the end of Red Alert. This was supported by the fact that Kane, who also played a prominent role in this series, appeared in Red Alert. However, the link is unknown to still exist as Command & Conquer: The First Decade mentions them being separate universes.

Controversy

The portion of the packaging that started the controversy

Westwood found itself in a storm of controversy regarding Red Alert 2 after the events of September 11, due to the contents of both the game and its packaging, despite the fact that Red Alert 2 was released before the attack on the World Trade Center. In the first mission of the Soviet campaign, the player is required to destroy the Pentagon, and in a later mission, capture the Allied Battle Lab at the base of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; once the Battle Lab is captured, a Psychic Beacon is built between the twin towers and the player must then defend the Psychic Beacon for a given amount of time to complete the level. Destroying the World Trade Center towers (or garrisoning Conscripts in them) gives the player bonus crates. In addition, the original packaging for Red Alert 2 had a hinged cover that would open to show a scene of New York City under attack by Soviet forces. In the middle of the box, the twin towers were shown with a plane flying near them, and the words "The Invasion has begun" over them. Westwood immediately pulled from stores all remaining copies of Red Alert 2 in the original packaging, and retooled the box art before reissuing the game. None of the game's content was changed, except for the names of famous landmarks. Later versions of the game (after patch) would rename the World Trade Center and other famous landmarks (Arc de Triomphe for one) to more generic names (Arch of Winning for example). This has, ironically, caused a bit of controversy among fans who prefer the real names; fan made patches are available to restore the original authentic names. Later versions of the game also replace a portion of the Intro movie, removing the part of the scene in which the statue of Liberty's head is destroyed by a missile, instead showing it already headless.

Original soundtrack

The Red Alert 2 soundtrack was composed by long-time Command & Conquer collaborator Frank Klepacki.

The track "Tension" is included in the in-game soundtrack but is not present on the official soundtrack release.

See also

• Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Command & Conquer: The First Decade
• Command & Conquer: Generals
• Command & Conquer: Generals - Zero Hour
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars

External links

• Ukraine Fan-Site All about Red Alert 2 and Yuri's revenge
• Red Alert 2 official website
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 at the Internet Movie Database
• XCC WOL IRC Server & Strike Team homepage
• A Red Alert 2 website
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 at MobyGames
• Red Alert 2 Walkthrough