Steam Sale Review: Red Alert 3

Wow two posts in two days. It's like Christmas when you realise that all your non-immediate relatives got you gifts that while acceptable are not particularly desirable; nice but nothing to write home about.
A brief history: Although initially a prequels to the Tiberian series, the Red Alert series became an alternate timeline to allow the similar game lines have differing tones. So while the Tiberian games are set in a comparatively serious grimdark near future, the Red Alert games are set in a campy Cold War gone hot scenario with a shaky timeline.

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3's plot kicks off with the twice defeated Soviets travelling back in time to assassinate Einstein who's inventions allowed the Allies to win the last two games (this is also a neat homage to the original RA which has Einstein do the same thing to Hitler and set up the game's premise).
This disregard for causality puts the Soviets into a better position but also creates a third superpower, the Empire of the Rising Sun. Smooth. An odd side note is that while nuclear power is now non-existent, Chronosphere tech (what let the Allies win the last two games) is still present.......weird.

Each of the three teams get their own mutually exclusive campaign which seems a little outdated. Mission briefings consist of live actors treating you like a commander, a staple of the Command & Conquer franchise, and a good excuse for gratuitous cleavage and hammy acting.

Actual gameplay is a functional mix of classic C&C mechanics and more modern RTS ones. The graphics are pretty and the voices cheesy but fine.
As befitting RA's tone, the unit designs are fairly far out, with each team getting progressively more absurd: the Allies have helicopters with freeze and shrink rays, tuxedo wearing spies, and attack dolphins; the Soviets armoured warbears, cannons which launch troops safely across great distances, and the capability to crash orbiting space stations as an attack.
Neither of the original teams have anything on the Empire though. Their basic rifleman can pull out laser katanas, several of their vehicles can transform between ground and airforms, their ultimate ground vehicle is a giant samurai mech, and their commando Yuriko Omega is an emotionally-damaged psychic schoolgirl.

Surreally, there are people who think Yuriko is not anime enough

So far I've just talked about the facts without getting into my opinions that much. It's because RA3 generates a real 'meh' from me. The game feels like less of a real game and more of an improved re-release of RA2. I think this is a problem that is present for any non-story based sequel.

A side effect from playing RA3 was that I felt rather nostalgic for older C&C games. So I installed Generals (the black sheep of the franchise) and found that it was not as good as I remembered. I was also tempted to play either Tiberian Dawn or RA1 but realised that nostalgia does not compensate for years of regression in graphics, handling and general design. Hell I was even a little wistful for Tiberian Sun, a game I detested when it was newer.

I guess that's the joy of horribly biased memory.