I know this is an ea game, and I do realise I’m boycotting EA, however I have still played this game, and thus I can review it. Plus I’m reviewing the game itself. EA may publish it, but they didn’t create it.
Now I’m rarely into campaigns in games, as I tend to get bored of them easily, and this was no excepection, so this review is aimed those who play skirmishes, lan’s, online, basically multiplayer aspects of the game. What really matters of course…
Units
Well we meet some familiar faces, including the likes of hammer tanks, tesla men, militia, kirovs, terror drones, all the units we’ve come to know, love and create amusing back stories for… however as well as a lot of unit’s being in the game from RA2, there are a lot missing too. Say good bye to rocket troopers for the allies and the amusing “riding high”, desolators troops are no more either, they’ve been replaced with a support power “desolator airstrike” which is as useless as a baboon is when playing the Wii. But I guess they actually had to make a different game, a new game… so some of these missing guy’s can be forgiven. Now not being into the story line, I believe this also follows a different time line, so maybe that explains why these units are no longer there.
Oh there is a new side, which compares to the alien side in C&C3, so basically we’ve got ourselves a alien side in RA3. Yay… they are heavily over powered, they are …. the Japanese. Kindly supported by that gay fella off of the old Star Trek, you know, Mr Sulu. Leader of the Japanese… Mr Sulu!
Special Units
We’re talking about Tanya, Natastha and the new Japanese one, Yuriko Omega, kinda sounds like Yuri dosen’t it oh and she has telekensis powers. Hang on a sec…isn’t she Yuri? No no, she’s a Japanese school… yes of course. That makes total sense…
Now when it comes to using these units, they’ve always been pretty impractical for me, but they were quite useful in RA2 at times, now they are totally useless (except the Japenese school girl who is quite powerful). They die easily, Tanya is probably second best, at least she can blow up buildings easily. If you can get her there (ai will own her easily). Then natasha… wait a minute, wait a minute, oh she’s dead. Cause she’s waiting for that ait strike to come in. None of them are effective at killing infantry anymore either.
Gameplay
Well if you’re expecting anything like RA2, you may a well forget it. It’s now a clone of Generals (awful game) and C&C3 (using that engine too… which is updated version of Generals).
Lets look at a few things, ore fields, they are no more… no more orefields, it has also made resourcing in the game very irritating, and will often have you screaming… I have no money!
Base expansion. Great now you have to build a little deployer thingy, which costs dough you don’t have… go and set it up somewhere, wait for that to happen, YAY now I can build. This is annoying, granted you can now build far away. But in RA2 you used to just build an MCV for that, and often, you wouldn’t even need to build somewhere else. But as you’re desperate for ore, you need to now…
You now really do need a combo of units, you can’t just build a 100 Hammer Tanks, and lag the game out until you win. You do need a bit of everything, although infantry rushes will still win the day, and if you’re having trouble beating the AI, wack up the resources, and build a ton of different infantry. This = victory. I’m pretty sure this would beat most people to.
The Japanese are overpowered, just like the alien race in C&C3. You can count on them beating you a lot… I mean come on, their tanks can go across water, and there special unit is the best one…
Allies are the worst side, you may as well sell up as soon as you start the game… without rocket men we are lost. “Riding High”… I cry a little inside.
Game Settings
Like a lot of people, I loved to turn of super weapons, this is not an option. We now have super weapons if we like them or not. Also there is no longer a meat grinder option, no more random maps (because of the engine) and every map has water, there are no land maps… even though in RA3, the sea units are either identical to land, or basically provide the same function, so there is nothing to be really gained by having sea units, except the fact you have to, due to the massive vasts of water in EVERY map.
Overall
The music’s great, they’ve captured the magic of the original. If you like generals or C&C3, you’ll like this game… and they’re is enough die hard C&C fan’s that this series of games can go on forever. I look forward to when I’m 95, and C&C Forever is released… If you wanna compare this to RA2, RA2 wins for me, but I would still rather play RA3, for newer graphics, no lag, and it’s fun…
“Riding High”, “Mission Sir”, “Desolator Ready”
Wuup Team
