Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Exclusive Hands-On - Empire of the Rising Sun
We get our hands on the third faction of this upcoming strategy sequel and have much to report in this exclusive preview. Also, there were dogs and bears.
When they first appeared on the scene, real-time strategy games started off with the basics of harvesting resources, building your base, and eventually churning out an army of toy soldiers to beat up your opponents before they did the same to you. Times have changed. These games have become faster-paced and more streamlined, with better control layouts, prettier graphics, and in the case of EALA's upcoming sequel, they have scout dogs and parachuting bears. Yes, Red Alert 3 may look like Command & Conquer 3's wackier cousin, but as we saw from our exclusive hands-on time with the game, there's also a finely-tuned and deep strategy game within. We had a chance to see and play the game, as well as get an exclusive first look at the all-new Empire of the Rising Sun as well.
Red Alert 3 takes place in an alternate reality in which the Cold War never ended, and all the fantastical scientific research and speculative weaponry of the 20th century actually became a reality. The series previously covered the conflict between the Soviets and the Western forces, but the third game adds a new playable faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun (powered by the fanatical armies of the Japanese).
This intriguing new faction apparently came about as a combination of the development team's plans to create a faction for skilled players who enjoy carefully micromanaging their armies, as well as from the team's favorite video games and pop culture from the Far East. For starters, basically all of Red Alert 3's units in all three factions have a secondary ability (which may either be toggled on or off, have an instantaneous effect, or require some sort of timed "cooldown" until it can be used again), and three of the Rising Sun's most powerful and flexible midlevel units possess the ability to sprout jet engines and take to the air.
This makes these versatile units exceptionally tricky to deal with in groups that are being managed by skillful players, since the game also features a rock-paper-scissors balance of units that travel by land, sea, and/or air, as well as by whether they're infantry or vehicles. Some units are very effective counter-units against ground-based and seafaring enemies and can tear through the Rising Sun's ground-based Mecha Tengu walkers (half-jet, half-robot-walker mechs bear a passing resemblance to the transforming jet/robots from the classic Japanese anime Super Dimensional Fortress Macross) and the swift Seawing submarines (which seem a bit like the transforming light/dark ship from the satisfyingly challenging arcade shooter Ikaruga) like tissue paper. However, both the Mecha Tengu and the Seawing possess the secondary ability of instantly becoming flying units--which can instantly render anti-ground or anti-naval attacks useless, as they become untouchable flyers that can be damaged only by anti-air weapons.
In addition, the Rising Sun is the only faction in the game that isn't shackled with the traditional "build radius"--the requirement of building your structures close to your base. Instead, the faction builds moving cores--small, vulnerable, amphibious wheeled units that can be deployed as buildings (after a delay of several seconds) pretty much anywhere on the map you can move them to, though amphibious units may only cross between land and sea along flat beaches, not off of cliffs.
Still, this feature of the Rising Sun's buildings definitely has its risks and rewards. Skilled micromanagers who can jump between many sites at once can scout aggressively to discover resource nodes and sending along mobile cores to build refineries nearby, supercharging their economies. Building up forward bases of unit-building structures is also a great way to keep the pressure on your opponents and tighten the noose quickly--however, having remote and poorly-defended installations scattered across the map can be a recipe for painful, expensive losses if your opponents also have the presence of mind to scout aggressively, and tear down your remote installations before you can hustle out a defense force.
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- Electronic Arts
- EA LA
- Sci-Fi Real-Time Strategy
- Release: Mar 23, 2009 »
- ESRB: Teen
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