After enjoying Command&Conquer Remastered less than expected, I didn’t plan to play Red Alert, but I ended up finishing the Soviet campaign anyway.
What surprised me is that the campaign of Red Alert isn’t broken by remaster, unlike Command&Conquer. Which doesn’t mean that the game isn’t broken: Soviet V2 being able to destroy power station in a single hit or target off screen is insane. On the other hand, same V2 have troubles with their AI, and would sometimes refuse to fire.
Major change is how engineers work: now the building needs to be critically damaged in order to be captured. Otherwise, engineer will just chip at its health. Which is annoying, as either the building gets destroyed by one of your units shooting at it or by enemy unit, because it’s badly damaged.
Either SAM sites were made weaker or helicopters stronger, but now you need multiple SAM sites in one spot to fend off helicopters. And Soviets lack any mobile anti-air, it seems, except Mammoth tanks 🤡
One interesting detail is that if you capture Allied Tech Centre, it will reveal an entire map by launching a satellite, and you can see the rocket.
Penultimate mission is unnecessary evil. Not because it’s hard, it’s actually easier that some previous missions, but because you have to capture radars tucked the the most faraway corners of the map. I had to build transport just to get my engineers to that last radar.
In the last mission, AI cheats a bit, bringing reinforcements from off screen. But I think those stop once you destroy some of the Construction Yards, although that never explained properly. Nothing like a cruiser popping up to blast your base. Speaking of cruisers, they are also sprinkled in such a way that they blow all bridges, so you have to take the longest path possible. Ironically, paratroopera really help in that mission, as they are quite effective against buildings.
Despite all that, it’s a far more reasonable campaign than Command&Conquer Remastered, and I enjoyed it, despite how much they like to start missions with you being in the middle of a fight.
Funny that despite all the plot being built around Chronosphere, Allies never use it against you. Maybe they had trouble with AI.
