Of course, through all of this, you also have to concern yourself with expanding your base and its defenses. Chances are, if the other player is decent, you’ll have already seen some flying units pass overtop your base to help with reconnaissance. If you’re concerned about your privacy, it wouldn’t hurt to roll out some inexpensive anti-air infantry, such as Javelin Soldiers (essentially rocket infantry), Rocket Angels, Flak Troopers, or perhaps a Flak Cannon or two (the allies also have a turret that can fire on either land or air-based threats, depending on its status). That way, at least you can take out the airborne threats before they start to become a nuisance. It also wouldn’t hurt to take a nice mass of infantry toward the center of the map at the bottom, where a small city is located providing plenty of garrison-able buildings. Here, you’ll also find a Hospital, which, if captured, allows your infantry to auto-heal. If you’re planning on using lots of Tesla Troopers and Rocket Angels (a flying unit similar to a Rocketeer available only to the Rising Sun army), you’ll want to spend the $500 for an engineer, capture this baby, and guard it with your life.
Some other helpful units at this juncture include the Guardian Tank, whose secondary ability allows it to focus more intensely on infantry defenses, along with the Jet Tengu / Mecha Tengu from Japan, which can guard against land or sky attacks depending entirely upon which ability—primary or secondary—is currently selected. If you’ve noticed any naval activity brewing in your opponent’s base, you’ll of course find solace in a respectable group of Dolphins, Akula Subs, or Yari Mini-Subs, which all essentially serve the same basic purpose.
Meanwhile, hopefully you’ve dug reasonably deep into the tech tree by this point and you’ve got some interesting units to choose from. For the allies, that means you will have to purchase Security Clearance, of which there is two levels, both providing another layer of selectable units and structures. After you’ve reached Security Clearance Level 2 (which means you’ll have purchased it twice), you’ll want a Tech Center, which provides, among other things, the ability to purchase Mirage Tanks and Athena Cannons, the latter of which harnesses power from above to focus a laser on a single target, utterly destroying it (much like a Soviet V2 Rocket Launcher, but cooler). Mirage Tanks in RA3 no longer possess the vehicle-busting penetrating shells that they did in RA2; now, instead, they’re equipped with the recently-retired Prism Tank’s laser cannon, which produces a beam that is quite devastating to structures and still mostly effective on vehicles, though not quite as outrageously devastating in large numbers as it once was. This will also open up the Cryocopter, which, as you might know by now thanks to our massive interview with the developers, has the unique ability to freeze units in their tracks, or even shrink them if you resort to its secondary ability.
If you’re playing as the Soviets, gaining your most technologically-advanced units is simpler; you must only purchase a large Super Reactor (which provides massive amounts of power — thanks, Yuuzan and stephanovich for a reminder of the proper name) and then another structure that I believe is called a War Center. After gaining the ability to do so, you’ll want to build up a nice welcoming party of Apocalypse Tanks, which are easily the best tank unit in the game. These babies are as powerful as they come, and they sport a cool secondary ability called a magnetic beam, which draws any unit fired upon toward them and the rest of the friendly gang. Dreadnaughts and Kirovs are also very helpful, though both need to be accompanied by the usual force of protective allies. The Soviet unit structure is fairly straightforward; very few units are amphibious, and most of them are very powerful with specific weaknesses, much like in the previous games. However, they do have a couple of mid-range units as well to help protect you at a lower cost (especially as the base is being built), such as the $1000 Hammer Tank.
Finally, the Rising Sun’s tech structure is also very different. You can upgrade Nanotechnology on your Barracks, War Factory, or Naval Yard here to produce more powerful units, and if you want to unlock the Nanoswarm ability (which sends a swarm of nanobots to a certain area for a short period of time, effectively rendering it useless), you’ll need a Nanoswarm Hive (similar to the Soviets’ Iron Curtain or the Allieds’ Chronosphere). The Japanese are unique in their versatility; basically every major unit type contains at least one entry that can battle in sky as well, meaning that provided you’re paying attention to what’s happening on all fronts, you can adjust your army to meet most threats. One thing I haven’t mentioned in the King Oni unit, but if you’ve been following the game, you’ll already know all about this one. Hit up EA’s unit profile for more information on it—and know that this is easily the most formidable ground-based unit in the game when properly used.
What about the Commando-type units? Well, we’ve already seen all there is to know about the Soviets’ Natasha and the Empire of the Rising Sun’s Yuriko Omega. One unit that hasn’t yet been discussed, however, is the Allieds’ Tanya. She isn’t that much different from RA2, but she does have a secondary ability which allows her to use her belt to go back several seconds in time—what?! Yes, she can revert herself to seconds prior to the introduction of a dangerous situation if you manage it properly. However, if she’s killed, of course, you can’t use this any longer, so it isn’t much use unless you’re paying very close attention.
Some other items of note which I was not able to organize well into this spur-of-the-moment report include the multiple production queue implementation, which provides for a Generals-like secondary production queue once a new construction structure (Con Yard, War Factory, etc.) is purchased. Don’t worry, though; this is managed in such a way that it actually works very closely to the way it did in RA2. You can’t open up multiple production queues without massive amounts of cash on hand and quite a bit of time, so in the end things end up working out very much the way they did in the older games. I actually quite like the implementation in RA3. Something else worth touching upon briefly is the difference in construction regimens between the three factions. The Allied faction builds in the traditional C&C fashion, meaning you pay for the building as you wait for it to be prepared, then you place it on the map and it’s immediately available. The Soviets require you to place the building initially and then wait as it’s built in place on the map (a la Generals). Finally, the Empire of the Rising Sun, as previously mentioned, possess entirely mobile construction units for every structure, making it possible to build anywhere on the map, and not just in close proximity to the Construction Yard itself. This makes for quite a unique feel when playing with any of the different factions, and I like that.
And, of course, I couldn’t go without commenting on the game’s music. Keep in mind this is a beta, so there’s much work to be done at that end of the spectrum… and thus these impressions may mean very little. But I’ll make them regardless for those who are curious. The menu music I’m sure is due to be changed, probably to Frank Klepacki’s upcoming Hell March 3—but right now, it’s Grinder from Red Alert 2, which rocks hard regardless. In-game, as you probably know, there is no jukebox option. Instead, the music is fully dynamic, starting off slow and fairly ambient and ramping up quickly in times of action. I will say that the music is at least more closely resemblant of the older titles, and the battle music, in particular, rocks (pure guitar and drums, and it’s a live recording, too). However, I’d still love to see a jukebox option made separate, if even it included only songs from the previous games. If this were implemented, I can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with the song selection.
Overall, these first several hours with Red Alert 3 have been shockingly positive for me. We’ve had a blast playing the game, and while there are obviously still some minor balancing issues and a few bugs to work out, things are looking very good in light of the release in a few months. I can’t wait to get back to playing at the moment, in fact.
On the next page, you’ll find detailed descriptions of nearly every unit, structure, and “Top Secret Protocol” (special power) in the game.