Command And.conquer Red Alert

[Rosy Demorest]

CommandConquer: Red Alert is a real-time strategy computer game of the Command & Conquer franchise, produced by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive in 1996. The second major game to bear the C&C title, Red Alert was originally meant to be the prequel to the original Command & Conquer of 1995,[3][4][5][6] and takes place in the early history of the alternate universe of Command & Conquer when Allied Forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union for control over the European mainland. It was initially available for PC (MS-DOS & Windows 95 versions included in one package), and was subsequently ported to PlayStation. The PlayStation version was also re-released as a download on the PlayStation Network for PSP and PS3.[2]

On 14 November 2018, it was announced that Command & Conquer: Red Alert would be remastered by Petroglyph Games and Lemon Sky Studios under supervision of Electronic Arts, along with the Counterstrike and The Aftermath expansion packs.[8]

Red Alert was praised for its user interface, which claimed to be more developed than the competing games of its time. Players could queue commands, create unit groups that could be selected by a number key, and control numerous units at a time. The game was known to be easy to control, simple to learn and responsive to users' commands. It also featured two factions that had differing styles of play. Red Alert is also hailed as one of the first games to feature competitive online play. The single player campaign also received high praise for its detailed story line and missions, which often required the player to defeat the enemy with various sets of circumstances before continuing. The single player campaign was also complemented by live action cinematic sequences that are a feature of all Command & Conquer RTS games since the original, except for Generals.

The game balance between the forces of the Allied and Soviet armies differed from other games at its time. Like the 'rock-paper-scissors' balancing of modern games, Red Alert required each player to use their side's strengths in order to compensate for their weaknesses. This stood in contrast to games such as Total Annihilation or WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness, in which both sides had units with similar abilities and relied instead on outnumbering or possessing a better balanced force than their opponent.

Players acquire credits to purchase structures and equipment by mining for ores and minerals (as the valuable, yet volatile Tiberium in the regular C&C series has not yet been discovered in this timeline). Rare gems generate more credits and are faster to mine, but unlike ores, do not regenerate within the map. Players can gain more credits and increase their buying power by building more ore refineries and ore trucks.

The Soviets' vehicles tend to be more durable and powerful than Allied vehicles, but are often slower moving and more expensive. The Soviets also have superior defensive capabilities against both ground attacks (Tesla coil) and air attacks (Surface to Air Missiles), but are at a disadvantage on the sea. The only offensive naval unit the Soviets have is the submarine, which cannot attack land-based targets or aircraft, so it is useless unless the opponent builds any sea units, and while it is normally invisible except when surfacing to attack, it can be detected by destroyers and gunboats. When heavily damaged, it is not able to submerge. The Soviet secret weapon is the Iron curtain, a device that renders a selected unit invulnerable to attacks for a short period of time. In multiplayer and skirmish modes, they have access to two of the Allied side's infantry: the Rocket Soldier and Tanya Adams, a commando capable of easily killing infantry and destroying structures. They also have a wide selection of air units for assault (MiG-27, Yak-7 and Mi-24 Hind) and map revelation through spy planes, and could deploy infantry by air through paratroops or by the Chinook transport helicopter (the latter only present in multiplayer). The Soviet "tank rush" was a popular strategy online, involving building many heavy tanks and overwhelming the opponent with sheer numbers.

The Allies' forces are generally cheaper, faster to build and more agile. Their minelayers can destroy enemy armour and their infantry can survive longer with good use of their medic unit. They are at a disadvantage on land, as the Allies' strongest tank (the Medium Tank) is still weaker than the Soviets' starting tank (the Heavy tank) and has the same speed. The Allies have only one air unit (AH-64D Apache Longbow) compared to three Soviet units and their defences against a ground assault are much weaker. On the sea, the Allies possess an advantage in naval power thanks to the Cruiser, which has the longest-ranged and most powerful surface-to-surface attack in the game, and the destroyer, which is capable of adeptly taking on any type of unit type in the game - land, sea or air. The Allies' secret weapon is the Chronosphere, which temporarily relocates a selected unit to another part of the map. They also possess several other tools, such as stealing enemy resources, hiding their own units and structures, or revealing the game map with satellite technology. In online play and computer skirmish, Allied forces have access to the nuclear missile silo, an exclusive in the Soviets' single-player mode.

