Command & Conquer Red Alert 1

🗃️ Specifications

📰 Title:	Command & Conquer Red Alert 1	🕹️ / 🛠️ Type:	Game
🗃️ Genre:	Strategy	👁️ Visual:	2.5D
🏷️ Category:	Strategy ➤ Top-Down Fight of Units ➤ C&C, Dune, Warzone, ...	🏝️ Perspective:	Bird's-eye view
🔖 Tags:	Strategy; 4X; Tactical; Action; Wargame; Military; Sci-fi; Replay Value; Classic; 1990s; Fog of War; Cinematic; PvE; PvP; Competitive; Campaigns	⏱️ Pacing:	Real Time
🐣️ Approx. start:	1996-11-22	👫️ Played:	Single & Multi
🐓️ Latest:	1996-11-22	🚦 Status:	04. Released (status)
📍️ Version:	Latest: -	❤️ Like it:	9. ⏳️
🏛️ License type:	💰 Commercial	🎀️ Quality:	7. ⏳️
🏛️ License:	Commercial	✨️ (temporary):
🐛️ Created:	2017-04-05	🐜️ Updated:	2024-06-22

🚦 Entry status

📰 What's new?:		👔️ Already shown:
💡 Lights on:		💭️ New version published (to be updated):
🎨️ Significant improvement:		🦺️ Work in progress:
🎖️ This work:		🚧️ Some work remains to be done:
👫️ Contrib.:	goupildb & Louis	👻️ Temporary:
🎰️ ID:	15231

📖️ Summary

📜️[en]:	The 2nd game in the C&C series, and a prequel of the 1st opus. It is a single / multi RTS game released in 1996, taking place in an 1946 alternative reality, where the Allied forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union, for control of Europe, with an economy based on mining. This game was praised for its very ergonomic interface, its online PvP, the very different style of gameplay of its factions, and a detailed scenario interspersed with cinematics contributing to immersion.	📜️[fr]:	Le 2nd jeu de la série éponyme, et préquelle du 1er opus. Il s'agit d'un jeu de stratégie temps réel solo / multi sorti en 1996, prenant place dans une réalité alternative en 1946, où les forces Alliées affrontent une Union Soviétique agressive, pour le contrôle de l'Europe, avec une économie basée sur l'exploitation minière. Il se distingue par une interface très ergonomique, un PvP en ligne, des factions aux styles de jeux très différent, et un scénario détaillé entrecoupé de cinématiques contribuant à l'immersion.

🎥️ Videos

🦝️ From Users: (202xxx♺),

🎲️ Gameplay: (202xxx♺), (202xxx♺), [fr](202xxx♺),

🏺️ Its story: Command & Conquer - Histoire d' Alerte Rouge à Soleil de Tiberium [fr](202xxx♺),

📕 Description [en]

📜️ "blabla" 📜️

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Command & Conquer: Red Alert is a real-time strategy video game of the Command & Conquer franchise, produced by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive in 1996. The second game to bear the Command & Conquer title, Red Alert is the prequel to the original Command & Conquer of 1995, and takes place in the alternate early history of Command & Conquer when Allied Forces battle an aggressive Soviet Union for control over the European mainland.

It was initially available for PC (MS-DOS and Windows 95 versions included in one package), and was subsequently ported to PlayStation. The PlayStation version was also re-released as a download on the PlayStation Network for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3. On August 31, 2008, Electronic Arts who acquired Westwood Studios in 1998 rendered Command & Conquer: Red Alert freeware.

Gameplay

Red Alert was praised for its user interface, which claimed to be more developed than the competing games of its time. Players could queue commands, create unit groups that could be selected by a number key, and control numerous units at a time. The game was known to be easy to control, simple to learn and responsive to users' commands. It also featured two factions that had differing styles of play. Red Alert is also hailed as one of the first games to feature competitive online play. The single player campaign also received high praise for its detailed story line and missions, which often required the player to defeat the enemy with various sets of circumstances before continuing. Like Tiberian Dawn, the game has split routes for most missions. The objective stays the same but only the map layout differs. The single player campaign was also complemented by live action cinematic sequences that are a feature of all Command & Conquer RTS games since the original, except for Command & Conquer: Generals and its sequel.

