red alert

The Red Alert sub-series is also certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the best selling real-time strategy game in the world, with over 12 million units sold.^[1]

The name is a play on words: Red Alert indicates a high level of threat, but Red also alludes to the USSR.

Story

Red Alert begins after World War II in 1946, taking place in an alternate reality. Albert Einstein has recently developed (or has been supplied with, it is not specified aside from the fact that he has one and it is very new) a time machine called the "Chronosphere", which he uses to travel from New Mexico in 1946 to Landsberg, Germany, in 1924, where he meets Adolf Hitler being released from jail after his failed Munich Putsch. Einstein removes Hitler from our dimension in an attempt to prevent the Second World War and returns to 1946. His scheme, however, backfires. Germany and Europe remain peaceful, but instead the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under Joseph Stalin grows increasingly powerful, seizing lands from China and then invading Europe in order to achieve Stalin's dream of Manifest Destiny, of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. The nations of Europe form into the Alliance, and over the course of the game, the Allies and the Soviets battle for control of Europe.

Counterstrike & Aftermath (1997)

In 1997, two expansion packs for Red Alert were released for the PC, Command & Conquer: Red Alert: Counterstrike, and Command & Conquer: Red Alert: The Aftermath. New units, missions, and music were included in the expansions. While the Counterstrike add-on adds many more multiplayer maps, it lacks originality as its single player missions appeared to have been scrapped from modified units (Red Alert units can be modified by editing the game's internal text files) and bundled together to give a feel of new and more powerful units than its predecessor. Of particular note is the addition of the secret Ant Missions to this add-on, where the player battles against giant red ants with super weapon capabilities.

The Aftermath add-on, however, added many new units available in single and multiplay modes. New Allied units include the Field Mechanic and the Chrono Tank. New Soviet units include the Missile Sub, the Shock Trooper, the M.A.D Tank and the Tesla Tank. Also, both sides receive the Demolition Truck. The add-on also includes hundreds of new maps as well as maps with huge map sizes.

Retaliation (1998)

On August 28, 1998, Westwood Studios released Red Alert Retaliation for the Sony PlayStation, this was a compilation of the two PC expansion packs. It even retained the secret Ant Missions.

It included exclusive FMV mission briefing and victory scenes that were not in any of the PC expansion packs, which virtually had none. The scenes had a general (for both sides) telling you what your objectives were. One of the generals was General Carville who would later appear in Red Alert 2.

Gameplay

Red Alert is a real-time strategy series in which the player commands an army and is responsible for gathering resources, building bases, training units, and fighting the enemy's army.

Red Alert was praised for its user interface, which was much more developed than other games at the time. For example, there are virtually no limitations on the number of units one can select. One also can give a unit many orders at once, which it can execute in sequence. The interface is also relatively uncluttered. However, this comes at the expense of unit information, which is limited. For example, upon selecting a unit there is no information regarding its damage, health or armor.

Red Alert battles have 3 domains of fighting: air, land and sea. Each side (Allies or Soviets) can train naval units, aircraft, and land forces. Each side also has its unique capabilities, although in Red Alert 2 they were balanced so that each unit's ability was countered by a similar variant on the opposing side. For example, in Red Alert 2, the ultimate Soviet Tesla coil defensive towers were matched by the Allies' "Prism towers."

Notable units for the Soviet side includes the Heavy Tank (basically a twin-barrel T-80U), the FROG-7 'V-2 rocket' launcher (although called a V-2 it is actually a FROG-7), the flamethrower, the attack dog, the Mi-24 Hind attack helichopper, Type 671 Shchuka (Victor) class submarines, the Mammoth Tank, Tu-16 Badger bomber as well as the MiG-27 Flogger attack jet (MiG-29 Fulcrum in cut scenes), and anti-infantry minelayer. The Allied forces have the M2-F Bradley light tank (a Bradley with the 25mm autocannon turret replaced by a 75mm gun turret), the M60 Patton medium tank (M1 Abrams in cut-scenes), commando unit Tanya, anti-tank minelayer, M113 APC, the Ranger jeep, M110 artillery, Gunboats, Destroyers as well as Cruisers (Iowa class battleship in cut-scenes, the in-game cruiser does not exist) and also the AH-64D Longbow attack chopper (although called a Longbow, it has no Longbow radar, and it is actually an AH-64A Apache).

