Welcome back to World War 2.
1. Gameplay - A strategy game of this stature hardly requires an introduction. Like all modern strategy games, Red Alert has shifted from it's previous mouse interaction format (left-click to select, left-click to perform action, right-click to deselect) to the more popular 2-button interaction format (left-click to select, right to perform action and left click to deselect). With the game being played on 3 fronts, the Soviets and the Allies now being joined by the Empire of the Rising Sun, the fun just got started. An interesting feature is that the ending of the game depends on which faction you chose to play. So the ending will see your faction winning the war leaving the other 2 factions decimated. Also the super-weapons of each faction has been radically changed. The allies have lost their weather machine, which has been replaced by the proton collider(it showers the enemy territory with a hail of proton bombs-which absolutely decimate the target area). They have however retained their ever-beloved chronosphere. The soviets have lost their most powerful weapon - the nuclear missile, which happens to be replaced by a similar weapon - the vacuum imploder. It is much like the nuke, but it tends to pull in objects thereby causing a larger amount of damage. The empire's superweapon is a nanomitic shield and another weapon called the psionic decimator. The latter causes a huge psionic explosion that engulfs the entire target area. Also new to red alert 3 are unit abilities. Each unit has a special ability, like for example, certain units can chage their attack weapons, certain units can increase damage at a health cost, certain units can increase speed, while yet other units (specially the empire's units) can completely transform their form. Another addition is the support commander. If you're playing co-op then your partner is your support commander, or else it will be provided by an AI. Support commanders basically exist to take you out of tight spots. An AI support commander will always listen to you, like a dumb but faithful dog. While playing co-op your support commander may even choose to disregard you completely. Also a new feature added to RA3 is the top-secret protocol. They are in fact certain special attacks that are made available to you after you've achieved enough experience.
2. Story - Well the soviets got angry at the fact that they lost the war in RA2. So their commander Cherdenko uses a time-machine prototype to go back through time and kill the one man responsible for the allied victory - Albert Einstein. Now in the modern age, without Einstein, the allies have not yet been able to defeat the Soviet. As a result, the Soviets have gained the upper hand. However, with the allies falling weak, there was no one to check the growth of the Japanese empire which has grown into a menace and calls itself the Empire of the Rising Sun. Thus begins a war meant to be fought on 2 fronts - The allies and the axis, now turning into a bloodbath of 3 - The Allies, The Soviets and The Empire.
3. Graphics - Superb graphics improvement from the previous game, but certain inconsistencies become glaring when you come to such a level of perfection and make a minor mistake. One such mistake is the fact that on selecting a unit, a yellow border surrounds the entire unit instead of just the base. This makes the game look a bit cartoonish. Also, the inability of scrolling out beyond a certain limit, limits the many strategic possibilities that may have been presented had the view been larger.
4. Sound - In on word, "UNIMPRESSIVE". I don't RA3 to be banking much on music, but the title music is ghastly(A peculiar voice shouts a peculiar name and a music starts that sounds like the marching of a thousand soldiers).
Gameplay has got this game a pretty high score from me. So I would recommend this game to all RTS enthusiasts.