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Red Alert Remastered

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.

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June 12, 2026
Path of Exile 2

Compared to Diablo 3, I feel there’s less cooldown management, but more effect management. Diablo 3 had modifiers on skills, but here each skill has at least two modifiers. Enemies hit by poison start bleeding, enemies killed from bleeding explode, enemies killed while being electicuted electricute others, it’s all a chain reaction.
Balbala the Traitor was the first side boss that had me pause.

She has a pit in the middle that spits poison fog, and I kept dying from it. She throws coins on the ground, so I thought that’s some kind of a ward. But those coins are actually summon spots for her minions. In any case, returning to her after a gaining few more levels helped. Turned out, it’s one of the most important sidequests, as it allows for Ascendancy, or specialization, in other words.
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June 9, 2026
Command&Conquer Remastered

I decided to try NOD campaign after all, if only for the CGIs, but on Easy. The difficulty is as I remember it, but on the other hand, the difficulty also lowers the costs of units, so still not the original experience. You can’t step in the same river twice, I guess.

I remembered the iconic scene where Seth gets executed in the middle of the briefing, but didn’t remember what that was about. Turns out, he wanted us to attack the Pentagon.

Another interesting detail, not sure how canon it is, but on the other hand, the entire C&C universe went to shit, so canon doesn’t matter: Kane says he was the one who discovered tiberium and gave it its name.
I was always fascinated that if you capture GDI Construction Yard with NOD, you can build helicopters. It’s such a specific mechanic, as GDI doesn’t have its counterpart, and also there’s just the final mission that has two enemy bases, so by the time you capture a Construction Yard, it isn’t Mission Accomplished yet. Later, Starcraft will have that mechanic as well, but not any other Command&Conquer game, as far as I can remember.

NOD campaign is also weird, because it has 13 missions instead of 15 for GDI. And I’m not sure if it’s a bug, but Temple of Nod allowed me to build only a single nuclear missile, which I wasted, because I was used to firing Ion Cannon every few minutes.
The ending is weird as well. Suddenly, Kane talks about netrunners and cyberspace, and there are three hackers trying to pass GDI cybersecurity defences and getting fried. How did it turn into cyberpunk, suddenly?

Also, for some reason Kane captures the Ion Cannon to frame GDI. Dude, you have built a nuke already.

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June 6, 2026
Path of Exile 2

I might say it as well now, this is everything I wanted Diablo 4 to be. The linear progression means you don’t fight level 50 hedgehogs. And the fact that enemy bodies do not disappear until you leave the zone adds to the spectacle.
By level 15 I got my first unique item, and by “unique” I mean actually a unique: it’s a mercenary coat that emits smoke.

It is curious that they decided to add friction with identify scrolls and tiny inventory without autosorting, but you don’t have item durability.
The bosses are such a spectacle, even the side-quest ones, like the Candlemass, a gargoyle that comes to life. Or even the pack of dogs in the circle of grass.

The Mansion is very interesting, as it clearly mimics Diablo 3 Cathedral design where you descent down a hole, getting close and closer to the bottom.

And the Count boss is clearly swordwielsing man-horse from Bloodborne, only he’s swordweilding man-wolf (which also explains why we were fighting werewolves when we weren’t fighting vampires). Speaking of vampires, those are Darkest Dungeon version, insectlike with clear bellies full of blood. The game has many inspirations.

Anyway, beating the count brings us to Act II, which is of course set in… a desert.

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June 4, 2026
Path of Exile 2

I never managed to get into Path of Exile 1. Similarly to Titan Quest, the Greek/Roman aesthetics doesn’t appeal to me for some reason. Path of Exile 2 is another story: it’s gothic style is less of Diablo, and more of Warhammer.

I usually like to play as Paladin, but since there’s none available, I went with crossbow wielding mercenary, a bit like Demon Hunter from Diablo 3. WASD movement and roll almost turns the game into twin-stick shooter. And the fact that one of the skills turns the crossbow into a shotgun helps too.

The system where you need to pick a skill instead of getting one after a level up takes some adjusting to, but not too much. You can pick any skill, but the game does suggest you some that should be more useful to your class.
Such a surprise that you can put the game on a pause. I got use to ARPGs forcing you to be always-on.

