Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Review

Review by Rob Wright

The Soviets are back, and this time they've brought the Empire of the Rising Sun with them. Command & Conquer's outrageous series returns with a new faction, fresh units and an online cooperative mode. The result is the best Command & Conquer title in years.

Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Review

J.J.J. is the prez?

This is a world i gotta see!

i heard this game stinks

You heard correctly. EA is a joke and no other company consistently makes such mediocre games with such high production costs. If they took the money they spent on gimmicks (like hiring B grade actors for a video game) and advertising (Mercenaries 2 gas station gimmick for a buggy liner and boring PS2 port) and put more effort into innovation, then spent the rest of that time and money on polishing the game, maybe it could have been something much better. Innovation isn't even a word in EA's vocabulary. However the word "Average" is the most prevalent among all EA titles. Games that are innovative and new prove to be the IP that EA acquired from buying out other companies and almost never comes internally.

In short what should we expect? EA, Ubisoft and to a lesser extent Activision have become a plague in the industry with unoriginal, linear, buggy and just plain awful games that dominate not for their quality but their quantity. I don't know the full statistics but you can bet at least 75% of all video games come from those three studios.

I'm tired of these crap games and sequels and don't bother even buying many games anymore, attaching Sony's InSecuROM makes the decision all the more easier. I rarely by games anymore because of these three studios domination, flooding the market with utter ****.The last game I bough before Fallout 3 (Which sneakily came laden with Sony's Rootkit DRM, had I known I would have passed) was The Orange Box. Soon there will be a video game duopoly or even monopoly and innovation will be stifled completely.

I am actively boycotting EA, Ubisoft and Sony and have been for over 3 years. These companies only care about money and not for their customers. They only care to put effort into maintaining a stranglehold on the market and not in making good products. As of late it sounds like Epic games is going down that same path too.

They probably didn't even created it just paid some company to produce the game.

i would suggest you fully explore SecuROM before you purchase RA3. When you install RA3 you install SecuROM.

I'm no expert, i just know to avoid it. Its essentially very invasive DRM that treats the customer like a thief, and has been known to cause damage to some systems.
There are various threads relating to Piracy on this forum that explore the subject much more.

Get both sides of the coin.

The site you viewed is called "SecuROM must be destroyed". I would suggest that site might be overly biased.

It IS invasive, but there are millions of people who have SecuROM with no issues, aside from the constant disk checking. If you can handle that and are prepared to take a small risk then buy the software.

I don't usually say this but a 9 is to high for this game, esp from this website.

A 8 would be more accurate.

The only problem about securom for me is the limited installs, so I dont buy based on the limited install crap , if it has it I dont buy

Bioshock 2@ 49.99
mass effect 2@ 49.99
spore 2@ 49.99
dead space 2 @ 49.99
Crysis warhead 2@ 29.99
farcry 2 2 @ 49.99
Mercenaries 2 2 @ 49.99
C&C: Red Alert 3 2 @ 49.99
I buy 2 games at a time my son is a gamer too!! so from this list there is about $860.00 dollars securom limited install crap has cost these companies ( I took the money i saved bought 2 gtx 280 card for our computers),

Copy protection software that phones home. I'm amazed nobody brings up the fact that RA2's copy protection caused issues too--although "SafeDisc" didn't phone home like SecuROM does.

I wouldn't mind something like safedisc as copy protection but SecuROM goes a little too far. I almost understand why they put it on, but since torret sites will likely get around SecuROM anyway, why bother to go that far? Just make something that prevents Nero, Roxio, etc. from copying it and that would be enough--why bother beyond that?

Ok i answered my own question.

For anyone curious - the cracker opens the raw code to the game in which lies an algorithm that verifies the code thats entered on install. eg if code begins 7 then next 2 entries taken from N,M,0,D without exception.
Simply reverse engineering this algorithm gives the basis for the keygen.

[quote='universedo']They probably didn't even created it just paid some company to produce the game.[/quote]

no, they bought out Westwood (the origonal creator of C&C)
and made it crap by fireing the "unproductive producers" that took their time to create a game that has WAY big bang for the buck.
you ever play C&C redalert?
the origonal has WAY more stuff to do, a less far fetched story line and the 'C rated actors' are great for what budget they had.

the best of the CnC series is the first 3, and generals is good... but is unbalanced all the same.

CnC3 F***ed the CnC series over and this newest diabolical plan is 'better than average' but its not EXTRAordinary....

The Jap "transformers" and anime schoolgirls are so lol

CnC is too easy... oversimplified like Empire Earth 3.