YMMV / Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series

Works in this series with their own YMMV pages:

• Command & Conquer: Red Alert
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3

YMMV page for the overall franchise:

• Command & Conquer

The Red Alert Series:

• Complete Monster: Joseph Stalin; Yuri; Anatoly Cherdenko. See those pages for details.

• Creepy Awesome: Yuri, contrasting with the rest of the game's he's in seeming to run on Rule of Cool.
• Defictionalization: The Iron Curtain device? It's a thing now. Although it works by using a high-intensity radio screen to prematurely detonate explosives rather than Soviet Superscience to slap a Deflector Shield made of oscilating particles on a tank for 30 seconds.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Despite the game's — at times — humorous take on an alternate World War II where the Allied Forces fight against the Soviet Union, the sense of humor is not one-sided, with the Soviets having a lot of personality in their army after the Yuri's Revenge update to Red Alert 2. This is despite the Soviets using technology such as Desolators armed with Radiation Cannons, or suicide attackers who give their lives to detonate nuclear bombs. It also helps that there are memorable characters in the Soviet Campaign like very pleasant Alexander Romanov, the treacherous Yuri, and your supportive mission control officer Zofia. Romanov isn't even threatened by you skillful commanding, and values your contributions. Even the Soviet invasion of the United States is played humorously at times with the use of mind-controlling being a major element. Red Alert 3 continued the tradition, giving both the Soviets and The Empire a memorable, fun cast of characters.
• Fanon Discontinuity:
  • Fans still debate on a number of issues, notably which ending of the first Red Alert leads to Tiberian Dawn.
  • According to Westwood, the Allied ending leads to both Tiberian Dawn and Red Alert 2. The Soviet ending appears to lead into a completely different non-canon era. Which doesn't make much sense, considering Kane's appearance in the final Soviet cutscene. Best not to think too hard about it.^note Westwood intended to explain this in the original Command & Conquer 3 (in that the Red Alert 2 timeline was created by Yuri travelling to the past), but this was scrapped in favor of Tiberium Wars
• Fandom Rivalry: An inter-fandom one with fans of the Tiberium timeline and fans of the "Red Alert 2 and onward" timeline. While the later Red Alert games are appreciated for their gameplay and camp value, the abandonment of the overarching Tiberium plotline that tied the first Red Alert to the first ever game, Tiberium Dawn, have raised some hackles. Red Alert 2 also arguably got more mainstream than Tiberium Dawn and Red Alert 1 ever did thanks to coming at the right time with the rise of neighborhood computer gaming shops.
  • But then both sides have a shared inter-fandom rivalry with fans of Command & Conquer: Generals which came out a few years later, since said game departs from the established "Westwood style" of RTS, playing more like Warcraft. It also benefited from the rise of neighborhood gaming.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Yuri's faction from Yuri's Revenge Namely, Flying Discs with lasers and tractor beams, tanks and static defences that can mind control enemy units, and missile submarines.
    • You can shut down an enemy's entire base with just four Flying Discs. Park one over a Power Plant, another over their Refinery, and one near any building that can produce anti-air infantry/vehicles. Not to mention Yuri Prime, who can mind-control buildings (and with the Cloning Vat, you can get two Yuri Primes!)
  • Uprising introduces us to the Harbinger gunship, a nigh on invincible self healing flying fortress. If you can build up a few then they make the attack move option a 'I win' button.
  • Just one of the Empire's Giga-Fortress can take away a quarter of a Harbinger's health in Sea-Fortress mode. The Sky-Fortress mode outranges anti-air units, and does insane damage.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Aside from being widely popular in Russia, there is also a sizeable Chinese and Korean fanbase as well.
• Ham and Cheese: Goes a long way towards describing the acting in the series. And man, is it fantastic. Or at least in the later games. The first one had very subdued performances to fit with the serious tone of the game itself.
• Magnificent Bastard: Kane appears, see the main page for details.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: Red Alert is rather popular with Russians thanks to its ludicrous stereotyping, Ham and Cheese acting, and general Crazy Awesomeness. When it comes to hilarious portrayals of the USSR, you can't beat a mind-controlling Lenin lookalike and Kirov airships of RA2... except with battle-bears and Premier Tim Curry of RA3. And it probably helps that all the stereotypes are played for laughs, as well as that the Soviets get some really awesome units like the aforementioned airships, battle-bears, trained battle squids, and huge Apocalypse Tanks. It also doesn't hurt that the other factions are just as stereotypical.
• Moral Event Horizon: Outside of Yuri's actions, probably biggest one goes to Vladimir when after a psychic amplifier in Chicago is destroyed, he destroys the city with nuclear missile.
• Rooting for the Empire: Many fans were disappointed that Yuri's faction in Yuri's Revenge didn't get its own campaign.

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