As always, the pre-mission briefings are excellent - starring a cast of professional actors, they add spadefuls of character to the game. However, it would be wrong to say there's nothing new in Red Alert 2. And to be fair, the previous games have always been well-received and excellent sellers. No flashy 3D graphics for Red Alert 2 here no fog of war, no multiple mission paths in single-player - not even a rotateable isometric view like Sim City or Rollercoaster Tycoon. So it's little surprise to find that Red Alert 2 follows the tradition of ignoring recent developments in real-time strategy games and delivering the same pacy gameplay the others in the series offered.

But while other developers have been keen to expand on the theme, adding everything from 3D graphics to first-person perspectives, Westwood has always remained true to its retro roots. It's a simple formula, and a much-imitated one. Somewhere else on the battlefield your opponent is doing the same.

A few units and a battlefield with scattered resource fields at your disposal, you build a base, harvest these resources, and use funds thus gained to construct an army.

Command & Conquer games, in the past, have followed the same recipe. Westwood isn't exactly a name people associate with innovation.

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