C&C Red Alert 2 REVIEW 2023
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 is a classic Real time strategy from 2000 that lives in the hearts and minds of many. But how has it held up in 2023? let's find out.
Setup instructions - cnc.community/...
Tiberian sun review - • C&C Tiberian Sun REVIEW
Developer - Westwood Studios
Publisher - EA
Release date - 23/10/2000
Hey, hope you enjoy the video, here is the Tiberian Sun review for added context to some of my thoughts th-cam.com/video/GswmwVlbS38/w-d-xo.htmlsi=IOAdtjlSqROSAaHo
hope you can do mental omega review too
@@MoheadageXXIV I plan too, I'm playing through Yuri's revenge at the moment
The story don't interact because they ate nit supposed to. In essence its if your commander chose which was to go
Check out the upcoming RTS game, D.O.R.F.
Feels like the old RTS vibes of Red Alert and Tiberium Sun.
@@RogelioV1985 already on the wishlist. I'm very excited for it
I play the game for 20 years and still click this as if I'm going to learn something lol
I severely doubt that I know more than you do 😅 thanks for stopping by.
Pro pliar.
Why won't Rocketeers get into middle if the base when i press G button.😂
Remastering Tibsun and RA2 would be like printing money.
You get it. Seriously, few games from 2000 have aged that well. It's just so much fun and it feels incredibly satisfying throughout.
I was born in '99 games like this are kind of like classic cars to me, there's a bit of retro charm to them.
Tiberian Sun had the most unique post apocalyptic feel while Red Alert 2 and Generals had the same atmosphere as Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 1. But Red Alert 2 and later Generals(despite the absence of engineers and Construction Yards) made more innovations to flesh out the classic C&C gameplay.
Agreed. Red Alert 2 is like a better Tiberian Sun, except the story of Sun is more interesting and the atmopshere of it is immense
Getting a spy into an enemy allied tech center in multi-player was OP. Chrono Commando when used right could decimate a base in seconds.
Spying enemy ai refinery might as well be cheating with how much money you get
This game was absolutely fantastic when I was playing it 23 years ago. I didn't care about how how utterly campy the cutscenes were, and being in the midst of puberty, I absolutely loved every cutscene with Kari.
I oughta install it and try to get it running at some point and relive those memories.
I was always a Lt. Eva man, myself.
@@cloudkitt I get that.
It just dropped on steam
Very well done review. Whilst it may be overshadowed by its expansion, and possibly its biggest mod, core Red Alert 2 was, and is, a true gem of RTS.
Fingers crossed for a eventual remaster in future!
Man I thought you were me for a second
When this review was suggested to me I assumed there was a remaster like they did with the original CNC and RA. No such luck (yet).
Surprised they haven't released a remaster. If only they could balance the Sov tanks a little better.
Much like everyone here, I grew up with RA2. I didn't have the copy at home. Whenever I visit my grandparents, their PC was always hogged by me and my cousins to play it. My home's PC back then, for some reason, while playing, would freeze. Little me was scared to repeat the same mistake. I think maybe it was running on Windows ME, which I heard was as worst as Vista. Also back then, when I played Skirmish, I always stick to Easy Enemy because I tried Hard before, and I got STEAMROLLED even before I could build a Barrack. I played the game very safe and simple.
Now years later, when I was in college, I started to watch how others play, and that's how I learned how to play against 8 Brutal Enemies, and also back then I only used mouse to control. Now I learned to use keyboard. Much improvement.
Also another thing I love about RA2, is how you can build more buildings to shorten build time of units. I never knew back then.
Best game ever made imo. Life changing for me as a kid in 2000
RA2 was a solid 9/10 at minimum; it's one of the best RTS games ever made. I do wish that the devs had stuck with a 2d perspective so they could beef up the sprites and terrain though. The move to 3d is one of the key factors from my understanding that led to the downfall of RTS games in the mid 2000's. I love seeing reviews of older games like this!
I did like how Westwood made an effort to capture the "static defense" doctrine of the USA during the Cold War with GI's being more powerful but immobile when deployed, and better base defenses than the Soviets (except the Tesla Tower, which was amazing).
This reminds me of the early 2000's, after i finished the quests of both allied and soviet in ra2 and yuri's revenge. I wish i can play this game again
"Only a psychopath would skip the intro because it's Hell March."
Me: Immediately pauses video to go listen to Hell March again.
1,2, or 3?
@@livaveragegamer In this instance, obviously 2, though I listen to the others from time to time. 2 is the best version imo
great review as someone who played the CNC games since the early 2000s. I STILL listen to RA2/YR's sound tracks while i'm painting/ drawing even nowadays when I need some classic Frank Klepacki jams.
