Game by Westwood Studios released by Virgin.

The year is 1946 a scientist has developed a time machine and travelled back to 1924 to remove Adolf Hitler from history in an attempt to avert a Second World War. The scientist returns to 1946 and awaits the outcome...

Jospeh Stalin, without Adolf Hitler to stop him, embarks on his own conquest of Europe. The Allies have been driven back to half way through Germany, can you stop the Red Army from crushing the remaining allied cities, or can you force Stalin to surrender?

Westwood Studios have upgraded the original Command & Conquer with a new AI, new units and buildings. They have increased the size of the maps and added a difficulty selection, whilst keeping the systems requirement to a 486 with 8MB RAM (the same as Command & Conquer).

The game play is exactly the same as Command & Conquer so for those of you that have played the game before you can get into the game very quickly. If you haven't played this before there are two tutorial missions to ease you into it.

Soviet or Allies

You are able to select either the Soviets or the Allies, each side comes with many different units (some are common to both sides others are specific to each side). You have complete control over land, sea and air units, something that was not possible in Command & Conquer. If you select the Soviets you have access to MIG Fighters, Submarines, Hind Helicopters, Paratroopers, Flame towers, Iron Curtain, plus many more. If you select the Allies you have access to Apache Helicopters, Cruisers, Destroyers, Pill Boxes, Chronospheres, plus many more.

The object of the game is to defeat the enemy in a number of missions, this is achieved by collecting ore and gems from the areas surrounding your base and building units from the money collected. Some missions do not involve a base and may only consist of one commando or spy.

The missions start off quite easy for both sides but get progressively harder, I haven't had time to finish the game for either side yet. As you complete each mission your ability to build better buildings and equipment improves as does the enemies, until you reach technology level 10 - this is where you can build tactical nuclear weapons and one or two other surprises for the enemy.

Modem Play

You have the usual modem, null-modem, network and Internet options available to you, but Westwood have also added a skirmish mode which allows a single player to play against up to 7 computer opponents in a single game (this allows you to play on with Red Alert even if you manage to finish the missions).

Red Alert also comes with a terrain editor that allows you to create your own maps which can be used in the multiple player options or on skirmish mode - this was something Command & Conquer needed and it is good to see Westwood have built one for this game.

The game is excellent and extremely addictive, I have had it since Christmas and have spent as many hours allowable on it, except when I was reviewing Battleground Shiloh.

I only have one problem with Red Alert, you are not able to save a game if your playing in skirmish mode or one of the multiple player modes. So, if your planning to play against your friends or test a new map make sure you allocate plenty of time (some of the medium size maps can take the best part of a day to complete if you have plenty of ore and players of a similar skill).

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