Regardless of the price, and the packaging, I find it hard to call Yuri’s Revenge a sequel, but instead merely an add-on pack. But, if you played Red Alert 2, and even remotely liked it, you will have to get this add-on. This is almost as good of an improvement as The Conqueror’s add-on was to Age of Empires 2, but not quite.

For those of you unfamiliar with Red Alert 2, it is the quite successful sequel to Red Alert, which was the follow up real time strategy game from the makers of Command and Conquer. Many of these units and controls can clearly be traced all the way back to this excellent game from 1995. Red Alert 2 takes place in a historically modified world where Einstein invented a time travel device and found a way to make sure that Hitler never existed, and thus at the end of the 20th century, there are two strong factions trying to rule the world, the Soviets and the Allies.

In this add-on, a renegade Russian agent, Yuri, is trying to start his own faction using his mind control techniques that made even the Soviets uncomfortable. In the original Red Alert 2, Yuri worked with the Russians and there were a few unique units that could mind control others. Here Yuri has cloned himself, taken some Soviet technology, created some of his own, and now wants to mind control the entire world, Soviets and Allies included.

Red Alert 2 is one of the current pinnacles of real time strategy games (RTS). You start with a command center, and create a power source, a means of harvesting more resources, build barracks to make infantry units, plants to build armored units, airports to make aerial units, and etc.. You also have many specific structures that repair units, are defensive weapons, allow you to use a mini radar map, just to name a few. At the highest level of technology, you can acquire super weapons which allow you to cause a weather storm over one of your opponents severely damaging structures with lightning bolts, or even launching a nuclear missile anywhere on the map for devastating and lingering results.

You are constantly trying to decide what to build next, where to set up defensive lines, when to make offensive strikes, all while trying to gain more resources to build all of the above. The game is fairly open ended, and there is enough variety of troops that no master player only relies on just a few. The single player games are easy to get into, and the multiplayer games can extend the life of the game for months.

The units are similar, but different enough that playing another faction almost feels like another game. Especially in single player. Adding a third faction for this edition is impressive, because like Starcraft, no faction is definitely too weak or too strong when faced against any other faction. The factions in a number of other RTS games feel exactly like each other, only with different colors.

And these units aren’t just different variations of tanks, planes and men. This game has some very unusual and creative units. Terror drones jump into machinery and slowly tear it apart from the inside. Gap generators cause localized blackouts on an opponent's radar. Mirage tanks look like the landscape until they uncloak to attack. There are even mind controlled giant squid that grab enemy ships and shake them until destroyed.

Another thing keeping multiplayer games fresh are the random events and items. On each map are some neutral buildings that can be taken over giving you extra resources, defenses and more. These can often cause minor battles to take place, fighting over strong defensive or offensive position. Also, there are some completely random crates that appear offering various goodies to the player. Sometimes these can completely turn the tide of a battle.

The only other RTS game that I’m still playing regularly is Age of Empires 2. However, unlike AOE 2, in Yuri’s revenge, formations don't really exist, there are no easy rock paper scissors type of balance, and there is only one resource to collect. Even though Yuri’s Revenge is a simpler game, something about the balance of units just makes it more fun for quick skirmishes.

This add-on contains seven single player missions for both the Allied and the Soviet factions, yet strangely none for Yuri’s troops. The missions build up in difficulty well, introducing new weapons and technology for both sides, and are as clever as the earlier Westwood game missions were. The cut scenes are just as rewarding with one of my personal favorites, Kari Wuhrer replaying her role as Tanya. Most of the actors are recognizable, and do a great job.

I especially liked how some of the single player missions started without any command center. You had to use the map’s resources to your advantage. Usually there would be a structure like the Seattle Space Needle which when garrisoned functioned like a radar installation, and there would be far more oil derricks and tech centers than in a normal random map game.


Now to fully appreciate this next section, you should be at least a little familiar with the original Red Alert 2. These are some of the big improvements with the game.

Although the engine looks almost exactly the same, the game now plays at 1024x768. It is always better to see more of the screen at once, but at this resolution the map is usually too small to be of any use, and it really needs to be. I have a 19” monitor (larger than average) and sit with my face barely a foot away, and on all but the smallest of maps I can’t see enough detail to even make out the dots representing my troops.

My favorite faction to play in Red Alert 2 was the allies, and they have some nifty new units. The guardians are like regular machine gun toting GIs, but when fortified, instead of firing machine gun rounds, they fire missiles, which are good against tanks, and great against air units. These are a must have alongside any defensive line of the regular GIs. They cost twice as much as a regular GI, but are more than twice as useful in my book.