Take me back to being 12 again ! Good stuff man . Wish you could have mentioned more of special units , chrono legionnaires , Ivan , demolition trucks etc.
As a RA2 fan I must say:
Your videos deserve more views 💪😎
I can play this game non stop.. I used to prefer to play as soviets when I was younger, but now I can see the superior mobility of the allies. It´s truly a great game!
I always played as the Americans because I grew up in a very patriotic family but looking back we kind of got screwed on our special ability of para troops compared to like France and Britain
My dad still plays this semi religiously. Glad he got me into these games as a kid. Im playing the C&C remastered collection rn
This is one of the earliest games I remember playing. I was 7 and sneaked to my older brothers computer when he was away. There is one certain moment I still remember. I was playing soviets and there was 1 Kirov flying towards my base. All I had was a flak trooper and a flak transporter and I was sitting there in shock, waiting for them to shoot down the Kirov (completely forgot to build anything in that time) they shot it down but it fell on my construction yard and destroyed it, ending the game for me, since I didn’t know that you could Bild MCVs at that time.
Great memories! This game always has a special place in my heart and I love playing it up to this day! I don’t agree with the rating you gave but that’s your opinion and I respect that. For me it’s a solid 12/10 heck even 20/10 for all the memories it gave me! You know what? I’m gonna play it right now, thanks :D
Haven't played this in well over a decade and remembered almost every feature of this game. What a throwback
I want a remaster of this game so hard!
My favorite RTS of all time, best Install Screen hands down 😁 Try combining an IFV and a Tesla trooper 😂
The Iron Curtain can also be used to instakill infantry. It'll make armor invincible for a time and kill any infantry in its area of effect. I've also used the Chrono Shift to teleport enemy land units to an undisclosed location at sea. You can use the nonkilling super weapons to kill enemies.
Can't believe this isn't in the remastered collection. my absolute favorite CNC game.
11:54 not quite how prism tanks work. the AOE effect happens on each shot even if tanks solo. Theres no combining effect between them. That said, a group of prism tanks will destroy anything that approaches it due to the high damage and AOE spread causing a suppression effect (slowing down) on all the units around the initial target
Thanks for the correction. I appreciate it, and I'll be sure to put it in my next RA related video
Well, Prism Towers kinda work that way so it's only logical that Prism Tanks work the same
it's like Tesla Troopers/Tanks/Coils or Yuri's Yuri units working entirely differently
0:00 the best RTS of all time...gets a 7.5 out of 10?? i know u said "possibly" but if we can all agree that it is at least top 10, none of the top 10 rts games of all time is lower than an 8/10; i mean what does that say about the top 100 games of all time; how many games in the top 100 list would be less than an 8 out of 10??
Red Alert 2 is a very fun time.
It took the original campy but still a bit dark tone of all Westwood's previous C&C titles, and added a layer of cartoonish whimsy that was just perfectly crafted to be entertainting nonsnese without being too over the top.
One of the most impressive things about RA2 to me, is that it's just a re-skin of Tiberian Sun.
It's using the same engine, running the same ruleset and the same basic mechanics in almost the same way, but with a ton of new artwork bolted onto the top of it.
And not only does it work, but it works so well that you'd be hard pressed to see it unless you go spelunking in the files.
I think the thing that stood out to me the most were the quality of life features. RA2 has most of the staple hotkeys where Tib sun is just a few short of being comfy. The other I found was the mission design philosophy. Tibsun has more intricate missions but lacks the units (like spies) also the way the triggers work can be frustrating. Love both games though.
Style and artistic direction overcome technical limitations. Something publishers don't understand these days.
Technical limitation ?
Harrier spam as the Allied Forces, costly but wins every fight or Flak tank spam as Soviet, cheap as hell and low damage but hordes of them are just overwhelming
Also, the Soviet Admiral is an underrated goat
you didn't mention how spies infiltrating tech labs give you a special unit based on A: your barracks type & B: the type of tech lab you infiltrated. With the Yuri faction added in the expension this added a bunch of interesting, very powerfull units (the chrono commando being my absolute favourite)
Chrono Ivan, Chrono commando, Psi commando, Yuri Prime were some OP units but almost never worth the time commitment
Chrono Ivans were always worth it. The rest I agree though.
