Today’s word is “Alternate history”, folks, and it’s a kind of science fiction that deals strictly in the things that might have been. It goes back a long time, way back past World War II, and mostly encompasses books about Nazis or sometimes, the Confederate States of America.
But today, I’ve got a new and interesting example to bring to bear, and it comes to us in the form of real time strategy title Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3.
The plot is clear and tortuous at the same time–we’re picking up where Red Alert 2 left off, basically. It’s somewhere in the neighborhood of the late fifties, and the Soviet Union is about to buckle and wind up a temporarily neutered third-rate power, conquered by the Allied forces. But since they see it coming, the Soviet Union is about to unleash its newest secret project, a time machine. Made from what looks like large amounts of brick and scrap iron, the time machine manages to transport three Soviet officials, a scientist, General Krukov and the always popular Colonel Cherdenko, back to Brussels in 1927, where Albert Einstein was delivering a speech before a convocation of scientists. General Krukov then kills Einstein, thus ensuring that the numerous scientific advances the brilliant man gave to the Allies instead never existed.
And things look good for Mother Russia when the threesome returns to their present timeline–the altering of the space-time continuum has produced interesting fruit. Cherdenko is no longer a colonel, but rather the Premier of the Soviet Union. And business is good in the Soviet Union–they’re about to completely conquer Western Europe. But as Cherdenko is settling behind the big desk and about to start gloating, a sudden communique comes in–the Empire of the Rising Sun has just invaded eastern Russia, even seizing the Russian Pacific Fleet’s headquarters at Vladivostok and pushing as far as Leningrad. General Krukov orders an immediate nuclear strike, only to be met with confusion. What IS a “nuclear weapon”, anyway?
The “Empire of the Rising Sun”, of course, is just one of many changes that took place within the confines of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3. Students of alternate history will LOVE to see the sheer array of them–from a Japan that never got nuked by the United States that became the Empire of the Rising Sun and followed its own technological path (it’s LADEN with robots, by the way), to the rest of the world developing bizarre technologies for use in a continual war.
This is where you come in. You can play as the Russians, the Empire of the Rising Sun, or the Allies, and you’re out to conquer the world for each. You’ll have a dizzying array of options at your command, and most of the game will be spent playing the same campaigns over and over until you learn all the enemy’s tricks and surprises, then counter them all. The sheer depth of this game is amazing, and will likely keep you playing for hours as you advance in each faction’s campaign. The additon of naval warfare is a development that’s been widely heralded, but on the down side, the game treats it like a kid with a new toy, badly overusing it, even to the point of neglecting the other kinds of combat.
Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 is, overall, a deep and satisfying game experience that will prove to be even a match for Microsoft juggernaut Halo Wars.
The Wii so far has not been the recipient of any Silent Hill love from Konami. However, that is set to change as a Nintendo Power