Game Balancing

The game balance between the strengths of the Allied and Soviet armies was innovative in its time: The Soviets are formidable because of their brute force: their weakest tank is still more powerful than the best Allied equivalent, even though it is only marginally more expensive, and this, coupled with the fact that the Allied anti-tank defensive structure (the turret) is inferior to the Soviet Tesla coil (powerful and extremely accurate, like a bug zapper), means that the Allies are at a significant disadvantage during land-based combat.

This is repeated in the field of aerial engagements where the Soviets have various specialized planes. For short powerful strikes, there is the Yak Attack Plane for dispatching infantry and light buildings, and the MiG for armour and heavy buildings alike, while the Hind chopper is for staying power against both armour and infantry. The Allied army simply has one chopper, the Longbow, which is best suited to anti-armour work. However, the Allies' strong air defenses, including powerful anti-aircraft guns, destroyer-launched missiles, and missile-armed infantry, can prevent most Soviet air strikes from having much effect.

Naval warfare, however, is another matter. The Allies have three ships: the Gunboat, which is armed with a weak 2-inch deck gun and depth charges; the Destroyer, which is armed with guided missiles and depth charges; and the Cruiser, which is armed with four double-barreled long-range cannons. The Destroyer is a flexible vessel with the capability of engaging aircraft, submarines, and land targets. The Cruiser is slow, inaccurate, but heavily armored, and can smash an enemy base to rubble within minutes, but is unable to defend itself against submarines, and must be escorted by other ships with that capability.

The Allies' second strength is their ability to indulge in acts of subterfuge; Allied commanders can build units and structures to recreate "fog of war," effectively blinding the enemy. They themselves can launch a GPS satellite into space to see the whole battlefield. Other Allied units can jam radar, steal money, spy on the enemy, and plant explosive charges on buildings (Tanya).

Whilst the Soviets can be matched to the GDI in the previous game Tiberian Dawn in the fact that they rely on heavy firepower and pure aggression to win, the Allies can be matched to the Brotherhood of Nod. Allies use covert ops troopers to commit acts of sabotage to render their enemies helpless. Different sides also gain more power over the other over time in a game.

Unlike the 'rock-paper-scissors' balancing of more recent games, Red Alert requires each player to make best use of their side's strengths to compensate for their weaknesses. Tacticians would prefer the Allies as they rely on stealth, speed, and their special ablilities to take down their enemies. Headstrong generals would side with the Soviets with their pure aggression, sheer firepower, and heavy armour.

This shows how Red Alert stood in contrast to games such as Total Annihilation or Warcraft 2, in which both sides had units with practically identical abilities.

Music

All of the music in Red Alert was composed by Frank Klepacki. Among his most famous songs from the series is the theme of Red Alert, titled "Hell March," which accents the style of the game with adrenalized riffs of electric guitar, the sounds of marching feet and synthesizers to a dramatic chant. It alone has enlisted itself as a staple in the Red Alert series, and a second version of Hell March was specifically created for Red Alert 2.

When playing the single-player campaign, a limited number of tracks are initially available, and more are unlocked as the player progresses through missions. When playing in a multiplayer or 'skirmish' game, however, all tracks are available from the start. More tracks were included in the Red Alert expansion packs: Counterstrike, The Aftermath and Retaliation.

All music tracks can be heard on Frank Klepacki's website.

