Command and Conquer Red Alert 2 - Yuri's revenge videogame
Specs
Title: Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge
Genre: Real-time strategy videogame, single-player, multiplayer
Series: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
Mission: The Soviets Mission no.7 in Transylvania
Developer: Westwood Studios Pacific
Publisher: EA Games
Release date(s): NA: October 10, 2001 and EU: October 19, 2001
Characters: Yuri (played by Udo Kier)
Setting: Romania, Transylvania
Synopsis
The action focuses on Yuri, a former head of the Soviet Psychic Corps, who is trying to dominate the whole world using his Psychic Dominators - devices for mind control. The story begins in Washington with a presidential briefing where Yuri interrupts the President Michael Dugan to explain his plan in world domination. After that Yuri activates his devices all over the world. When the player reaches mission number 7, Yuri is already seeking refuge in a castle of his ancestors in Transylvania after his major losses on all battlegrounds. Romanov, the head of the Soviets, orders his armies to Yuri's hideout (in which he planted his mind-controlling devices to manipulate both the Allies and the Soviets. In the end, Yuri is defeated by the player and his castle destroyed.
Personal view
Because Yuri, the main Russian villain depicted like a monster from movies, is of Romanian ancestry what setting other than Transylvania could be more significant for such a character? Of course, the traitor's location is the well known Castle, but the construction has nothing Romanian to it. More than that, its style resembles the art of the "bling palaces" one could see in Buzescu, Strehaia, or the gaudy ones when leaving Alexandria towards Rosiori.
The ancestral fortress is nevertheless placed "upon a hill" and surrounded by water, a futile defense in the face of the Soviets' advanced technology. Thus, the Soviet mission allows the player to use weapons such as sentry guns, nuclear missiles, battle bunkers and Tesla Coils. However, the armament and the entire work factory cannot not be used unless the Soviet armies are mining Romanian resources for funds, mostly the gold sprinkled in abundance in all quarters.
Even though the art design for the Romanian land is green, it seems empty apart from the military bases and a village settlement. In the background, apart from the sounds made by the war weapons, you can even hear a dog's wail, which gets killed in the combat area. The enemy's base, is a Romanian settlement, a village with old huts, or houses made either from wood or clay brick. Backwardness is back! Let us not forget that a cemetery is nonetheless present among the tiny, roughly built houses! There are also two or three villagers running around, and also a lonely cow roaming casually on the battlefield. This are the only instances of the absent presence of Romanians.
The mission has to end with Yuri's castle being taken by the Soviets, and the traitor being teleported through time in the era of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Therefore, "thanks to Premier Romanov they entered a new golden age of space exploration", and thus the planet is saved!
