Review: Red Alert 3: Commander's Challenge

How does a 2GB port of a game mode from Red Alert 3 on PC translate to the consoles? Ryan Vincent investigates.While the Red Alert 3: Uprising expansion has been out since March, EA has recently ported the Commander’s Challenge segment of it to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as a stand-alone arcade title.The idea is that there are 50 missions in which you can play as any of the three factions, with victory unlocking new maps and units. It may not be specific to Commander’s Challenge, but EA has done a great job with the controls. With the exception of buildings being a little tricky to place, using a console controller in place of a keyboard and mouse is no hindrance.The missions are nicely varied, each with some special twist or hazard. The variety is nice, but the difficulty curve seems to spike quite highly after the first few missions given that the AI players occasionally have access to units the player has not had the opportunity to unlock yet.That said, the AI is fairly decent, though it is the only thing you'll be playing against as there is no multiplayer mode.In terms of story, Commander's Challenge offers nothing too special. The plot is relegated to pre-mission blurbs and enemy commanders only appear for the occasional taunt. But story is not why you play Red Alert – you play it for the crazy, over-the-top battles that this game delivers in spades.Unfortunately, given the lack of multiplayer, the replay value of this game lies exclusively in trying to beat the par time for missions, and playing through earlier missions with superior units. But, given that it is reasonably priced at 800 Microsoft Points (or $10 US), this isn't too much of an issue. If you're looking for a console RTS on a budget and don't mind the 2GB download or the difficulty curve, give Commander’s Challenge a lookRating: 7/10