Characters

Allies

• General Gunter von Esling, German officer, Commander-in-Chief of European forces, and apparent leader of the military junta governing Europe. Played by Arthur Roberts.
• General Nikos Stavros, Greek officer, Second-in-Command to General von Esling. Played by Barry Kramer.
• Tanya Adams, American civilian and commando. Played by Lynne Litteer.
• Professor Albert Einstein, German physicist. John Milford.

Soviet

• Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Soviet Union. Played by Gene Dynarski.
• Nadia, Chief of the NKVD. Played by Andrea C. Robinson.
• General Gradenko, Russian commander. Played by Alan Terry.
• Marshal Georgi Kukov, commander of the Red Army. Played by Craig Cavanah.
• Kane, obscure advisor to Stalin. Played by Joseph D. Kucan.

Units and Structures

See also: Technology of the Allies (Red Alert series) and Technology of the Soviet (Red Alert series)

Infantry

Main article Infantry

Vehicles

Main article Vehicles

Aircraft

Main article Aircraft

Naval Units

Main article Navy

Structures

Main article Structures

Connections to the Tiberian Series

Command & Conquer: Red Alert was designed as a prequel to Tiberian Dawn. During the Soviet campaign, Kane makes infrequent appearances as an advisor to Stalin. It is implied that Kane instigated the battles of Red Alert to secure a power base for the Brotherhood of Nod. Indeed Nadia, one of Stalin's advisors, asks the player to "keep the peace" until Nod would seperate itself from the Soviet Union. Kane then shoots her, and informs the player that he is the future. During the Allied Campaign, a news announcer reporting on the Allies' loss of Greece also announces that the United Nations have created a special military task force to deal with future global conflicts. It is assumed that this group is the Global Defense Initiative (GDI), one of the fighting forces in the Tiberian series.

A flawed and much debated theory to resolve the apparent timeline error is to consider Red Alert as the genesis of two parallel stories. If the Soviet campaign is played in Red Alert, Russia emerges as the dominant power and Kane and the Brotherhood of Nod take control of this new empire. On the other hand, if the Allied campaign is played in Red Alert, the Allies emerge victorious and the timeline leads into Red Alert 2. It should be noted, however, that this theory directly contradicts information given by the Tiberian Dawn manual, which states that Nod is an African group and makes no mention of Russia whatsoever. Also, as mentioned above, during the Allied campaign in Greece, a newscast refers to the formation of an "Initiative of Global Defense" to combat Soviet militarism in any form, a clear reference to the military alliance of the same name in Tiberian Dawn. Another flaw is that if the allies were defeated they would never have been able to set up the GDI.

Another theory is that the GDI hadn't been properly set up until after the Allies had defeated the Russians in both Red Alert (in the 1950s) and Red Alert 2 (in the early 1970s). Tiberium then crashed to Earth in the 1990s and Kane emerged from the wastes of Africa with his third-world army. However, when considered this theory does not explain the seeming loss of technology between Red Alert 2 and Tiberian Dawn. The story lines were apparently further complicated by the writing of Red Alert 2 which introduced characters such as Yuri and this new villain's attempts to conquer the world, thwarted by a pact between the Soviets and the Allies.

Former Westwood employees have claimed that they were working on a timeline which seamlessly linked the entire series together.^{citation needed]}

See also

• Command & Conquer: Generals
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian series
• Command & Conquer: The First Decade
• Kane

References

External links

• Original intro cutscene of Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• The XWIS server - an alternative server to Westwood Online (WOL) created by Olaf van der Spek and sponsored by the EA Germany Community Team.

SEE ALSO: Homepage of Strike Team. Strike Team now handles all Westwood Online (WOL) servers. In other words: WOL is officially dead, and XWIS now runs the servers to play online.

• A comprehensive resource outlining the complete story line
• Red Alert Mods - At the Mod DB
• RA Techcenter² - An active Red Alert community
• Red Alert Archive - Archive of Red Alert files and information
• forever red alert 1 - A place to download internet versions of Red Alert 1.
• Black Magic's Red Alert Page - Black Magic's Red Alert Page
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert at MobyGames