The game balance between the forces of the Allied and Soviet armies differed from other games at its time. Unlike the 'rock-paper-scissors' balancing of modern games, Red Alert required each player to use their side's strengths in order to compensate for their weaknesses. This stood in contrast to games such as Total Annihilation or Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, in which both sides had units with similar abilities and relied instead on outnumbering or possessing a better balanced force than their opponent.

Players acquire credits to purchase structures and equipment by mining for ores and minerals (as the valuable, yet hazardous Tiberium in the regular C&C series has not yet been discovered in this timeline). Rare gems generate more credits and are faster to mine, but unlike ores, do not regenerate within the map. Players can gain more credits and increase their buying power by building more ore factories and ore trucks.

The Soviets' vehicles tend to be more durable and powerful than Allied vehicles, but are often slower moving and more expensive. The Soviets also have superior defensive capabilities against ground attacks, with the Flame Towers and Tesla coil, the latter able to destroy most Allied armor in 1-2 hits although it has high power consumption. The Soviets' weakness is at sea; their only offensive naval unit is the submarine, which exists to counter Allied warships and gain intelligence. It is normally invisible except when surfacing to attack, when it is vulnerable to destroyers and gunboats. The Soviets' secret weapon is the Iron Curtain, a device that renders a selected unit invulnerable to attacks for a short period of time. They also have a wide selection of air units for assault (the MiG-27, Yak-7, and Mi-24 Hind) and map revelation through spy planes, and can deploy infantry by air through paratroops or by the Chinook transport helicopter (the latter only present in multiplayer). The Soviet "tank rush" was a popular strategy online, involving building many heavy tanks and overwhelming the opponent with sheer numbers.

The Allies' forces are generally cheaper, faster to build and more agile. Their infantry can survive longer with good use of their Medic unit. The Allies' strongest tank (the Medium Tank) is weaker in a one-on-one engagement against the Soviets' starting tank (the Heavy Tank), but the Allies also have anti-tank minelayers to counter superior Soviet armor. The Allies have only one air unit, the anti-tank AH-64D Apache Longbow, compared to three Soviet air units; however, the Allies also have anti-aircraft guns (more powerful but shorter-ranged than Soviet Surface to Air Missiles). Allied defenses against ground assaults—pillboxes and turret emplacements—are less powerful than the Soviets' Tesla Coil, but stronger and less dependent on power. On maps with water, Allies possess an advantage in naval power thanks to the Cruiser, which has the longest-ranged and most powerful surface-to-surface attack in the game, as its naval artillery can destroy buildings quickly; and the Destroyer, which is versatile and capable of adeptly taking on any type of unit type in the game—land, sea, or air. The Allies' secret weapon is the Chronosphere, which temporarily relocates a selected unit to another part of the map. They also possess several other tools of subterfuge and military intelligence, such as spies to gain information on or disable enemy facilities, and thieves for stealing enemy resources, hiding their own units and structures from detection, and revealing the whole game map with a GPS satellite.

In online play and computer skirmish, both Allied and Soviet forces have access to the nuclear Missile Silo, which is not available to either side in single-player mode, although it is present in the Allied campaign. In online play and computer skirmishes, the Soviets have access to two of the Allied side's infantry: the Rocket Soldier (for anti-air and anti-tank fighting) and Tanya, a commando capable of easily killing infantry and destroying structures.

Plot

Command & Conquer: Red Alert takes place between 1946 and 1953 of a parallel universe.

Starting out at the Trinity Site in New Mexico in 1946 (in our timeline), Albert Einstein prepares to travel backward in spacetime. He activates his experimental time machine to find himself in Landsberg, Germany, on 20 December 1924, where he meets a young Adolf Hitler just after the latter's release from Landsberg Prison. Following a brief conversation between the two, Einstein shakes Hitler's hand while activating his time-traveling device. In the process of Einstein returning to his time of origin, Hitler dies due to the lack of his own equipment for the transit through time. (This is implied by the Allies' Chronosphere in-game, in which usage of its power on soldiers kills them.)

