Difficulty:

Hard

Time Spent:

20 to 40 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Rocks"

Command & Conquer Red Alert Retaliation is a conversion of both Red Alert expansions, Counter-Strike and The Aftermath but for the PlayStation. Being a big C&C fan I bought the game and to be fair, I wasnt dissapointed at all. You get loads of campaign missions that are spread over the countries. You have to complete the missions in the 1 country to unlock the next missions in the next country. You can also play them in any order. I think this a good idea because no other C&C games are like this. The missions ar every difficult though, you need to have practised at the original Red Alert before moving on to this (or the PC expansions) because many are made for experts. Red Alert will seem like a walk in the park when you play this! You get all the new units that the expansions on the PC included so skirmish mode is better now. C&C is actually well-suited to the PlayStation (well, I play it on a PS2 but same thing really), however I had already played the original C&C and Red Alert on the console so I was already used to it. The missions play well on the console too, but you cant beat the PC!
Graphics are pretty bland but then again, this is an old game. The frame-rate has been improved on this PS C&C game which is good because that was an annoying issue on the first PS C&C. The sound however is great. The music is decent, taking some tracks from the PC version and some exclusive new tracks.
You also get over 100+ multiplayer maps! They all work for the skirmish game (which is basically a build-a-base-and-destroy-everything battle mode) on both single-player and 2 player (using the PlayStation link). Skirmish is the best thing here because it will last you ages. Great for a quick 1on1 battle on a low tech level or a time-consuming 4 player battle on a high tech level. And thanks to all those maps it makes the game even more playable.
The final exlusive feature to this that the PC expansions didnt have is the new 19 FMV videos which are some of the coolest things about a C&C game. If you havent played C&C before then the videos are briefings of your missions with real actors and detailed graphical footage of tanks firing, men shooting etc.
So overall, this is a great C&C game that is a must for all C&C fans. But, if you dont like using a controller then dont bother with Retaliation and just stick with the PC expansions CounterStrike and The Aftermath and a mouse. Another catch is probably the fact that there are 2 discs (Allies and Soviets) for each armis missions meaning you get longer load times.