The Robot Tanks are nice, but will probably really only be used when your opponent is, or has, massive numbers of Yuri mind controlling troops or structures. They can travel over water, but this is a minor advantage on most maps when compared with their extra cost. They have no human at the controls, and can attack units that you otherwise are afraid to move in on. In order to build these, you must first build a Robot Tank Factory, which if destroyed will cause all your tanks to sit parked and vulnerable. If you lose power, the same thing can happen, so be careful when a nuke or weather storm is about to hit your base not to have too many of the tanks just sitting near the enemy.

The rolling battle fortress is one of the coolest and most powerful of the new units, but hard to get and expensive. The name describes it very well. It is a large square moving vehicle that can crush soft opponents just like a tank can. Actually, it can also crush tanks just as easily. It can also garrison up to five men in it, enhancing their abilities like an IFV does. This means that you can have one sniper, one machine gunner, one chrono legionnaire, one guardian, etc. inside and gain enhanced abilities for all of these troops. Very nice, but so expensive that you’ll never have many of them in one battle.

The Soviets gain a few nice units, but either I’m not playing them smart enough, or else these just aren’t as effective as the other new units. The assault helicopter is powerful, but not powerful enough to really stop many units. It is either a machine gun, or a cannon, but never both at once, and this makes it hard to play well.

I like Boris, the Russians new equivalent to Tanya (or the Navy Seal). Instead of running up and planting a bomb in a building instantly destroying it, this guy locks a laser beam on the structure and an air raid takes out the building. The planes that come in are susceptible to anti aircraft measures, but this is balanced by the fact that Tanya has to run up and touch the structure.

The Russian sniper doesn’t shoot a bullet like its allied counterpart. She fires a dart infected by a deadly virus. And after she hits, a little green poisonous cloud stays up for a while infecting those near it. A group of machine gunners dug in are at great risk from this sort of collateral damage!

I also like the fact that one of their tanks can now become garrisoned like the allied GI units. These are hard to damage with ordinary tanks.

One powerful new building the Soviets get allows you to produce five units in the time it normally takes four by decreasing the time and the cost by 1/5. The allies have a structure that makes your resource collecting more efficient, and I’m not sure which is the stronger advantage.

Yuri's troops are much more dependent on mind control, with regular mind control units and mind controlling buildings. They even have a super weapon that effects a giant area of the enemy’s base turning all units into slaves or beasts. This is a very nasty surprise that has to be dealt with fast due to the amount of damage that they can cause.

Yuri’s mind control troops are the key to any successful attack. You increase your army by taking control of the enemy, and you are lucky if those you take over are in the middle of other allied units not only causing them damage, but forcing them to destroy their own unit. I’ve had one of my own rather large and expensive platoons of prism tanks destroyed in seconds this way.

Defensively speaking, Yuri is very powerful. I love the look, sound and effect of Yuri’s gattling cannons. These defensive structures gain speed the longer they are firing, and by the time they are whining they can shred even a large tank in moments. Of course he even has gattling tanks that make a very powerful mobile unit that is great for defending against soft targets and air targets simultaneously.

Yuri also has the single most powerful human unit, the Brute. This large mutated creature is the only humanoid opponent who can’t even be taken down by a dog in a single strike. It even can do some damage to a tank on its own. I really want to have a large force of these guys just to see how much damage they can do to an enemy base, but have never managed to amass a large enough number of them to try this out.

Aside from a large collection of multiplayer maps, and various map packs offered online, not to mention a fairly easy to use map editor, Westwood still saw fit to include ten cooperative maps, for two friends to band together to take on an enemy. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to try these yet.


It’s a shame, but with all the new units, features, and Artificial Intelligence, my old strategies still seem to work the best in single player, and pretty well in multiplayer. I primarily rely on lots and lots of prism tanks and floating troops. The computer hasn’t figured out a smart way to handle loads of prism tanks, although smart multiplayer opponents know how well aircraft units work against them. Floating troops are still the weapon of choice against buildings, because they pick off the wounded GIs fleeing the damaged structures while planes don’t. And they can do great damage to land based units with impunity when there are no anti-aircraft units available. Prism tanks gain strength and range when they are grouped together, so the veterans have the longest reach of anything in the game, and an almost certain one shot kill ability.

If I have any major complaints against the game, it doesn’t have to do with any of the playability or changes. It is the fact that an expansion pack shouldn’t be selling for $50, the price of a full game. I guess Westwood knows what they are doing since it sold so well, but I really don’t think it should have cost more than $20-$30 considering it really does share most of the same features as any add-on pack does. (Note that at the time I am publishing this, it is now selling for only $30). I had the same complaint with Age of Empires: The Conquerors, and said so in my review of that game, but I realize that both have been purchased, so maybe the fault lies with me.

If you are really into real time strategy games, then I’m sure you’ve heard of this game, and probably played it by now due to the long delay in having this game listed on Epinions. If you haven’t heard of the game, I suggest you check out a demo at your earliest convenience!



Recommended: Yes