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Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 (October 27)

The Scoop: Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3; Genre: real-time strategy; By: EA Los Angeles; From: Electronic Arts; For: Windows, Xbox 360; Rating: Teen

Info: Deploy "Tesla boats" and "Cryocopters" and spiderlike anti-infantry "Sickles" around futuristic maps to defend resources and bolster elaborate bases in EA's return to the parallel universe where World War II never happened and the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin rose to power in its place.

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Matt: Real-time strategy games come and go, but the original Red Alert (1996) launched a thousand rock-paper-scissors imitators (unit A trumps B, and B trumps C, but C trumps A, and so on). Red Alert 3 isn't trying to grow the game mechanics so much as deck them out in souped-up visuals while reviving the gloriously silly bygone days of real actors hamming it up in full-motion-video cut scenes.

Darren: If you've ever considered yourself a fan of real-time strategy games, this is a full-flavored revival of the classic Red Alert series. Not familiar with the series? Did you know that the original Red Alert is available as a free download? Ditto to what Matt says: This installment won't break much new ground, but it will pave over what has been done before and make things look prettier--like Command and Conquer 3. For those folks who miss the golden age of cheezoid full-motion-video acting between ordering waves of tanks to roll over enemy positions, we've got your game right here. And certainly all you RTS nostalgia hounds will have this to cling to until StarCraft II comes out. Eventually.