I hate chrono commados
Yo fool! Chrono commanders can level a whole base if you use them well
I gotta say, while you nailed a ton of the things that made RA2 great, you also are mistaken about a few as well. Red Alert 2, along side its older sister title, Tiberian Sun, are not whole 2D titles. They are actual 3D titles and all the Unit Models are FULL 3D Renders, using technology called "Voxels". Voxels in basic explanation, are basically 3d pixels, made to look like sprites of old, but utilize 3D Animation quality and easiness, and when tanks are rocked by explosions, they are not just "show casing a single frame image" on a sprite sheet, but the entire model is lifted up off the ground.
Also, review score is even in 2023, at the very least 9 out of 10, and personally speaking, as this title is STILL one of the best RTS imo, 10/10. There really isn't anything I seriously dislike about this title outside the fact the company who now owns it doesnt give it the proper respect it deserves.
Unique Structures were part of the original C&C game(later refered to as Tiberium Dawn) GDI had a barracks, Nod had the Hand of Nod, Vehcile Factory/Airfield.. The other base structures were commob (turrets dont count, they always differn't)
Now that they bundled everything for cheap on steam this is my time to go through every C&C chronologically. Im so looking forward to this game, cause back in the day i couldnt play it, cause my PC was too bad. I just played it when i went to a friends house and everything has been great, yes, starting with that intro.
( But man, that pathing in these first games, and friggin GDI grenadiers.. I dont remember being as frustrated back in the days as i am now sometimes, trying to play on hard, cause that just was like it was. )
I love this game, I even mod it occasionally, trying to bring GDI and Nod into it in some way that's fitting the timeline.
I've never modded the game but I want to try the Mental Omega mod after I finish Yuris revenge
@@livaveragegamer It's pretty alright! I feel it overcomplicates a few things, but otherwise the campaigns are pretty solid, I need to give it another shot myself.
Ive been on a bit of a retro RTS bender lately starting with starcraft. But I have really fond memories of playing red alert 2. The itch is real.
The gameplay and cutscenes just lended themselves better to a single player experience. I think it was the custom experiences that kept me in og StarCraft for so long.
Absolute favorite game from my childhood I gave up trying to play it on windows 11 I'll have to look at your setup. I usually played allies and would make way too many airports and harriers and systematically destroy bases with airstrikes, using the rest of my units for defense and destroying anti air.
"It will soon be a wasteland." - Apocalypse
They only say that in Yuri's Revenge. Literally makes it an instant S tier unit.
RA2 and TibSun are like golden age Westwood to me. Those were the pinnacle of the C&C games imo.
The custom online maps were my childhood
20 year have passed, yet the community still live. I've been playing this since around 2007 and now day i still cointunue playing with metal omega mod on 2024( if ur big fan of RA2 u should check it out)
This game was my childhood.... absolutely fantastic game
Haven’t played this game since 2005. You took me back to those care free days. Thanks much. Great video. But I think it should be at least an 8!
Still my favourite RTS game, keep going back to it from time to time
Back in year 8 at school a friend of mine gave me CD with a bunch of games on it....one was Red alert 2. Fml, I was instantly addicted back then!
Years later at uni, one of my housemates was also into RTS games so we would do network multiplayer which consisted us two being on a huge map normally for 8 players, we have 1 hour to build up and then all hell breaks loose lol
good effing times...
A real classic.
I've recently introduced my 12 year old son to this game, it's so difficult not to push him to one side and take control!
'yes commander'
Even tho is such an old game the artstyle really keeps it looking great
Easily my favorite RTS and one of my favorite games of all time.
I was always a fan of using the Chronosphere defensively. Teleporting a bunch of enemy tanks into the ocean or ships onto land.
Favorite combo: use a spy to steal enemy technology. There was some combination where you could get Chrono Ivan's.. basically a teleporting madman that can blow up your base and teleport out
I started playing it in 2001. It is my all-time favorite. By far.
even as a kid I knew this game was something special, still play this to this day
the modding community is healthy as well, and new maps come out from time to time
I always loved the combos you could do with mind control and dynamite, mind controlling a bunch of alligators and ripping enemies in half
loved picking france too in skirmish mode and building a shitload of canons.
also, creating 50 libian trucks and sending them into the enemy base is super fun.
overall this game is a sandbox RTS and if you think about something you can probably do it
Perfect review of a classic. You earned a new sub
Thanks boss!
I've replayed the campaign so many times and played basically every romhack campaign too. Extremely satisfying game!
Good Stuff, still playing Generals Zero Hour from time to time on old spare pc & as OG CnC player from 90's its my personal Favorite of all
"Great leaders solve their conflicts with words. Words like: SCUD MISSILE LAUNCHER!!! "
Watch that torpedo become an sea-to-air missile at 19:20. 😅
And Frank Klapecki primed me for industrial and goth music,ngl
This needs a remaster. This is my favorite RTS.