The best part of the game so far are the bosses. They are amazingly designed, clearly telegraph their attacks, and as I’ve already learned, deadly.
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June 1, 2026
Tiberian Sun Firestorm

Completed GDI campaign. I think I’ll skip NOD campaign, as I’ve seen most if not all of the new NOD units already, and there wasn’t much new to begin with.
To the best of my understanding, both the GDI and NOD endings are somewhat canon, because when you start the expansion campaign for GDI, they say they lost contact with Philadelphia space station (because NOD shot it down), but they need to recover Cabal, NODs AI, from the ruins of the temple, which you destroyed at the end of GDI campaign. Cabal then quickly betrays you, and you have to put it down.
It seems that the pace of units getting experience has been increased, as in the Tiberian Sun, I rarely had a veteran unit,
The new GDI unit, Juggernaut, is awesome. It’s a better version of NOD artillery, firing three shells instead of one, albeit less accurately. There’s a mission where you need to pair it with GDI commando, Ghost Stalker. The only issue in that mission is the commando himself, as he’s unable to shoot up slopes 🤦‍♂️
Only the final GDI mission is really difficult, or unnecessarily evil, as you start extremely close to enemy artillery positions without many options to tackle them. Luckily there’s no time limit in this one.
One final surprise is that once you capture three key points, a huge robot appears, and you need to destroy Cabal before that robot reaches your base, as it destroys almost any unit in a single shot.
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June 1, 2026
Tiberian Sun

Completed the NOD campaign.

Once NOD gets artillery, it’s game over for GDI. The most overpowered artillery since Ground Control. It is even smart enough to deploy automatically once in range.

Story is still rough. You complete a mission, and the next thing you know, Slavic is captured by GDI, then rescued by Cyborg Commando. What is Cyborg Commando? It’s actually never explained.
The final mission is a bit underwhelming. It also has a timer, and I thought that after placing the 3 ICBMs it will just stop, and I would still need to deal with GDI forces, but no, it’s the end of the campaign. And I didn’t even get to try the UFO-like Banshees.

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May 28, 2026
Tiberian Sun

On one hand, it feels like I should have started with the NOD campaign, because Kain first introduced in it, and it has tutorial tips, which I didn’t notice in the GDI campaign. On the other hand, it still feels like I’ve started watching from the middle of the show. Who’s Hassan and why is he taking order from GDI? In general, it feels like the cutscenes for NOD were done by another person. Who loved to use the fisheye effect.
Generally, the campaign feels easier. I still hate the ion storm missions, though, because you don’t have a minimap, and playing RTS without a minimap is a pain. Then both “Salvage Operation” and “Capture Umagon” missions made me scratch my head, a lot. They both can be completed in a couple of minutes. I’m just not entirely sure how. In Salvage Operation, you’re given a meager force to capture the downed UFO and intercept a train, which is almost impossible, unless you know where the train stops, and then you don’t even need to capture the UFO.
And in Capture Umagon, you have about a minute to intercept her, which is incredibly hard. Unless you just know where the train appears, and then you can just bomb that place preemtively 🤡

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May 26, 2026
Tiberian Sun

Completed GDI campaign.
Out of all the GDI missions, “Weather the Storm” is the worst one. You aren’t allowed any flying units due to ion storm, which means you have no way to counter NOD artillery. You also have no map.

And the last mission is though. The real problem is the time limit of 1 hour, otherwise, if would be as any other mission. The idea is that you reset the time limit by hunting the ICBM sites, but this isn’t explained at all. Once I did, though, it was bomber-time. In the final mission it’s quite pointless to destroy enemy buildings, as it’s able to rebuild them almost instantly, so you need to hunt the construction yards. And in fact there are 3 AIs and 3 separate construction yards, but you wouldn’t know that, because they are all the same red color.

As a kid I thought I don’t understand what characters are saying, because my English is not good enough. Turns out, the audio isn’t good enough: you often can’t hear the actors due to music and background noises.

