TL;DR – Red Alert 3: Uprising is a great little stand-alone expansion pack for the last big RTS game that EA released (no C&C4 doesn’t exist screw you). While lacking in any multiplayer or co-op modes, it adds a deceptively large amount of single player content and is a thoroughly enjoyable single player experience.
Red Alert 3: Uprising offers players four mini campaigns – one for each faction and then a campaign dedicated to the Japanese commando unit Yuriko. These campaigns contain three missions each with exception of the Soviets who have a quasi-tutorial mission that has to be completed before you can unlock the Allied and Japanese campaigns. This unlocking is implemented a bit awkwardly, as once you beat the Soviet “tutorial” mission the game dumps you back onto the Campaign Select screen – meaning you need to go back to the main menu and hit chapters if you want to continue it. That petty niggle aside, these mini-campaigns are of a very similar production value to the campaigns in RA3 and feature multiple returning actors from the prior game (those that canonically died and/or fled to SPACE not withstanding). The main issue with them is that they’re… well… mini-campaigns and at a mere three missions each you don’t really have time to engage with either the cast or new units that much. This unfortunately means that things feel a bit rushed, robbing the new units, commanders and exposition from having much of an impact.
But who gives a wooden nickel about the writing in a Red Alert game, we’re all here for the new campaigns! Of these campaigns the Soviet Campaign arguably has the most polish of the main factions and is very enjoyable to play through. The plot is simple and campy, with you as the COMMANDER trying to figure out what the FutureTech corporation is up to. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a massive military-industrial complex company, it turns out they’re involved in some shady dealings and you end up facing the same enemy commander every time who’s in too deep to get out now. The missions themselves are varied and interesting, with a healthy mix of low-units “stealth” gameplay and normal base-building and battling. The game does a pretty good job of forcing you to build up varied forces via the map design, ensuring that Apocalypse Tank and/or Battleship spamming won’t be sufficient to get the job done. The difficulty is relatively gentle, with most missions providing reinforcements during the stealth sections to prevent you from messing up too bad, while the larger battle sections always provide sufficient resources and clear routes of enemy attack. As for the new units, they’re a bit gimmicky but fun to use and I must confess that the return of the Desolator from RA2 made me quite happy. You’ve got the aforementioned desolator which now does AoE damage to all infantry (yes that includes yours), a “mortar bike” which is great against base defenses, a grinder tank that latches onto enemy vehicles/structures and regens health while doing so and finally an upgraded version of the Sickle walker which has both rockets and grenades in lieu of machine guns.
The Allied campaign is the opposite of the Soviet one, feeling a bit rough around the edges as you face off against more enemy commanders than there are missions. The cinematics also feel pretty basic and are fairly short, while the missions are frankly a bit tedious and each have their own irritating little gimmicks. Without wishing to spoil all the surprises, I’ll just say that in the first you have to deal with a modest income stream (only 1 ore mine) while dealing with 3 small enemy bases that rush you constantly until you can take them out (pro-tip: kill the naval yard ASAP). The second mission has a total of four tiny skirmishes that all need to be executed perfectly lest you fail the mission, alongside a very standard battle section which is fairly easy. Then the final mission commits my RTS campaign pet peeve, wherein it encourages you to rush through a mission so that your forces are facing an uphill struggle when a very, very obvious “but wait there’s MORE” moment happens. If you’ve ever played through the campaign for Supreme Commander you’ll know exactly what I mean, and will also know that this makes the balancing extremely wonky as either it’s a brutal fight for survival or just a total cakewalk with no real in-between. Fortunately the Allied campaign partially redeems itself by having fun new units, in the form of a disgustingly powerful new air unit, a quasi-OP artillery unit and a new Cryo-trooper who makes the Cryo-copter look like a toy. There is also a fourth new unit, but they’re not playable within the campaign which is a shame as it’s a big-ass robot tank with AoE energy weapons. Unfortunately this redemption is only partial as the best strategy in every mission is to spam the new air unit with some fighter escorts, which makes the map design in those missions inconsequential.
Wrapping up the main factions is the Japanese campaign which is also pretty cool and enjoyable to play through. Weirdly enough it feels like it was set before the Allied one within the time line, as you help one or two commanders who you take out while playing as the Allies – even though the allied campaign comes before it in the Campaign selection screen. While the missions aren’t particularly difficult, they can be challenging and still require you to move fast and choose your build order with care. Unfortunately the third mission also falls for the “but wait there’s more” trope, but it’s explained in the mission briefing so it’s not a poor twist but instead a deliberate choice. If you choose to capture the Soviet base you’ll still need to sell the buildings to move onto the next stage, allowing you to cheese it (and build the Vacuum imploder) without too much trouble. The other missions are fairly interesting, with the first requiring you to hijack a Soviet base to bail out your ally while the second mission has a large amount of unoccupied vehicles lying around the map for your engineers to hijack. Each feels quite different and much like with the Soviet campaign, there’s enough freedom and resources to give you breathing room to concoct your own strategy. The new units for the Japanese faction are also handled well, enabling you to field melee-focused mechs, a solid anti-air/anti-infantry infantry unit and a big-ass flying death fortress. I really can’t fault this campaign as it keeps things fairly fresh and does it’s best to prevent you from spamming a certain unit.
