Stop making Red Alert games, EA.
Red Alert 3's prologue is set after Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, during the collapse of the Soviet Union. Premier Romanov has fled, so two of his lackeys have taken matters into their own hands. So these two idiots decide to go back in time and assassinate Einstein in 1927, before the first Red Alert even takes place thus creating an all new timeline where Red Alert 2 doesn't happen to add in with the three timelines already in the C&C Universe. Headache. Anyway, the game is split into three parallel campaign... one for each of the three factions: the Allies, the Soviet Union, and the Empire of the Rising Sun. None of them are particularly good as the story telling is sloppy, and there's not really much of a plot to follow in the first place.
I don't know why, but EA felt like dragging in some "star power" into Red Alert 3's live action cinematics, namely Tim Curry who plays the new Soviet Premier Cherdenko. Also that guy who played Selu on that original Star Trek series takes on the role of Emperor Yoshiro. Neither of these villains are particularly intimidating, even Yuri was more interesting. Personally, I'd rather see Kane come out of hiding since he's the true villain of the C&C universe.
As is C&C tradition, the gameplay essentially consists of using a construction yard to build up your base, while using the resources you gather as an income for purchasing new units. There are some pretty big changes, though. The biggest one being the "co-op campaign" function. Essentially the campaigns are structured so two players can work together. If you prefer playing single player like me, the game automatically assigns you an AI Co-Commander who also have their own in-game live action cinematics. Personally, I would have preferred an option that let me go at the campaigns by myself, but the AI Co-Commanders were so useless that I ended up doing most of the work, anyway.
Red Alert 3's unit lineup is even more ridiculous than Red Alert 2's. Soviet controlled bears, "man cannons", Japanese Schoolgirls with psychic powers, Anime inspired Mechs, etc. I will give Red Alert 2 some credit, it did (not counting Yuri's Revenge) manage to keep some level of believability, but Red Alert 3 throws that away in favor of cheap giggles and novelty that quickly wears off. The entire Empire of the Rising Sun faction felt like one cheap joke that was tacked on just so Red Alert 3 would have three factions instead of the traditional two. To make matters worse the economic aspect has been simplified with the new "ore resource node" system. Gone are the fields of resources, replaced by a small structure that harvesters enter and depart with a load of ore. Another pointless new feature is the ability to build bases over the water. It sounds cool at first, sure, but when you realize that only one unit per faction can travel on both sea and land you quickly find yourself asking "what is the point?"
The SAGE Engine is showing its age, with graphic intensive titles like Company of Heroes and the upcoming Dawn of War II (though I'd hesitate to call those "strategy" games) its hard not to be unimpressed by Red Alert 3's visuals. It doesn't help that the colors are so bright they burn your retinas after a few minutes of play time. The audio is a vast improvement over Tiberium Wars, however; with the help of Frank Klepacki EA managed to get the Red Alert 3 musical score more in line with the older C&C games.
Red Alert 3 is a serious disappointment after EA did a fairly good job with Tiberium Wars. EA needs to get the dollar signs out of their eyes and cease with developing Red Alert titles, Westwood never intended there to be more than one, and Red Alert 3 proves that there isn't any more decent story telling to be had by screwing around with the timeline for the umpteenth time. If you're one of those weird people who prefers the Red Alert series over the Tiberian series, you're better off sticking with the first two games as they at least had a certain level of quality. Red Alert 3 would be best thrown into the pile of games that should be forgotten.
+ Traditional Command & Conquer Gameplay
+ Fairly innovative Co-op Campaign feature
+ Music
+ Tim Curry
- Draconic EA DRM
- Abysmal Campaign Storytelling
- Co-op gameplay is forced on the player
- Simplified resource gathering
- The ability to build bases on the water is pointless
- Ridiculous unit designs
- Empire of the Rising Sun is clearly tacked on simply to provide a third faction
- SAGE Engine is showing its age