Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 - Uprising

Despite Uprising's many strengths in unit and map design, imbalanced units and lackluster AI mean it misses the mark.

When it's all added up, Uprising is a generous package. Not as extensive as Kane's Wrath, but released at half the price, it offers you about a third of the original game. It's not remarkable, by any means, and though it's never dull it also never escapes the feeling of being an expansion by numbers.

Ultimately, Uprising’s existence is something of a mystery. Its single player campaigns (created due to the demands of Red Alert fans, according to EA) make for a diverting - though not particularly tactical - few hours, but the inability to play any of its new missions with a friend, or use any of its additional units in a multiplayer battle will severely limit its appeal.

Uprising is the first expansion for Red Alert 3 and does a good job following the patterns that made the original a good game. Featuring a new set of mini-campaigns, new units and a special gameplay mode for the Japanese girl Yuriko Omega, this expansion is a good choice for those who liked the universe and the humour of Red Alert 3. On the darker side, a repetitive gameplay, not very solid AI and unbalanced armies can break the whole experience a bit.

Yuriko's heroic experiments in mass carnage do not entirely save this from being a rather underwhelming offering: she's just three large levels. The rest of the game might be dressed up in FMV spangles, but it's simply not produced to the high standards of the original game.

This expansion pack is not for every fan of the series, and therein is Uprising's biggest flaw.

If you're the Command & Conquer fan who can't get enough, or feel like your skills haven't properly been tested, then Uprising was made for you. There's plenty of single-player gameplay to churn through, and no one tops the series' blend of live-action cinematics and candy-colored, fun gameplay.

This misguided expansion pack does the unthinkable: It makes Red Alert 3 boring.

Uprising's decent value at £15, but without any multiplayer features it lacks longevity and feels at odds with the original game. It introduces some nice new units and successfully makes a move into the dungeon crawl arena, but ultimately it's an underwhelming experience that never hits the spectacular heights of the game that fathered it.

It is nice to see that gamers don't need to own the original in order to play the expansion. However, the campaigns from the original aren't playable in Uprising, so if you're at all interested in the single-player, buying the original is a necessity, despite the laughably short "recap video" that you can watch.

A great expansion pack. It adds new units that everyone is sure to love. The only bad thing is the lack of multiplayer and co-op that made the original so fun. After players get through all the single-player missions and the challenge mode there is nothing left, and that is a true shame.

In all their sincerest efforts to perk up the single-player, the developers obviously haven't spent much time in optimizing the AI code.

I have to say that I was hoping that Uprising would have been the third Real Time Strategy game which I could absolutely love this year but it has left a bitter taste in my mouth. This is an expansion only for those who are die hard Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 fans who are looking for more single player fun but do not expect the same level of quality as the original Red Alert 3 had.

Uprising is Red Alert 3 sans its already weak merits. Cinematics with nice-looking aides and a few great tunes by Frank Klepacki and James Hannigan are not worth $20. It’s silly to expect much from a cheap DLC, but Uprising makes Kane’s Wrath look like a fine expansion, while Firestorm and Yuri’s Revenge are blockbusters compared to it.

If you did enjoy Red Alert 3’s single player missions, then Uprising is more of the same and you’ll want to give this a look. Everyone else will be left a little underwhelmed, particularly if you believe the series has gone downhill since the 1996 original.

Red Alert 3: Uprising has a budget priced label, which is a good thing, but we've seen better Command & Conquer expansions. The Yuriko campaign was a good idea, but fails. The other campaigns aren't interesting, the new units are boring and only the Commander's Challenge is a feature that will save the game from a bad grade.

Because Uprising doesn’t lack a certain charm, but even the people it addresses – devoted fans – will have to be very tolerant towards what the game can offer.

It's not recommended for the beginners, who will likely get stuck very early on, but the C&C veterans will fall in love with it. It has new cool units, but the most delightful part is the mini campaign in which you get to play as the insane and hot Yuriko. [May 2009]

Although even with its problems I still found myself having fun, trying to figure out your plan of attack when the enemy could drop a satellite on you at any moment, or freeze half your base, and watching those oh so iconic Tesla coils charge up and fry some poor soul who walked just a little too close is always fun.

Worthwhile, datapack brings four new campaigns, extra mode and one angry, little girl. Lack of multiplayer is one of the greatest disappointments in Uprising. [Apr 2009]

Totally uninspired gameplay, technical bugs, design flaws – everything just for the sake of showing off some fancy new units. Uprising is EA’s guide to self-adulation. Whoever seeks an enthralling game with innovation: Look somewhere else.

The heart of RTS games is all in the maps and how well your enemy plays them.

If you like the single player part of Red Alert 3 that you will love Uprising. New missions, units and a brand new Commander's Challenge offer plenty hours of gameplay. If you love the multiplayer part of Red Alert 3 than there isn't much to be loved in Uprising. Because there isn't any. You'll just have to wait until the inevitable multiplayer add-on.

Challenging, but not infuriating. [June 2009, p.70]

This standalone expansion doesn’t have the wherewithal to pull itself up by its own bootstraps, let alone incite an uprising.

No multiplayer, brief campaigns, same old factions and anemic AI.

I’m a fan of the Red Alert series, warts and all. It’s just too much fun for me, whether playing with people through the co-op campaign of Red Alert 3 or the single-player aspects of Uprising, it’s all goofy fun. And that’s mainly what I want from my games: fun.

Fun, but frustratingly contrived. [May 2009, p.62]

If you enjoyed Red Alert 3 and are looking for a little more, then Uprising certainly fits the bill.

Uprising, as the first expansion of Red Alert 3, achieves an interesting result by breaking its gameplay standards. Its budget cost and the Red Alert feeling could get more fans by offering a more compelling campaign mode, and an on-line multiplayer.

In other words, Uprising does nothing to lift Red Alert 3 or move it in any really interesting direction.