Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Beta Impressions

BY Mohammed Al-Balushi | POSTED: 02 September 2008

Empire of the Rising Sun joins conflict between the Allies and the Soviets in Red Alert 3, check out our Beta multiplayer report as we give each faction a spin.



For the few past weeks, EA was busy distributing beta keys for their upcoming C&C game Red Alert 3 and just recently they have started an open beta program which you can get a key from the limited keys being offered at File Planet. Currently many are going through the beta version and checking out how will the new Red Alert shape up to be and contributing to the effort of balancing and bug fixing.

Red Alert 3 Beta client, weighing at around 850MB , comes with all three factions being available for selection to be played on four multiplayer maps; two which are two player and the other two being four player with the choice of either playing in teams or FFA (Free For All) on the latter four player maps. As of writing, there are no bigger maps for larger player numbers, no skirmish mode available to check out the AI nor any Campaign components. The beta also does not offer any kind of replay feature to show off the great battles that go on. The impressions are being based on version 1.04 which as you can see, EA are really busy in making Red Alert 3 their best C&C game when it is released later in October 2008.

The available maps aren't that big and are more tightly packed which for a fast RTS game like RA3, is a good thing. One great aspect is that when playing any faction, the maps allow you the option to focus on attacking your enemy by either land, air or sea in an impressive way. This alone adds great amount of depth to the game unlike it's Tiberium brother which really focused on land units. Some of the old special building make a return including the oil derrick and the hospital to name a few. Capturing such buildings will buff you in one way or another from cash income to producing veteran units.

Each of the three factions are unique and diverse up to even how their buildings are constructed. Though they do share some common gameplay elements such as the new way ore is gathered. Which is by building your refinery in front of an ore node (mine) and your harvester goes back and forth collecting ore, building another harvester though will slow down your income and forces you to expand to more ore nodes. All factions start with an MCV (Mobile Construction Vehicle) and can build power plants, barracks, war factories, air fields (none for Empire of the Rising Sun), naval yards and walls.

Lets look first at the new faction Empire of the Rising Sun (Japan in short). You start with the usual MCV and get to start building drone vehicles which you can move and deploy anywhere in the map (even on water for most of them). Same drone idea applies to your defensive structures in which consists of two laser turrets one of which can switch between anti-air and anti-ground defense. The Rising Sun infantry units range from Burst Drone which is a flying dragonfly like  mechanical units that is good for scouting and can self destruct, Imperial warriors which can switch from rifles to wielding a katana and an increase in speed, Tankbusters which are anti armor and can't fire against air units, Shinobi which are cool ninjas that can insta-kill infantry with their sword and shurikens and can use smoke bombs to vanish in addition to being able to infiltrate enemy buildings and shut them down, Rocket Angels which can fly and fire rockets from the air plus they have a paralyzing whip that can stop any ground vehicle and finally you get access to Yuriko Omega which is a school girl with telekinetic powers that can lift armor into the air and destroy buildings with her mind.

The RS ground and air units are built from the war factory and include Mecha/Jet Tengu which is a transforming jet similar to those from RoboTech anime, Tsunami tank which is an amphibious tank, Striker/Chopper VX which can transform between an anti-ground chopper to an anti-air walking mech, Wave force artillery which is an artillery unit! and RS strongest ground unit the King Oni which is a giant robot that attacks with his laser eyes and crushes units be charging to them. The naval units consist of Yari Mini-Sub, Sea Wing which can go underwater and become an anti-air unit or can switch to a flying unit that attacks ground units, Naginata Cruiser which fire torpedoes and can fire multiple torpedoes in a cone shape direction in front of it and finally the Shogun battleship which fire long range lasers that are really powerful while hardly useful in close range in which the Shogun can increase it's speed dramatically and charge opposing ships to cut them in half.

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