Overall, I enjoyed Tibrian Sun much more than the first time, despite somewhat akward controls and terrible unit aiming: my Mammoth MK2 was firing at a target few steps ahead, and not hitting it, because there was some bump, while missiles would hit cliffs instead of SAM sites above.
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May 24, 2026
Tiberian Sun

The game works well on modern PCs, but since it’s not a remake, the control scheme isn’t modernized. You issue orders with LMB, you cannot select units of the same type with double-click, and the waypoints work weirdly.
As a kid, I completed this game, but didn’t like it. First C&C was straightforward, especially with GDI that had Mammoth tanks. In Tiberian Sun, everything was weird: you could build just one Mammoth, and it was this AT AT with a gauss cannon. NOD artillery couldn’t fire until deployed. Tanks could transform into turrets. And so on.
Now, though, I appreaciate it much more. Missions are like puzzles, and actually encourage exploration: you can find bonuses or alternative paths.
The way campaign is structured is interesting as well. You can do side-missions, that make the main missions easier. Although sometimes it’s hard to figure out which is the side mission and which advances the plot.
One aspect I don’t appreciate is the need to hunt down every SAM site and even destroy fences or complete a mission.
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May 22, 2026
Command&Conquer Remastered

I feel like as a kid, I missed a lot of the story. Like the fact that the government and scientists try to hide that tiberium is toxic at first, and soldiers getting infected as a result. Or that NOD uses a journalist for propaganda, claiming that GDI destroyed and orphanage. Or that the UN cuts funding to the GDI. The story is quite prophetic for ’95, I must say.
Honestly, I didn’t enjoy GDI campaign as much as I thought I would. Maybe it’s the broken balance, but I ended up running out of money all the time, while opponent obviously cheats, gaining more money from each harvester.
Ironically that I remembered Warcraft 1 being hard, and Command&Conquer being easy, while now it’s completely opposite, at least for the remakes.
I was enjoying the final mission, until Hand of Nod started firing. First, I don’t remember it being able to obliterate multiple buildings. And second, AI is able to use it twice in a row, erasing your base.
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May 15, 2026
Command&Conquer Remastered

I already praised the remake when it came out, but I only played it briefly.

The UI now supports production queueing for units and is divided into 4 tabs instead of 2: infantry, vehicles and superweapons are separate. You can now double-click to select all units of the same type, and also use more common nowadays RMB to issue commands, instead of LMB in the original. No waypoints for units or rally points for buildings, or attack-move, though.
The remake exposes how much old RTS games relied on AI being dumb. If you turn on the new AI, harvesters become a menace, since you can only produce infantry units in the early missions, and harvesters absolutely hunt them down.
Where I think the game breaks is in the commando mission. It’s a classic, you’re given just a commando with a sniper rifle, and need to sneak into the base the blow it. Easy day. But because of the new AI, the entire enemy base swarms at you.
I had to check that I’m not imagining things, so I actually downloaded the original Windows 95 version, and it is indeed much easier.

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May 11, 2026
Black Skylands

Overwhelmed by the amount of mechanics in this game.
There’s combat on foot, twin stick top down, kind of like Hotel Miami, but with a healthbar. And you have a grappling hook.
Then there is also piloting a ship, and ship combat, that uses proper broadside mechanics like Rebel Galaxy. A ship also has limited cargo space. You can replace your ship, but you can also upgrade it. And you can also upgrade your firearms, and they even have attachments.
Enemy ships have different turrets which can be destroyed separately. And there are also air currents, that drag your ship.
And it’s all a bit too much, at least for now.
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May 9, 2026
Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

Completed Jagged Alliance Deadly Games.
I shouldn’t have bothered.
After the hell of Mission 22, the next one puts you against… 4 enemies. That’s all, that’s the mission. Most of them are still pretty difficult, and the money is tight. The problem is also you can’t predict which missions allow or don’t allow you to sell stuff to get some more money.
One interesting piece of story is that Gus was working for Santino, the villain of Jagged Alliance, but bailed early, never to encounter the protagonist.
I’m not sure what the developers broke, but the further I progress, the less this game makes sense. Jagged Alliance could be annoying, but mostly fair. Here, you have enemies hitting you with pistols from across the map, your best mercs missing 3 shots in a row from two tiles, and getting hit for 40HP while having 60% armor, which should be technically impossible.
For the last two missions, I stopped saving the grenades, and it was just a grenade-fest. Also, I finally managed to hire Mike by selling all my stuff that I accumulated throughout playthrough. Speaking of which, I never had enough scopes or spectra shields for my team.
Final mission is actually on the easier side, simply because enemies don’t come at you all at once, but instead tend to camp, so you can clean the houses methodically. Also helps that I embraced grenades, no point of saving them, and even managed to use “mortar” (it’s more of a propelled grenades really) once.
There isn’t much of an epilogue, except merc congratulating you. I’m calling low budget cash grab.
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April 25, 2026
Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

