Can Red Alert 3 restore my confidence in RTS?

[Amnestic]

...I always viewed C&C as a "realistic" game with a slight edge to it...

..... At what point did an alien invading plant, a single engineer taking over buildings, and ion cannons become realistic?

Satellite Based Weaponry? We're not that far off from it at all. Aliens...eh, it's possible I guess. I don't like to rule them out or rule them in. That just gets messy. As for the Engineer, well, they'd be better off having you use special commando units to capture if they were going for realism. C&C Renegade taught us that their buildings are quite able to be torn apart from the inside by a single person. It's a little more realistic now that they've started giving some (all?) Engineers pistols, but it's still pretty silly I'll admit.

Then again, so is having a psychic magical girl and giant mecha.

And the Iron Curtain.
And the Chro- you know what, fuck it. Red Alert's been anything but realistic. The other C&C universe...perhaps more possible, assuming that Tiberium could be what it is (didn't they have some physics/chemistry people cook up a proper explanation for it?), but again that's going on the whole alien thing. Less magical girls though!

 

[Doug]

...I always viewed C&C as a "realistic" game with a slight edge to it...

..... At what point did an alien invading plant, a single engineer taking over buildings, and ion cannons become realistic?

Satellite Based Weaponry? We're not that far off from it at all...

No-no, I'm happy to accept satillite-based weaponary as realism. In fact, I'm alittle surprised the US doesn't have some form of Space-based missile launcher.

But a beam-cannon cutting through the atmosphere with the power to slice a fortified building to shreds...? Using just ionised particles?

 

[Elurindel]

RA3 could have been the best game ever, if the developers were not completely retarded! Even the unit details could be greatly improved. Game play doesn't seem to be the most important thing anymore these days, this goes for the console games too.

If Starcraft 2 fails then the RTS genre is officially dead!

You're forgetting that Dawn of War 2 has yet to surface. It's looking pretty smooth, and should be enough to remind people that yes, GW made 40k long before Blizzard ripped them off.

 

[Doug]

New Company of Heroes expansion pack next year and Dawn of War 2. Now thats a game real RTS men play!

I'm looking forward to Dawn of War 2, I have to admit - and Starcraft 2.

Although I'm too rubbish at them to play online Always got Space-Marine-transporter rushed when I played Dawn of War online

 

[Amnestic]

...I always viewed C&C as a "realistic" game with a slight edge to it...

..... At what point did an alien invading plant, a single engineer taking over buildings, and ion cannons become realistic?

Satellite Based Weaponry? We're not that far off from it at all...

No-no, I'm happy to accept satillite-based weaponary as realism. In fact, I'm alittle surprised the US doesn't have some form of Space-based missile launcher.

But a beam-cannon cutting through the atmosphere with the power to slice a fortified building to shreds...? Using just ionised particles?

Well they also have fully functioning stealth technology to be fair, alongside railguns and the like (though perhaps the term "railgun" means a different thing in the C&C Tiberium universe). Whatever we're saying, we have to admit that technologically they're more advanced then we are. I'm no scientist I'll admit that now, but as long as there's the reasonable possibility that such a thing *could* work, we can't rule it out.

Remember that that Ion Cannon was fairly ineffective against the larger buildings in C&C 1 and Tiberium Sun+Firestorm. It gained effectiveness in Tiberium Wars thanks to there being a network of them and they all fired at once...or something. Again, the explanation escapes me. All I remember was that in Tib. Wars, there was more than one ion cannon firing at a time. It would've been more accurate to rename it plurally.

Then there's Kane. He pretty much throws realism out of the window with his whole immortality thing.

 

[Freyar]

Shit like this [http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?p=30357] doesn't restore much faith, now does it?

 

[TOGSolid]

as an anime fan......The over the top breasts that are everywhere were a little bit disturbing.

Contradiction launch detected!

Ok, the series has become more stylistic over time, but I actually prefer style over grey-brown realism these days - I always have to wonder why developers think the world is purely grey-brown .

It's not grey-brown, it's next gen!


That 'workaround' to their CD-Key fuck up is quite hilarious, but to be expected considering it's EA.

 

[Doug]

It's not grey-brown, it's next gen!

So....next-gen grey-brown?

 

[Amnestic]

as an anime fan......The over the top breasts that are everywhere were a little bit disturbing.

Contradiction launch detected!

Damn! Uh...um...uh...I only like over-the-top boobies when they're cartoons? Wait, that doesn't sound any better.

