amazon Red Alert Remastered reviews
Red Alert Remastered – Although it’s not the first real-time strategy game, not even a “pioneering” game that landed in the Vietnamese market, the name Westwood Studios’ Command & Conquer: Red Alert (dissolved in 2003 – NV), also known as “Red Alert”, can be seen as one of the first games of this genre to “conquer” the Vietnamese gaming community.
The reason why “Red Alert” became more famous than the “hit” game released a year ago: Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness in Vietnam market is because of the popularity of Sony’s PlayStation consoles, along with the version of the game launched simultaneously on this platform, contributing a lot in attracting gamers to the “official” version of the PC-based game.
After a very long time with more eyecatching and more pleasing versions built, the once-popular game series became “withered” gradually following the fall of Westwood Studio, even After returning to the hands of Electronic Arts, fans of the real-time strategy game genre not only in Vietnam but also around the world felt nostalgic.
That is why, when Electronic Arts announced the project to revive the first version of the game series called Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection, it has made many fans excited.
Even the loyal groups of the game series have created hundreds of videos that look into every detail of the process of “remastering the game series.
Although “packed” with 2 different games, but within this article, the writer focuses on evaluating the remake of the game “Red Alert”, called Red Alert Remastered.
Is this a brilliant remake of a monument, or a failed version similar to Warcraft III: Reforged with the same promises … from the manufacturer?
Let’s join Biareview to see what we can expect in this game!
It must be mentioned again that Red Alert Remastered is just a remastered version, not a remake, so the writer from the beginning did not have too much expectation for the graphic quality of the game.
However, what the technical team and the artist participated in this project caused the writer to go from one surprise to another.
As a game developed for the platform… MS-DOS in 1996, Command & Conquer Red Alert had a lot of limitations both in terms of visual and sound when compared to later released games like Warcraft III, like low-resolution images (even rendered with just… pixel images).
That’s not to mention the original game built to run on MS-DOS with a very limited “standard” VGA (or MCGA) 256-color palette, which led to many attempts to “Remaster” the games over the MS-DOS platform encountered huge obstacles. Thus, many firms chose to go with … almost entirely rework based on new engines rather than trying to “enlarge” the models and then to add textured surface (texture) to … HD level as the company usually does.
An example for this method is a series of names such as The Settlers II released in 1996 remade into Settlers II 10th Anniversary version, or Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers has also been renewed with Gabriel Knight: Sins version of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition which is done with graphics on a completely new 3D background.
About the difficulties when remastering for an “ancient” game like Command & Conquer Red Alert, it’s apparently uneasy and completely comparable to making a brand new game.
That’s why since “accepting the job” from Electronic Arts, the engineers of Petroglyph Games, the studio responsible for the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection in general, and the Red Alert Remastered in particular, need to have a lot of work done. They need collaboration from “porridge” fans specializing in “porridge” series of games from the largest community of Command & Conquer players in the world today, OpenRA, and it takes more than 2 years to bring the game to the market.
This also shows the relatively huge amount of work they have to face to bring a new look to the game, but still, retain the “soul” of the first version to avoid making fans feel… disconnected.
Most of the models are reconstructed with high definition but still “stick to” the original models in the original version.
Furthermore, the team of artists still retains the “stereotype” of the model’s actions using only 8 frames exactly like in the original version to create actions that are somewhat jerky, but still very specific of the games of this period.
Although this form of remastering is not as beautiful as the games remade with completely new engines, according to the writer’s very own assessment, the visual face of Red Alert Remastered has almost conveyed the intact “material” of a game in the hearts of fans, rekindling emotions that are almost only available in the “early days”, especially with somewhat nostalgic gamers.
The game interface is also adjusted to suit the new resolution with more information, the representative images in the construction item from soldiers, buildings, vehicles, to all kinds of super weapons are redesigned with high definition and moderate size, easy for users to manipulate with the mouse without the fear of… wrong clicks.”
The sound array is another highlight of Red Alert Remastered as the studio has replaced all the low-quality compressed music files on the classical version with songs that are played on modern instruments, by composer Frank Klepacki and music game band Tiberian Sons undertaking.
Even the group and the game team also held a live performance (Live Concert) with the popular songs in the game like Hell March or Prepare for Battle, to serve the fans of the game series.
It can be said that the “dense” Rock songs are always a great source of inspiration for each battle, each campaign, keeping the match rhythm always at a high level and also highlighting the difference of this series compared to other real-time strategy games.
The good news is that you can completely “listen and play” these high-quality tracks through the Jukebox Music Player feature in Red Alert Remastered, after “unlocking” them through the game’s missions.
This is a feature I love when I want to find a little inspiration after hard work and stress.
As a game “flash” version was released 25 years ago, Red Alert Remastered also has many factors that make players… give up!
For example, live-action cutscenes: FMV (Full Motion Video), which is a “specialty” of the series, is elaborately staged with a team of professional actors, has been upgraded in resolution with … boring content, almost difficult to meet the minimum standards of current games.
Since the problem is that the original footage collected by Westwood Studios has too low resolution and quality, only at 320 × 160 pixels, thanks to the AI technology, they were able to raise the resolution to a high level for you to enjoy it, but it is not enough.
Also, the game sometimes gets “frozen” suddenly, but the writer is not sure why.
This makes the game experience not smooth, causing a little bit of discomfort while playing the game.
Of course, the problems that remained in the first version persisted in Red Alert Remastered and there has been little effort to improve them.
For example, the ability to find the path (pathfinding) of the soldier is extremely poor, even the units are ready to stand … face out to the enemy to shoot and kill without any reaction, or some screens are designed with errors that cause unreasonable difficulty, making players just want to … smash the keyboard.
This is definitely annoying for new gamers who have never made it past the first version.
But to me, these issues are still quite okay, only bring more original feelings.
where can you get a Red Alert Remastered online
Command and Conquer Remastered – PC [Online Game Code]: Buy it now
Command and Conquer Remastered – Steam PC [Online Game Code}: Buy it now