Allied Prism tanks are so satisfying, and Elite Dreadnaughts
Awesome vid bro, but you forget about the secret units, combining the two factions, like crono ivan.
I love both games. I grew up playing both and remember them fondly. Personally I like the bleak setting of Tib Sun but I like the RA2 gameplay better. They polished a lot of issues that Tib Sun had. Perhaps we will get HD remasters of both games some day.
i would watch my friend play RA2 all day. i was always on the rise of nations demo. but in 2024 im finally trying it out!!!!
I played this game for years before I found out how to spawn special secret units like "Super Yuri" (if I remember correctly) you could only get one of
I think you could only get him by taking over an enemy tech center and barrack but I can't remember if you had to use your own engineer or had to mind control an enemy one to get "Super Yuri" It is like 15 years ago I played it so my recollection may not be the best.
Thx for a great video
The fact that we still didn’t get remaster is criminal
My favorite thing to do in this game is a wall of deployed GI and a bunch of of air missile tanks
Once battle hardened, it's practically impossible to get inside the base without superweapon.
We played this with excellent Russian voiceovers. There seem to be no other voiceovers, Spanish, German or others. It's just English or Russian. The most striking discovery on youtube is that the rest of the world only experienced English version
10:42 sounds familiar.
RA2, AoE, and SC:BW, are the Big Three who have yet to be meaningfully dethroned. While there are several titles you could lump in there as being preferred or improved, they all set the benchmark for all future RTS's.
AoM, DOW:DC, RoN.
The only one's I can think of that really had a different lineage were Planetary Annihilation/Supreme Commander, with their roots in Total Annihilation.
I would absolutely love to see a remake of this done like the remastered games. I'd probably do anything for it....I mean, it doesn't really need it that much and still looks great on a high res monitor with a few .ini tweaks and what not, but I would still utterly love to see a remastered Tib Sun and RA2. With units driving through enemy bases and being a bit funky sometimes, I use the waypoint system which is so easy and quick to use and it solves that issue when sneaking units around an enemy position before launching an attack. Going to build up massive amounts of different units and arranging them into divisions before launching a mass attack when I spend hours playing just one map like I did with the original games for so, so long
One less obvious-to-get units is that if you're playing Allied against Allied you can send a Spy to their Battle Lab to get access to a unit called Chrono Commando(?) which ability-wise IIRC is basically Chrono Tanya. And I don't remember how/what combination of Engineers&Spies, IIRC you had to start as Soviets and capture an Allied Yard and build Spies, but you could also get the Crazy Ivan as chrono and a Yuri version Yuri Prime, but I don't remember how different that was, I think he could do a AoE anti-infantry attack like if you put a Yuri into the Allied IFV.
Allied tech + spied Allies = Chrono Commando
Allied tech + spied Soviets = Chrono Ivan
Soviet tech + spied Allies = Psi Commando
Soviet tech + spied Soviets = Super Yuri
This of course means it was really difficult to get the latter two because as Soviets you needed to steal Allied tech first to even get spies.
Love covering the map with my fearsome harvesters! xD get a triple rank up box aswell
Enough Mirage tanks can stop an army. I agree with the Prism Tank Death Ball. That was the tactic with Allies. Though using Spies for veterancy helped out so much.
This game was amazing. Online pvp was extremely hard back then.
mental omega when
Oh god now your gonna make me play Red Alert 2 again.
Go on, you don't have the guts!
I think command and conquer generals was a good change to 3d, and added the cash building which was useful. I never could get into red alert 3. But yeah, most hours on Red Alert 2. I think 1 is quite good too but its much more dated. Single player campaigns just used to be so good. I remember playing warcraft 2, total annihilation, red alerts, command and conquers, starcraft, age of empire. So hard to get something similar these days. I don't think the 3d ruins it, its just that as they transitioned to 3d they started making poor choices. Warcraft 3 introduced unit micromanagement, which a lot of people didnt like. Warhammer 40k rts introduced capture points, which means you have to rush the map.
Brilliant review!
Man it's wierd seeing the entire UI in Red Alert 2 so small. I got used to playing it on the 2000' sized monitors which were at least half the resolution of modern monitors
It took some getting used to
That "WOLOLOOOO" earned a hardcore like.
Good review and happy to see the love it gets. You missed one thing in the review. However, I am not sure if it is still a thing that is possible. Installing this game. The messages and images you get are still deeply imbedded in my brain. With schematics of the hardware you will find in the game. It was next level.