Hitler's death prevents him from rising to power as leader of Nazi Germany. This creates a new timeline, in which eliminating Hitler's actions has caused a change for the worse. Without Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union grew powerful under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Unweakened, the USSR seizes land from China and then invades Eastern Europe, to achieve Joseph Stalin's vision of a Soviet Union stretching across the entire Eurasian landmass. In response, the nations of Europe form the Alliance, and start a guerrilla war against the invading Soviet army. Over the course of the game's story, the Allies and Soviets fight for control over the European mainland in an alternate World War II.

Allied ending: Following the siege of Moscow, an Allied platoon discovers Stalin buried alive in the rubble of the Kremlin. Before they begin to remove the debris from the fallen leader, General Stavros stops them. He convinces them that they saw nothing and orders them to leave the premises. Stavros then stuffs a handkerchief down Stalin's mouth before covering his head with a large stone and walking away. This outcome forces Kane – who was using the Soviet Union to get to power – and his Brotherhood underground, leading to the events of Command & Conquer. This ending also paves the way to the sequel, Red Alert 2.
Soviet ending: As the Soviets celebrate their victory in the newly captured Buckingham Palace, Stalin commends the Commander (the player), but is poisoned by Nadia. Nadia guns him down as the poison overcomes his body. Following Stalin's death, Nadia tells the Commander that the Soviet Union is now under the rule of the Brotherhood of Nod, who plan to return to the shadows again and reemerge in the 1990s, leaving the player as the puppet ruler of the USSR, ready to do the Brotherhood's bidding for "the foreseeable future." She is betrayed and shot in the back by Kane, who reveals himself to be the true mastermind.

Connection to the Tiberian games

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Open source remake

A modern video game remake and re-implementation of the game engine was created by fans called OpenRA. It is available for Linux, macOS and Windows NT and is written in C#. It adds gameplay elements from successors such as fog of war. The focus is primarily on skirmish/multiplayer gaming with partial support for the single-player missions. Features missing from the original such as replay recording and an observer mode have been added and given rise to a small hobbyist e-sports scene.

📕 Description [fr]

Un jeu de stratégie temps réel, le 2nd jeu de la série C&C, et préquelle du 1er opus, par le studio Westwood Studios.

Command and Conquer : Alerte rouge (Command & Conquer Red Alert 1) est le 2nd jeu de la série Command & Conquer, et préquelle du 1er opus (Command & Conquer: Tiberian Dawn / Command and Conquer : Conflit du Tibérium). Il s'agit d'un jeu de stratégie temps réel solo / multi (jusqu'à 8 en Lan ou sur internet) sorti en 1996, prenant place dans une réalité alternative sur la période 1946-1953, dans laquelle les forces Alliées affrontent une Union Soviétique agressive (Albert Einstein ayant inventé une machine à remonter le temps, a éliminé le jeune Hitler, trouvant à son retour une réalité alternative sans Hitler et son mouvement Nazi, laissant le champ libre à l'URSS menée par Stalin pour envahir le vieux continent) pour le contrôle de l'Europe, avec une économie basée sur l'exploitation minière. Il se distingue par une interface très ergonomique, un PvP en ligne, des factions aux styles de jeux très différent, et un scénario détaillé entrecoupé de cinématiques contribuant à l'immersion.

Moteurs Linux utilisables / Available Linux engines: CnCNet, Freera, OpenRA, OpenRedAlert,
Voir aussi / See also (Command & Conquer Red Alert 1): CnCNet, Command & Conquer Red Alert 1 (1996), Freera, OpenRA, OpenRedAlert,

Crédit image (lien ci-dessus): Mod DB

🌍️ Wikipedia:

Command and Conquer : Alerte rouge (« Command and Conquer: Red Alert » en version originale) est un jeu vidéo de stratégie en temps réel développé par Westwood Studios. Les versions PC et Macintosh sont publiées en Amérique du Nord le 31 octobre et en Europe le 18 novembre 1996 par Virgin Interactive. Faisant suite à Command and Conquer dont il reprend le système de jeu et une partie de l'univers, Alerte Rouge est néanmoins le départ d'une nouvelle série dont le scénario est basé sur une réalité alternative. Bien accueilli par les critiques, le jeu connait un important succès commercial avec 1,5 millions de copies vendues en moins d'un mois.