EdWin (or EDDOS for the MS-DOS version) is the official map editor distributed with Red Alert. Since it was only intended for the creation of multiplayer maps, it only allows editing the terrain and adding multiplayer spawn points on it.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert takes place during an unspecified period in the 1950s of a parallel universe, which was inadvertently created by Albert Einstein in a failed attempt to prevent the horrors of World War II.

Starting off in 1946, at the Trinity site in New Mexico, the opening to Red Alert shows Albert Einstein as he is preparing to travel backwards through space and time. After his experimental "Chronosphere" device is activated, he finds himself in Landsberg, Germany, in the year 1924, where he meets a young Adolf Hitler just after the latter's release from Landsberg Prison. Following a brief conversation between the two, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand, with this somehow eliminating the man's existence from time and returning Einstein to his point of origin.

With the threat of Nazi Germany having been successfully removed from history, the Soviet Union began to grow increasingly powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Had Adolf Hitler risen to power, Nazi Germany would have emerged as a force standing in the way of Stalin's own ambitions of conquest. Instead, left unweakened, the USSR proceeds by seizing lands from China and then begins invading Eastern Europe, in order to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. In response, the nations of Europe form into the Alliance, and start a grim and desperate guerrilla war against the invading Soviet army. Over the course of the game's story, the Allies and Soviets fight out a devastating conflict for control over the European mainland, in what has become an alternate World War II.

Following the destruction of the Soviet stronghold, an Allied infantry squad discovers Stalin buried alive in the rubble. As they begin to remove the debris from the fallen leader, General Stavros stops them. He "convinces" them that they 'saw nothing' before they leave. Stavros then stuffs a handkerchief down Stalin's mouth before covering his head with a large stone and walking away.

The original Red Alert can be seen as the Genesis of both 'Red Alert' and 'Tiberium Universe' timelines. Allied victory is confirmed to be the canonical ending and it leads towards the events in Tiberian Dawn and the re-emergence of the Brotherhood of Nod in 1995.

As the Soviets celebrate their victory in the newly-captured Buckingham Palace, Stalin commends the Commander for a job well done while drinking a cup of tea, only to suddenly realize the tea has been poisoned by Nadia. A disgruntled Nadia proceeds to gun him down as the poison overcomes his body. Following Stalin's death, Nadia tells the Commander that the Soviet Union is now under the rule of the Brotherhood of Nod, but is then betrayed and shot in the back by Kane, who reveals himself to be the true mastermind. This is the non-canonical ending to the Red Alert series.

A much debated theory intended to resolve the apparent timeline error which came to exist between Command & Conquer and Red Alert 2 is to consider Red Alert as the genesis of two parallel storylines. If the Soviet campaign were to be completed in Red Alert, the USSR would emerge as the dominant Eurasian power and Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod would subsequently take control of this new empire. Conversely, if the Allied campaign were to be completed, the Allies would emerge victorious and the timeline would instead lead into the events of Red Alert 2 (though Red Alert 2 completely ignores anything that could connect it to the Tiberium timeline). According to former C&C designer Adam Isgreen, however, Tiberian Dawn in fact follows on the conclusion of Red Alert's Allies campaign,[16] while Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge take place in a second parallel universe, created by a new attempt to alter history in "Incursion",[17] the working title of Westwood Studios' cancelled version of Command & Conquer 3.[18] Isgreen also implied that Nikola Tesla may have been responsible for inadvertently having attracted the attention of the Scrin through his experiments, and thus for the arrival of Tiberium on Earth.[19] An alternate way of connecting the two universes was through one of the drafts of the Renegade 2 storyline, but the two games were cancelled in 2003.

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