Shit, I'll cover my ass with "To err is human." Hah! The old humanity defence.

 

[bue519]

I Even ridiculously old games like Starcraft still have more strategic depth then all C&C games combined.

Starcraft is ridiculously old? When did this happen? And i was merely pointing out that there are different kind of RTS, where Supcom is slower paced, and RA3 is much quicker. Even Starcraft and RA3 have differing strategies, so its more a matter of personal preference, and what you consider a "fun" game. You remember that three letter word?

 

[almo]

Starcraft 2. (that's a period there)

 

[GloatingSwine]

and what you consider a "fun" game. You remember that three letter word?

If you consider ridiculous balance failure in an RTS "fun", then maybe red alert 3 is "fun". Dawn of War, as wobbly as it's force balance gets with every new side added and hasn't been patched yet, is still doing better with nine armies than RA3 does with only three.

The Red Alert approach to "balance" appears to be rather than making every force competent but different in all areas, just make each side dominant in one and incompetent in others, but since not all areas are as valuable as others, this does not produce a balanced set of force matchups.

(of course, this has been going on since the first game, so it's hardly a new problem for the series.)

 

[Stammer]

With the hard counter system, everyone's good in every field, they just play out differently. To be honest, I haven't ever seen an RTS as balanced as Red Alert 3, except StarCraft, but that game's been out for like a decade already. RA3 was just released. Even in the first week of the beta it was pretty well balanced. Everyone is unique, no one is better than anyone else. Any strategy from any faction is able to be countered somehow.

 

[bue519]

and what you consider a "fun" game. You remember that three letter word?

If you consider ridiculous balance failure in an RTS "fun", then maybe red alert 3 is "fun". Dawn of War, as wobbly as it's force balance gets with every new side added and hasn't been patched yet, is still doing better with nine armies than RA3 does with only three.

The Red Alert approach to "balance" appears to be rather than making every force competent but different in all areas, just make each side dominant in one and incompetent in others, but since not all areas are as valuable as others, this does not produce a balanced set of force matchups.

(of course, this has been going on since the first game, so it's hardly a new problem for the series.)

people who consider a game "imbalanced" probably just don't know how to play it.

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Play act of war instead ( why does nobody know this great rts? )

 

[goodman528]

== In the beginning ==
I always viewed C&C as a "realistic" game with a slight edge to it, but this took the cake and vomitted all over it. The main reason I liked C&C was thrown into the bin.

== Now what?==

If you love realism, play THQ's "Company of heroes". Squad based combat where every single man and every single squad counts from the beginning to the end. Very simple to learn how to play it, all controls are intuitive, very relaxing, no need to click spasm micro like other RTS, but it's game mechanics are deeper than all the other RTS out on the market today.

If you love mass carnage and just things blowing up all over the place, with essentally your big blob of units slugging it out with his blob of units, then play:

"Supreme Commander", No storyline, all sci-fi stuff.

or "World in conflict", unrealistic storyline, showcase of new age RTS (though they like to say RTT, but honestly Dawn of War and Company of heroes are both smaller in scale, but still RTS, so where do they get the T from?)

I'm guessing you'll not like RA3, because it's a joke. No, I don't mean a joke as in it's a bad game, but as in that it's actually a joke, like the sort of thing a stand up comedian would do, if he made an impression of RTS games. Personally though, I think I'll buy it just to play through the campaign on co-op... so few co-op games available for the PC.

 

[bue519]

and what you consider a "fun" game. You remember that three letter word?

If you consider ridiculous balance failure in an RTS "fun", then maybe red alert 3 is "fun". Dawn of War, as wobbly as it's force balance gets with every new side added and hasn't been patched yet, is still doing better with nine armies than RA3 does with only three.

The Red Alert approach to "balance" appears to be rather than making every force competent but different in all areas, just make each side dominant in one and incompetent in others, but since not all areas are as valuable as others, this does not produce a balanced set of force matchups.

(of course, this has been going on since the first game, so it's hardly a new problem for the series.)

people who consider a game "imbalanced" probably just don't know how to play it.

Huh? Isn't that a bit contradictory?

All I'm trying to point out is that its easy to call a game imbalanced, rather than actually trying to have fun with it.
After all, I play this on lan with my friends all the time, and usually I get rolled by the soviets. Does this make it an imbalanced game? No, it just means that I drink too much before playing.

 

[Zrahni]

RTS evolved into ultimate state when starcraft came out, you can't create nothing better just add fancy graphics only.