Westwood développe ensuite deux extensions en coopération avec Intelligent Games, Missions Taïga et Missions M.A.D., publiées respectivement en avril et septembre 1997. Fin 1997, le jeu est également porté sur PlayStation, version rééditée en 2008 sur le PlayStation Network pour la PlayStation 3 et la PlayStation Portable. À la suite du succès d'Alerte Rouge, deux suites appelées Alerte rouge 2 et Alerte Rouge 3 sont publiées par Electronic Arts en 2000 et 2008. Depuis le 13e anniversaire de la série Command and Conquer, la version PC du jeu originale est disponible gratuitement en téléchargement.

Alerte Rouge a été reconnue par le Livre Guinness des records comme la série de jeu de stratégie en temps réel la plus vendue dans le monde, avec plus de 12 millions d'unités vendues, soit plus de la moitié des 21 millions de copies des jeux de la série Command and Conquer vendues avant la sortie de Command and Conquer: Generals en 2001.

Trame

Univers

Le scénario d’Alerte Rouge se déroule dans les années 1940 et 1950 dans une réalité alternative dans laquelle Albert Einstein parvient à finaliser une machine spatio-temporelle qu'il utilise pour voyager entre le Nouveau-Mexique de 1946 et l'Allemagne de 1924 et faire disparaître Adolf Hitler. Il parvient ainsi à empêcher la Seconde Guerre mondiale et lorsqu'il revient en 1946, l'Europe est toujours en paix mais l'équilibre des forces du vieux continent s'en trouve bouleversé, ce qui permet à l'Union soviétique de Joseph Staline de devenir très puissante. Staline lance alors son armée à la conquête de l'Eurasie, annexant d'abord la Chine avant d'envahir l'Europe de l'Est. Les nations Européennes se regroupent alors, menant les Alliés et les Soviétiques à une guerre pour le contrôle de l'Europe.

Scénario

Le joueur peut choisir de contrôler les Soviétiques ou les Alliés dans deux campagnes distinctes et indépendantes dont le dénouement diffère suivant le camp choisi. Dans la campagne des Alliés, ceux-ci parviennent à vaincre les forces Soviétiques et à détruire la forteresse de Staline, qu'ils découvrent enseveli sous les décombres. Kane, qui utilisait l'Union Soviétique à ses fins, et la Confrérie de Nod sont alors forcés de disparaître et de rester cachés jusqu'aux évènements décrits dans le premier Command and Conquer. C'est également cette fin qui s'inscrit dans la trame historique utilisée pour Command and Conquer : Alerte rouge 2.

Dans la deuxième campagne, les Soviétiques parviennent à capturer Buckingham Palace. Alors que Staline félicite le joueur pour cette victoire, il se fait empoisonner par Nadia. Après la mort du dictateur, elle annonce au joueur que l'Union Soviétique est maintenant sous le contrôle de la Confrérie de Nod mais que celle-ci prévoit de rester dans l'ombre pendant un certain temps, laissant le joueur à la tête de l'URSS. Elle est alors trahie et tuée par Kane qui se révèle être le cerveau de cette opération.

Personnages

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Système de jeu

Alerte Rouge est un jeu vidéo de stratégie en temps réel (STR) reprenant le concept du « récolter-construire-conquérir » introduit par Westwood Studios dans Dune II et déjà utilisé dans le premier Command and Conquer. Comme dans celui-ci, le joueur doit collecter une ressource, le Minerai lui permettant de construire des bases et de créer des troupes afin de combattre l'armée adverse jusqu'à obtenir la victoire. Le gameplay d’Alerte Rouge se distingue néanmoins de celui de son prédécesseur par la grande variété d'unités présentes dans le jeu ainsi que par le fait que celles-ci différent fortement d'une faction à l'autre. L'interface intègre également des améliorations comme la possibilité de sélectionner un nombre illimité d'unités (64 sur PS1).

Économie

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