Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 Uprising - Soviet missions - videogame
SPECS:
Title: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Uprising
Genre: Real-time strategy video game
Series: Command & Conquer: Red Alert Uprising - Soviet Missions
Mission: First mission "Raid on Lost Castle"
Developer: EA Los Angeles
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Designer: Robert Taylor
Composers: James Hannigan, Frank Klepacki, Timothy Michael Wynn, Mikael Sandgren
Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360, Play Station 3, OS X
Engine: SAGE 2.0
Modes: Single-player, co-operative, multiplayer
Release dates: Windows - NA: October 28, 2008 & EU: October 31, 2008; XBOX 360 - NA: November 11, 2008 & EU: November 14, 2008; PS3 - NA: March 23, 2009 & EU: March 27, 2009; OS X - NA: March 2009
Synopsis
The gameplay is set in an alternative reality, following World War II (Western Allies vs. Soviet Union). After defeat, the Soviets travel in time in order to kill Albert Einstein and stop him from helping the Allies. At that moment, the Empire of the Rising Sun (Japan) - the third world power - joins the war. Mission 1- Raid on Lost Castle - illustrates the Romanian setting in Transylvania where three Russian scientists are forced to work for the Allies. The Soviets sends troops there to extract the targets. This is also the moment of the game when the fighting units are introduced and explain so the players can use them later on.
Personal view
"Raid on Lost Castle" is the mission where Allies are experimenting with new technology, and the Soviets send troops there to recover three Russian scientists. The ferryboat arrives to the docks, and the player is welcomed here with the sound of the wolves.
Does it have a Gothic feeling to it yet?
The art design seems similar to the comics'. The country is assigned on the obviously red-colored world map. It is a typical Romanian geographic area, rural, denoting nothing but backwardness, with its spooky medieval buildings, which offers the players an eerie mood. The uncanny background resurfaces through the towers shaped in Transylvanian architecture, huts, burning torches, and devitalized trees all around.
The time set looks like autumn/winter, nature appears only in dark yellow-orange shades and black hues. Romanian language is absent nonetheless, and more, there are no Romanian troops or "peasants" inhabiting the village.
The players enjoy again the environment of an old backward country, set in a Medieval Age era, standing in awe at the sight of an Old Castle and the archaic settlements. Thus, they have the chance to experience a setting which looks like it had just been taken out of a horror movie, of course a cemetery had to be inserted there.
On this account, how can one not think of witches and the well known Dark Lord Dracula, the scariest place of Vlad the Impaler? Beware of the Balkan Ghost in the feudal Romanian land!
The art developers did a very good job on Romania according to the Western stereotypes, at least there are no communists ... Oh wait!