Finally there is the Yuriko campaign which is a big focus of Red Alert 3: Uprising in terms of marketing and branding. Unlike every other campaign in the series, the Yuriko campaign plays like a top-down action game where you can only control one unit (Yuriko). It plays somewhat like a Diablo game, with a fixed camera angle centered on Yuriko and a hotbar of four abilities located on the bottom of the screen which can be upgraded. To upgrade an ability you need to find intel items (represented as computer terminals) which are scattered around the three missions and are fairly easy to find. The only caveat is that these upgrades are reset on each mission, so there’s little reason to go around and hunt down each one. The abilities themselves are pretty powerful and include;
- Psychokinetic Burst which kills all hostile infantry and stuns all hostile vehicles within an area around Yuriko.
- Psychic Domination which causes up to 3/5/7 enemy infantry to defect to your team. They will diligently follow you around until they die or you dominate new units if these new units bring you above the existing limit.
- Psionic Shield which lasts for 5/7/9 seconds and reflects ranged damage taken back to the enemy who fired on you.
- Psionic Slam which enables you to lift an object (including enemy infantry and some vehicles) before throwing it towards a designated area within vision range. This causes large damage to hit enemies and will instantly kill whichever unit or object has been thrown. Upgrading this ability enables you to pick-up items in a larger range alongside larger vehicles.
Alongside these abilities there are some generic upgrades which increase your speed/damage/health and which are also shared by any infantry you’ve dominated. Ultimately this campaign is heavily based around maximising the damage output of your abilities and thus juggling the ability cooldowns. While the cooldowns are fairly short, Yuriko can only attack one enemy unit at a time without them and for the majority of the campaign you’ll only have a handful of infantry supporting her. As such Psionic Slam and the Burst ability are your main method of churning through hostile units. Fortunately there are multiple healing stations located throughout each of the maps, so it’s often prudent to engage in hit-and-run tactics if you are outgunned. There are also some Psychic blocking stations in the third mission, within which all of your abilities (except the humble right click attack) are blocked within an AoE radius. These are easy to deal with, but getting within range of one will automatically “liberate” any infantry held by your Psychic Domination ability and cause them to attack you like the impudent dogs they are.
Much like the Soviet campaign, the Yuriko campaign is one of the highlights and has been implemented well with the difficulty remaining consistent but never overwhelming. The ability cooldowns prevent you from being OP and the gradually escalating number and damage of enemies prevents you from being careless, as it can be easy to get overwhelmed. There are also some lore tidbits hidden within the intel stations which give some context to the overall setting and aside from the fact that two of the three missions take place in the same map, I can’t find any reason to fault this one.
To wrap up Red Alert 3: Uprising also has some other new single player content (aside from the new skirmish maps), in the form of the “new” Commander’s Challenge mode. In it you play as a FutureTech commander, but instead of controlling a new fourth faction you’re instead allowed to choose which faction you’d like to play at the start of each mission. The twist is that you initially have a very limited arsenal of units/buildings, with each mission unlocking one new unit for one of the three factions. The missions themselves are split between main missions and side missions, although both give you one unit for completion.
These missions are great fun and each involve some sort of gimmick; whether it be interrupting a duel between two commanders who will ignore your base until you attack, dealing with a skirmish on a map with perpetual satellite drops smashing into it or playing through a map with hundreds and hundreds of explosive barrels scattered around. The main challenge comes from the fact that each mission has a par time that needs to be beat for you to receive 100% completion, which doesn’t give you any additional units or bonuses but does provide a true challenge for anyone aiming for 100% completion. With that being said the missions aren’t necessarily easy, especially the first time you play them as you’ll be hamstrung by your limited access to units and defensive structures. As such you’ll be making a LOT of use out of T1 units and will need to orientate your strategy away from T3 tanks/aircraft and Superweapons. Every mission is unique, punchy and the par time ticking away keeps you on your toes.
Once you’ve cleared through all 13 of the main missions, you get an ending cutscene and are then thrown back to the mode’s mission select menu to carry on. There are an additional 37 side missions alongside the main ones, with more of these unlocking with the completion of a mission of either type (and another bonus ending cutscene for beating all of them as well). As such there is a ton of content here even if you don’t care enough about 100% to go back and try to beat those par times (doing so will unlock the final bonus message). One last thing worth mentioning is that as you beat the missions you build up a reserve of credits, based on your performance in each mission. During any mission you can hit the RED ALERT button when your threat meter (in the bottom left corner) is full, which gives you these credits and makes all of your units hit max veterancy instantly. The catch is that doing so makes your mission time 99 mins and 99 seconds, essentially preventing you from achieving the par time.
In conclusion, Red Alert 3: Uprising is a great expansion pack for a great game that retains the campy tone of the original while vastly expanding the amount of single player content available. While it is a shame that both the campaign co-op mode and multiplayer mode are missing, I consider these small omissions for those who are playing it these days. The mini-campaigns are mostly great (Allies notwithstanding) and the Yuriko one is very unique in how it plays without being any worse for it. The commander’s challenge mode is also a great new idea, that not only makes use of the RED ALERT button (that was originally intended to be a main feature of RA3) but also provides around 50 additional missions for you to playthrough. Considering how cheap Red Alert 3: Uprising is on modern storefronts ($9.99 through Origin, $19.99 through Steam and both have frequent -75% discounts), I’d have no problem recommending it to any RTS fan – even if they are a novice at the genre.