15:22 you forgot to say which is hot
Actually real life chuckled at that one
I was waiting for it😂
15:25 the point is Tanya is HOT😂
I love this game but honestly I never understood why it took so long for Westwood to make three faction Command and Conquer games (Generals and Red Alert 3) They did it with Dune II then switched to two factions for most of the Command and Conquer games.
I love this game. We need more games like this, or at least an opensource port that lets it play everywere with modern systems like openra.
D.o.r.f. And then Tempest Rising, chaos Strict order.
CnC3 is the best looking game to date é_é
I'll be taking a look at CnC3 again real soon.
@@livaveragegamer C&C3 may have th4 best graphics and gameplay but it lack tiberium faunas to make it atmospheric like the Tiberian Sun. Also, C&C3's game balancing and Brotherhood of Nod's faction diversity is quite atrociously bad, Nod and it's subfactions supposed to be a hit and run faction but units like Redeemer epic unit, Reckoner APC and Avatar walker variants combo can always beat Scrin and GDI top tier units easily. More importantly, C&C3 lacks alot of details that made Generals and Zero Hour so great for example Nukes, Fuel Air Bombs and high explosives ordinance can send everything flying, and infantry units can glow if attack with Tiberium based Toxin weaponry.
My favorite combo chronosphere a couple of dreadnaughts into the enemy MCV
You can also chromosphere enemy units in solo play/campaign i dont know about multiplayer never did it
Red Alert 2 Yuri's Revenge is the best RTS all time❗
There is no question.
My most favorite C&C game out of all. RA2 and YR. The best.
Review on Mental Omega you will fcking love it!
Thx dude! I have the game on origin but it won't scale and run properly. I'll try that cncnet luncher
still playing the og RA2 tho mostly MO now days, its not that simple as before but once u know it its very fun
One of the best games of all time, great story, strategy , multiplayer, great music , I can't see anything was bad about this game
I loved this game but also hated the narrative direction they took it in. I grew up on Red Alert 1 and Tiberium Sun. The original Red Alert was darker and more ‘realistic’, and showed how Kane had infiltrated the Soviets and how the Allies were forming into the GDI. Red Alert 2 was fun and crazy, but it lost all that seriousness, it became silly and camp. While the game was good, it killed the story, which is why it’s one of the best in the series whilst also ending the series (for me).
As for gameplay the Soviets had a lot of units that didn’t work very well. They lost their MiG jets and got Kirovs that were too slow and always taken down before it could arrive. The V3 rockets were again too slow and nullified by a single anti air (V2s in Red Alert 1 couldn’t be shot down). They had a commando unit patched in later but they wouldn’t give him C4 and instead you have to wait for MiGs to fly across a map, which would get shot down (I think this was patched later). They had no counter to Yuri’s mind control so later it was almost comical how unbalanced it was.
I think 7.5 is about right.
Red Alert 2 is hands down one of the best video games ever. I played hours and hours of this beast.
Red Alert 2 had a few epic combo/ hidden units and you could play some epic free-for-all PvP or joint Co-op PvP.
me and my mates played so much C&C, we use to quote units in general life lolz.
the Crono-Comando is fun.
Tho the Crazy Ivan IFV + 4 Crzy IFV's in a hovercraft / with one of the IFV's Crazy Ivan bomb on it then places in the hovercraft = Hovercraft Nuke lolz
Also one of the few rts that has no unit cap. Massing high tier units while not sacrificing massive numbers of support/low tier units 😅
I should have mentioned this. I understand that they are there for balance reasons but sometimes you just want to fill the screen with apocolypse tanks for the spectacle. Like, why can't I build 500 immortals blizzard?
Where is it purchaseable? Does it work on modern screen resolutions? It looks so sharp here
It's 1080 here. You can get it from the EA app but best call is to then go to cncnet.org and use their patches to get it running. There are a few other patches rolling around but the cncnet patch gives you multiplayer so I reccomend that one
For me the big 3 RTS games are Red alert 2, Dune 2000 and Starcraft 2 but Red alert 2 still holds the nr 1 place in my opinion.
9/10 at least... and you have to give it props for being one of the few ancient games designed for 640x480 that can run at 1440p without hacks!
Pretty sure Tanya uses .45 not 9mm. But red alert is so great to bad EA ruined it by trying mobile then just shelving it 😢.
sending allied spies into enemy buildings gives unique units.
Only the Battle Labs
Unless you consider Veterans unique
but yeah, spies are cool
Very good video!
lol back in the day, i used to play single player skirmishes online. there was some sort of patch hack that I was able to build civilian rambo looking solidiers and they one shotted enemy buildings. did that a few times for matches before getting banned lmao