Back in December 6, 2004, a man named Mark Skaggs, EA’s VP and executive producer in charge of RTS games sent an e-mail to C&C fans on the eve of the release of LoTR : The Battle for Middle earth . In it, he proudly stated that EA had officially started on a next project based in the Red alert universe . Four months later, Skaggs exited the company. Many feared that his departure would mean that Red Alert 3 could be scrapped. Even worse was that EA announced that the next CNC game would be C&C Tiberium Wars (CNC3) .
Luckily, Red Alert 3 wasn’t dead – it was merely resting. When CNC3 was shipped in March 2007, the development team turned its full attention towards reactivating RA3.
One of the themes that are consistent with Red Alert 1 and Red Alert 2 is time travel. Red Alert 3 will begin with a very dramatic time travel event. The war between the Allies and Soviets continued to rage past the events of Red Alert 2, and with the Allies having the upper hand; the Soviets are forced back to Moscow. Desperate, the Soviet leadership employs an early R&D prototype time travel machine hidden in the basement of the Kremlin. Their mission is to wipe out Albert Einstein, the man responsible for the Allies technology (Prism technology, Weather Control and time traveling) from history.
The result appears to be a success for the Soviet’s plan but their jubilation is short-lived. Within moments, the Soviets are under attack by a new and mysterious enemy, the Empire of the Rising Sun (EoTRS for short). Not only have the Soviets not wiped out the Allies, but their actions have resulted in the creation of a unique faction from the east.
Check out those well detailed units!
Red Alert 3’s Single Player will compose of 3 campaigns – Soviets, Allies and EoTRS . One of the major changes in game play will be the ability to choose one of the nine AI co-commanders (3 for each faction) to lead the second army. This is necessary as the missions are designed around co-op. If you have another person who wants to play the same mission together, then an AI co-commander will not be needed.
The build system is different from each faction. The most outstanding would be for EoTRS . It uses nanocore for building structures. Each nanocore will represent a specific building. The EoTRS is not limited to any building radius, making it able to have rapid base expansion.
Red Alerts 3 features stunning graphics.
Red Alert 3 will be heavily focused on naval battle. The player is also granted full access to build his base in the water. Resources can be found on land and water. However, unlike previous Red Alert games, EA made resource gathering easier. The ores are now stored in ore nodes rather than having a field of ores to harvest. By building a refinery in front of the node, the harvester will immediately head towards the node and proceed to work. Most units featured in the game are amphibious and all units will have secondary abilities. For example, the stingray replaces the tesla tank in the game as it is amphibious. Its secondary ability would be to electrify surrounding waters, damaging enemy units in the process. The most prominent unit will be the Kirov airship. Its secondary ability would be to fire up hydrogen gas to make the ship move faster (used only in emergencies). By so doing , the Kirov will take damage . The apocalypse tank possesses a magnetic harpoon which can yank enemies into its deadly front grinder.
As mentioned above, Einstein is wiped off from history resulting in Allies having a different technology from Red Alert 2 .So, where does this leave Red Alert 3 in the Red Alert universe ? Well , since Einstein is removed between RA1 and Red Alert 2 , this makes Red Alert 3 take a position side by side with Red Alert 2. They call this alternate history full of “what ifs”.
"Red Alert 3 will be heavily focused on naval battle"
Now, let’s dive into the EoTRS faction. The unit list is way shorter than the Soviets and Allies but its units are transformers . If you watched the latest EoTRS trailer , it is really creative for EA to come up with such a truly unique faction inspired by manga and Japanese animation . The King Oni is able to fry tanks with its double eye ray and bull rush into a battalion of tanks, crushing them into junk metal. The sea wing is able to fly through the air and upon approached with air threats, it dives into the water as a submarine.
Support abilities are now different from CNC3 . With the idea from Generals, the support system will not use credits but rather point system. Upon destruction of either side of units, accumulated points will be added to the game, thus granting you with a large array of support powers. A trickle of points will be added when you idle.
Do expect this game to support DX 10 since the game is running on RNA (60% of the codes from SAGE engine were re-written to support water battles) . The beta is expected to be released in end of July and be sure to enter the key code with the purchase of CNC3 Kane’s Wrath. With the game looking this good, the expected date of release for Red Alert 3 will be end of this year.
RA3 will be out on PC , X360 and PS3 .
A review done by my very special friend, Johnathan Lim.
