I’ve always had a soft spot for the Command and Conquer series, with each release marking the highlight of my year. The first article I ever wrote for The Boar was a first impression of Red Alert 3 so it seems fitting for me to take a look at its new expansion pack.

It was only when I installed the game and discovered the lack of a multiplayer option on the menu, that I realised that Uprising was a singleplayer only; this was a shock. Considering the C&C franchise has always been big on its online experience, I found it surprising that the developers would completely leave it out. But, as soon as I started playing the game, I could see why they did it. The Red Alert series has always been slightly ridiculous, but Uprising takes it to the next level; the new units in the expansion are completely hilarious. Ranging from Molotov cocktail throwing motorcyclists to giant crab-like artillery, the developers went crazy with their designs, throwing anything they wanted in. And this is why there’s no online; RTS games have to be balanced, which takes ages to sort out. New units have to fit in exactly with all the older ones; if they are slightly too powerful the game can become completely busted! Without the worry of game balancing, the designers could simply make anything they wanted.

» C&C? Dungeon crawler?

As well as new units, the three factions from Red Alert 3 (the Soviets, the Allies and the Empire of the Rising Sun) have four new missions each; there’s also the addition of a fourth campaign that follows the life of Yuriko Omega, an Empire of the Rising Sun hero unit. The first three follow a very similar mission structure to that found in Red Alert 3; there’s nothing new in terms of gameplay and they’re main purpose is to introduce the new units, one per a mission. There’s nothing wrong with this but I guess I was expecting something a bit different, it feels a bit too similar to the 30ish missions from the original game. Since there’s no online at all, the major new feature that was added in Red Alert 3, which allowed you to play any mission co-op across the net, has completely gone. Considering I played the entire game like this (as it was far more enjoyable), leaving it out is a major omission, that, in general, leads to the missions being rather dull.

Luckily, the fourth campaign is different. It’s effectively a dungeon crawler; you control only Yuriko Omega, as oppose to an entire army, who has an array of paranormal abilities. She can throw objects around, mind control multiple enemies and even has the equivalent of a Star Wars “force push”. This complete change of pace, to an expansion that seemed like a complete copy and paste, makes Uprising much more fun. Sadly this campaign is also only 4 missions long and is over way too quickly.

So far I’ve painted a somewhat negative picture that isn’t completely true. Uprising does have a lot going for it. All of the missions are held together with new live motion cut-scenes; a few of the old cast are back, as well as some new additions, most note-able of which is Holly Valance. It seems to be much more female orientated this time round and, although you could complain that EA’s stereotyping gamers into some form of perverted geeks, I really can’t complain. Gemma Atkinson is also back and I’m pretty sure her skirt is even shorter than before; this isn’t a bad thing… After the awesome ending of the Allied campaign in Red Alert 3 (which I won’t spoil) I’m glad they decided to ham it up even more.

As well as the campaigns there’s also the Challenge mode which allows you to command any of the three factions in a number of different situations. At the beginning, each faction only has a small portion of its total available units, on completing each challenge you unlock another unit to add to your arsenal. There isn’t a story to go with this as such, but it does give the game a lot more substance; it’ll take you a while to finish. Saying that, it’s still more of the same, yawn…

As with Red Alert 3, Uprising has good graphics which can be scaled well to how good your PC is. On the highest settings, everything looks crisp with excellent art styling and some great effects; on the lower settings, it looks ok but at least it runs well. There’s also some excellent new music in Uprising and some rather entertaining voice work for the new units. The Cryo Legionnaire (a unit that can freeze-ray the enemy) seems to be voiced by an Arnold Schwarzenegger wanna-be, with the script ripping off a few of Arny’s one-liners; it’s a bit weird but it did make me smile.

EA decided to release Uprising as a download only title, meaning you have to buy it from the EA Store and download the 5ish GBs of data. It’s also stand-alone, you don’t need the original Red Alert 3 to play it, and only £15; these are both good decisions on EA’s part.

Uprising is a tough one to call. Although I love Command and Conquer, Uprising just wasn’t as enjoyable as I was expecting. If you’re a fan of the franchise, it is worth getting; the action is the same, there are more awesome cut-scenes and the new units are entertaining. The lack of online, especially the co-op component, is a real issue and makes me recommend Red Alert 3, and not Uprising, to people who want to get into C&C for the first time. Here’s to the next, true Command and Conquer game.