RA2 was developed by, you guessed it, Westwood Studios and released by EA in 2008. Though this will be the last time that Westwood will create a RA title. The game has one expansion, Yuri’s Revenge. But like Red Alert I won’t be reviewing that, only the core game.

Red Alert 2 picks up the story of the Allied victory in RA, although this is open for discussion as not everyone agrees with this statement. but let leave that behind us. It’s the year of 1970, after the destruction of the USSR, the Allies appointed Alexander Romanov to rule and rebuild the country. The game starts with the USA being invaded by Soviet forces. The USA tries to retaliate by launching its nuclear missiles. And even that is impossible because Yuri, head of the Soviet Psychic Corp, manipulated the men working in silos and let them explode the missiles in their silos.

Now I have promised myself not to tell the entire story of the game because it would too long to write and the review would turn out massive. The story of the Allies start in New York where you have to liberate the city. You will be fighting throughout the USA destroying mind-controlling Psychic Beacons, rushing your way through Europe and eventually end your fighting journey in the Soviet capital Moscow.

The Soviet campaign is all about the destruction of the Allies and total world domination. Your first mission is destroying the Pentagon. Like in the Allied campaign you fight throughout the USA, but also in Mother Russia. The campaign ends at the Bering Strait. Though the Soviet campaign of ruling the world isn’t without treachery. The man who started it all simply named Yuri, murders de leader of the Soviet Union, Romanov. And to make matters worse, he then frames a general named Vladimir of conducting the murder. Vladimir is declared a traitor and you are ordered to capture him in Washington. After doing so successfully, you are ordered back to Moscow to be congratulated by Yuri himself. But before arriving there, you receive a video from Romanov before his death where he explains that Yuri has been brainwashing him and demands you to bring Yuri down.

So far the campaign of the two factions.
Everything in RA2 is unrecognizable when you compare it to RA. Where C&C and RA where almost similar, RA2 has been build up from scratch. The only things that are left from the first part are the Allies’ Chromosphere and the Soviet’s Red Curtain. Every unit has had it size increased. Sometimes infantry is bigger than a tank. Base Buildings are usually bigger than entire apartment blocks. The pace of battle has been increased dramatically. Where in RA you would have to wait maybe a minute for your units to reach the enemy, in RA2 the units rush to the enemy base in matter of seconds.

The two factions in RA2 have their own tactics. Where the Soviet Union is good at rushing early on in the game and almost superior in landbattles, the Allies rely on defenses and advanced tech that comes available as a match progresses.

Resource gathering hasn’t changed a lot, there’s only one exception. The Allied harvester can instantaneous teleport back to the refinery, very useful when harvesting in hostile territories. You still have to gather gold and diamonds to get your credits.

The 2 factions are split into multiple countries, but that doesn’t account for the campaign. Every country fights under the flag of the 2 main factions, but operate with different sets of buildings and units. Every country usually has a special unit, with the exception of the USA’s paradrop and the Grand- Cannon from the French.

In the end I really enjoyed playing Red Alert 2. The style of the game really addresses me because it the game doesn’t take itself serious and can sometimes cause some hilarious moments. So if you want this game I suggest buying The First Decade, containing all Command & Conquer series.

Company of Heroes is a game developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ. It's an second world war RTS. The game was released in 2006 for Windows. CoH also got two standalone expansion packs: Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, which added two new factions and Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor.

The single player campaign puts the player in some of the major American operations during the Battle of Normandy, like D-Day, Carentan and Cherbourg.

Company of Heroes features two factions: The Allies and the Axis. The Allies are represented by the Americans and the Axis by the German Wehrmacht. The Americans have cheap units and are more numerous than the Germans. American tanks aren't as powerful as German tanks but their movability is higher. Their units will become stronger by killing enemies.
The Germans have more units than the Americans and they're more powerful, but also more expensive.

When starting a match you can choose your doctrine. Allied doctrines:

• Infantry Doctrine: Centered on defense and infantry support, this doctrine allows players to train infantry and build defences faster, employ heavy artillery, and call in reinforcements such as the elite US Army Rangers, or a randomized group of units with the "Battalion Reinforcement"
• Airborne Doctrine: Centered on paratroopers and air support, this doctrine allows players to deploy paratroopers, call in recon planes, and enjoy the destructive capabilities of the P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bomber.
• Armor Doctrine: Centered on vehicles and armor support, this doctrine is slow to gain, but boast powerful abilities, such as improved vehicle production, Sherman Calliopes and the mighty M26 Pershing heavy tank.
  

Axis doctrines:

• Defensive Doctrine: Centered on artillery and defense, this doctrine allows base structures to defend themselves against Infantry, offers bonuses for defending infantry, and allows players to call in rocket barrages and deploy the powerful Flak 88 cannons.
• Blitzkrieg Doctrine: Centered on speed and offensive operations, this doctrine allows players to speed up their military and economy, and allows players to deploy powerful assault units such as Stormtroopers and the famous Tiger I.
• Terror Doctrine: Centered on psychological warfare and destructive power, this unusual doctrine provides players with die-hard infantry and the ability to rout the enemy, be it with propaganda, devastating V1 rockets, or a single, powerful Tiger Ace.

The main resources of this game are manpower, which you need for creating units, munition, which you need for upgrading individual squads, and fuel, which you need for armoured units and global upgrades. In order to get these resources you'll need to capture strategic points on the map.

Infantry units can occupy civilian buildings and convert a field barracks. You can create infantry units here. Infantry units can also occupy a building and use it as cover. You're able to build normal buildings with your engineers. Some available buildings are: a field barracks, supply yard and tank depots for the Americans and Krieg barracks, Sturm armory and the Wehrmacht quarters.

