The story: World War II never happened. At least, not the way we think of it. Hitler never rose to power and threatened all of Europe - something more terrible happened: Joseph Stalin.

The Soviet empire is storming into Europe. Towns are falling and countries collapsing before the overwhelming might of the Soviet forces. Does anyone stand a chance, or will the red storm engulf all of Europe?

C&C: Red Alert is Warcraft for the 20th century! You have ability to play the Soviets (Red) or the Allies (Blue), then the objective is to destroy the enemy. There are several missions that you must accomplish to complete the game, from rescuing people (Albert Einstein) to clearing passes. If you like strategic war simulations you are going to love Red Alert.

The gameplay is similiar to other games in this genre, you start out with several men and usually a MCV (Mobil Construction Yard). This is where you are going to create your armies and supports. The Construction yard can be used to build structures such as: Power Plants, Naval Yard, Pillbox, AA Guns, and Turrets. You are trying to build a base of operations, so that you have someplace to fallback to, and build additional armies.

Once you have started to create the base, and have built up enough of a figthing force, and also have enough men to leave a few behind to protect the base. You can start to determine where the enemy is and how to destroy him. You do this by selecting the members of your force that you would like to give orders to, and then you click on were you would like them to go. It is as simple as that, the user interface design is very straightforward and easy to understand. The status of your base, and your current options are laid concisely on the right hand side of the screen. The one thing that I would like to see is a status report of your troops when you are in the midst of battle. Because you don't really know what the status of an indivdual is unless you select him.

The missions in Red Alert are tough but not impossible. But that adds to the games, enjoyment and playability. This game is must buy!

Minimum System Requirements:

• CPU: 486 (Pentium for Windows 95) with 8 megabytes of memory and VGA graphics - A Pentium Class computer with 16mb of memory is recommended.
• Hard Disk: 30 mb
• Video Modes: SVGA video (Vesa 1.2).
• Input Devices: Microsoft Compatible Mouse.
• Sound Cards: Sound Blaster (all models), ESS: 488, 688, 1488, 1688, Mediavision (most models), Aztech: Nova 16, Washington 16, Rocky 2 or any Microsoft DirectSound supported card .

Downloads:

• Westwood's Red Alert Home Page

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