I come to a conclusion that the game is simply unbalanced. The mission I barely managed with 4 people pays 8K. Mission 15 against 3 enemies total pays 13K.
I think I complicated my playtheough by hiring Magic. In the original, there were a lot of locked doors, a lot. So a merc who can shoot and open doors was extremely useful. Here, there aren’t almost any. And his pay really eats my budget.
Speaking of budget, one of the offers I’ve got was quite ridiculous: M16 and 20 magazines. I think that more ammo for M16 than I’ve collected in the entire playthrough of Jagged Alliance 1. But it was a good offer, I’m actually glad I got it. Unlike the one with chainsaw. I was curious, because it is a unique item which wasn’t in the first game. And I actually used it once. But most firefights are at ridiculous range in this game.
By Mission 20 I had to replace Magic with Kelly, because he’s a little cheaper. It’s not very fun, because being paid 10K per mission on average means you can afford 8 bad mercs, or 2-3 good ones, against 8 or more enemies.

By Mission 22 I was save scumming. I counted, there are 16 enemies on that map, each armed better than you, not taking damage from a shotgun, hitting you with pistols when your M16 misses. I had to employ scorched earth tactics, stunlocking enemies with grenades. Not sure why I’m doing that to myself, it ain’t tactics anymore.

Turns out, there’s both a grenade launcher and a mortar in this game: first launches hand grenades, while second looks like a LAW, and uses scarse mortar shells.
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April 22, 2026
Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

What I like about Deadly Games is that you can hire and fire mercs easier, it seems. So if someone like Leon isn’t working out, that’s less of an issue. No hard feelings.
There are missions where you need to escort a civilian to safety now. The way it works is that civilian is not part of your team, but you can order them around.

In the original, merc barely gained any stats. Here, I left Fox to train for a day, and she gained 3 points, while she might have leveled once or twice over 15 days in the original. And I’ve rarely seen a merc gain more than a single point in a day.
When you were equiping your mercs, you could give them vests, which gave inventory slots, or a shield vest, which offered extra protection. Now there’s a combination, Ultra-shield vest, that offers less inventory slots, but some protection.

I was progressing fine, until I hit Mission 11. This one has way too many enemies. I can afford 4 decent mercs. There are more than 8 well equipped enemies. One time I did manage to beat them all, one of my mercs bled to death, and I still didn’t have enough time to complete the objective. That was frustrating. I did manage to beat it, even within time limit, by running with half of the team into bushes and all the enemies chasing them, while the other half snuck into the compute room. But I didn’t enjoy it at all.

The further you progress, the more the game turns into slugfest. Enemies rarely drop grenades, and I don’t remembered them being offered, so you end up lining your mercs firing at incoming enemies. The problem is that there are always more enemies than mercs, and they are well equipped.

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April 22, 2026
Jagged Alliance Deadly Games

I remember playing Deadly Games briefly and disliking it for having limited number of turns.
After the original Jagged Alliance, it’s interesting.
First, you get some new characters, like Leon Roachburn, the father of 3 not so good mercs you could hire in the original. There are also some new weapons, like Uzi, and characters also seen personal growth, Ice and Ivan cost more now.
Some top mercs might be also available on day 1. I hired Magic that way. The problem is of course to pay their bills over time.
Mechanically, enemies can shoot crouched now, in the original crouch looked really awkward, as if they planned to run a sprint. And wounded enemies also leave blood trails. That’s something I wish they had in the original, as hunting the last injured enemy was tiring.
As I mentioned, there’s a turn limit now. But I discovered that it can actually be turned off completely, or, which is the option I like the most, have turn limit for mission objectives, but endless time to loot.
If you don’t find what you need, you also have a shop, which offers bundles of stuff. And you can haggle with the owner.
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April 17, 2026
Jagged Alliance

Completed Jagged Alliance.
Day 11. Capturing the last refinery was by far the easiest. I couldn’t believe my luck when I managed it on my 1st attempt with 3 mercenaries. The only issue now is that even with all refineries, I don’t generate enough revenue. I might need to either fire one of the mercs just to keep even at this rate. And I have no idea where the stolen totem is. At least now I have enough upgraded Spectral Shields for everyone.
Day 12. Mechanic with a lockpick is a must. I literally had to restart the day, because last enemy was behind a closed door, and the key was nowhere to be found. Also, at the “Santino peninsula” as I call it enemies carry ridiculous number of tear gas grenades. Gas masks are mandatory.
Day 13. Recovered the burned journal, and didn’t care to reload for it, since I’ve never got the quest in the first place.
Day 14. Some good news, the price for a tree actually went up. So now I can maintain more active mercs.
Capturing last sectors, Santino is surrounded. Since Magic and Spike, two of my best lock pickers, are healing, and Scully can’t pick most of the locks, I have to “knock”. If you fire at a door, enemies usually open it to look for you 🤡
Also, picked the headstones so natives don’t rebel. I don’t know what was to point of putting it on an island in the middle of nowhere, instead of some safe.
Day 15. I wanted to hire Mike, the best mercenary, before storming the compound. The problem is that I progressed too quickly and fired too many mercenaries, so he wouldn’t join until stats improve, which would mean just sitting there 🤡
Even with the best mercenaries, this last sector is so much not fun I’m surprised I ever finished it. Luckily I’ve read that the enemies are almost endless (basically Santino can deploy all his guards), so I didn’t try to ambush them like in other sectors.
Santino talks about the fallow sapling that he’s gonna blow, but nobody ever mentioned it or its importance before.
Also, I felt like in this area all the weapons jam more often. And if it isn’t enough, the game can get stuck mid-mission, probably due to too many enemies.
But I must say I’m very proud of myself for coming up with an idea to use two bombs to blow the wall enough for my entire team to sneak behind the bushes. This, and semiofficial way to save the sapling by Kelly jumping through a hole in the wall Santino left.

The game is deeply flawed, and I don’t use that term often. The sneaking mechanic is basically non-existent, the jamming is unpredictable, and so is visibilty and hits. But it is still incredibly engaging, mostly due to its handcrafted nature.

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April 17, 2026
Jagged Alliance

Day 7, some of the top-tier mercs are available now: Scully and Spike, among others. But same as with Magic, I actually don’t have that much money to pay them.
The reason everyone suggests to allow Santino to kidnap Brenda: once you rescue her, her father pays you a huge bonus 🤡

Even if you know where she’s been kept, rescuing Brenda is extremely difficult. Both of the bridges are mined and guarded, and as soon as guards are alerted, one of them will run to execute her.

This made me wonder, I always thought that when I played the game for the first time, she was killed because it took me too many days to rescue her. But maybe I was just too noisy when I did.

Day 8, mostly freeing the north of the map. There’s no interesting equipment there bar boobytrapped M14. I’m amazed that this game has what seem to be one-off mechanics. Jack says liberating the ancestral grounds made natives happy, but I’m not sure how it reflects on the bottom line.

Speaking of M14, while it’s recognizable in its original form:

I still don’t know as an firearms expert what its upgrade supposed to be:

Day 9. Ice asked for a pay raise, I refused, he isn’t worth that much, so he resigned. Speck resigned as well. Hired Kelly and Scully, two amazing mercs that come with their own M14 and M16.
Day 10. Capturing the 2nd refinery wasn’t any easier than the 1st, maybe even harder. Fire from the windows, enemies blowing the refinery after the first shots. Ironically I managed to capture it after countless attempts, when all my merc got badly injured, but nobody blew it.
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April 12, 2026
Jagged Alliance

Day 6, Brenda gets captured. As I kid I completely missed it, and she got killed waiting for the rescue. But even as an adult with the full grasp of English language, it’s kind of confusing: her sector gets invaded from a direction that shouldn’t be possible, and once you recapture it, you can find her coat, but without any indication where to look. Actually, there’s an indication, if you equip her coat, you’ll get a message, but no other item uses this mechanic, all the notes can be read without “equipping” them.

From watching Zemalf’s playthrough

I learned, among other things, that there’s M14 hidden in Sector 10, which I already captured. And I was pleased with myself to discover that you actually don’t need a stone to trigger the trap, you have enough time to dodge it. Rifles in this game are a big deal, mostly because there isn’t much firearms balance. They are simply better in every way.
The encounters are ridiculous at times. Opened a door, one enemy, trying to hit him, gun jam, trying to hit him with the second merc, gun jams, enemy throws a grenade, luckily, one of the mercs had a 2nd gun, fires it, missed, and the duo receives a second grenade as a present. Reload.

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April 10, 2026

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