The graphics of this game are pretty decent. Explosions and building damage look extremely realistic and limps are flying all over the place. The sound is remarkable too, units are talking to you via walkie-talkies when they're under attack and it seems that they've used gun sounds that belong to the specific tank and gun.

This game has got several awards, most of them are game of the year awards of 2006 and best strategy game. This game is certainly worth your money, and the single- and multiplayer will keep you busy for many hours.

Haze is a game created by Free Radical, a company known for games such as the TimeSplitters series, the company was shut down in 2008 and has been bought by Crytek. The publisher was Ubisoft, which is known for a huge range of games. Haze was released on May 2008. A year in which games like Killzone 2, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4 and Metal Gear Solid 4 hit the market, which meant major competition for Haze.

The game is set in 2025, where no UN or NATO exist and governments are thus forced to contract their military operations to PMCs). You play as Sergeant Jake Carpenter, a new recruit in the Mantel Global Industries army, who are fighting guerillas in South America. Mantel is also an MNC with bio-medical expertise. This has led to the development of Nectar, a nutritional supplement that enables soldiers to fight harder and smarter. The game takes place over three days that will 'change Jake forever' as Mantel battle a guerilla group known as The Promise Hand lead by a dictator called Gabriel "Skin coat" Merino; a brutal man who wears the flayed skins of his POW camp inmates.

The game had a lot of promotion before it came out and created quite a hype, many people even called it the halo-killer. However the game didn't live up to its expectations and was soon seen by many reviewers as a below-par game.

The graphics in this game aren't too special, for the most part they are a bland and dull, giving the game a bit of a boring experience. The surroundings are pretty standard and you don't really have any noteworthy levels that'll leave a memorable experience. The player characters might be averagely detailed, but are nowhere near as good as Halo was, when it got first released. This game doesn't have any ground-breaking improvements, making it a standard shooter.

The gameplay isn't very different from a standard FPS, you simply shoot the enemy in order to get higher on the rankings. There isn't a leveling system in which you unlock things by playing well. This game only features four different types of guns, which are the sniper rifle, the machine gun, the shotgun and the pistol. Each faction, Mantel and the Rebels, has their own version of these guns, but besides the looks there aren't any differences. So this is quite a limited amount of guns featured in this game, making this game boring rather fast.

The game has some unique features to it, which all have to do with Nectar, which is a drug used to make Mantel soldiers better at waging war. These Mantel soldiers can use Nectar in order to see enemies more easily, by giving some sort of a heat-detector. The rebels can abuse Nectar in order to give Mantel soldiers an overdose causing them to go berserk and make them shoot friend and foe during this period. The Rebels also have the ability to lay mines and to scavenge ammo from guns that aren't from their own faction.

When it comes to sound in this game, there isn't really anything worth mentioning. There was however one thing that annoyed me a lot, and that was that if you were fighting for the Rebel side online, you sometimes had to listen to a shitty rap song playing in the background, which couldn't be turned off in anyway, whilst the Mantel didn't have any of that crap to deal with.

The online mode is where the game truly lets down, the maps aren't really varied and are always wide open maps. I'd have preferred to play in a close-combat environment, since that would discourage many people to pick up the sniper rifle, but alas, you'll probably be sniped a couple of hundred times before you get sick of it and throw this game in your cabinet and never look back. The game doesn't give players the option to choose their weapons before they spawn, instead you have to pick a weapon from the battlefield, and because you have to hold the triangle-button this takes more than a few seconds, leaving you as an open target. The lag on the servers is also a big problem in this game, every server you join seems to have this problem, making playing usually an unpleasant experience if that wasn't already the case. This game also offers a co-op mode in which you can play online or play the campaign together, which works rather well, although I wouldn't mind an option for changing how the screen was divided between the two players. The game also has only a few game-modes online, which is a missed opportunity, the few they have are spin-offs of various popular modes, however Deathmatch isn't included, only Team Deathmatch, which is a bit odd in my opinion, since if it truly wanted to compete with Halo, it should've added it, since Slayer is one of the more popular modes there.

So all-in-all, the game isn't really worth your money, since there are way better shooters out there on the PS3, such as Fear 2, Warhawk, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Killzone 2. The game could've been way better if they focused more on developing the game than the promotion of the game. The choice is up to you, are you spending your money on a better game or are you fighting for the Mental corporation?

Age of Empires is an RTS which was created by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft in 1997 for PC and Mac. The game also got an expansion pack, Age of Empires: The rise of Rome, in 1998. AoE and its expansion pack were later released together as the Gold Edition. You're able to play single-player or multi-player with a maximum of eight players.

You're able to choose from 12 civilizations, each with an unique tech tree. Which means that some civilizations got stronger military units, but aren't able to build all buildings, or research all economic technologies. In the game you can advance through four ages: The Stone Age, the Tool Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Each advancement will grant you more buildings, research and units.

There are four resources in this game: Wood, gold, stone and food. You need wood for creating buildings and certain military units, like archers, ships and catapults or for researching new technologies. You can acquire wood by chopping down the forests or by trading with other players (the AI doesn't give you anything), and you will need a market for that. Food is required for training new units and for research. You can acquire food by hunting animals, fishing or farming. Gold is needed primarily for research, but also for creating the more advanced military units and priests. You can acquire gold by simply mining the goldmines shattered around the map, or by trading wood, food or stone for it. You'll need a trading ship for that (a market isn't required here, just sail the merchant to an allied or enemy dock and you'll receive gold). Stone is needed for building watch/sentry/guard/ballista towers, walls, and some is needed for research. You can acquire stone by mining the stone mines shattered around the map.

The game features four single-player campaigns in which you have to complete certain objectives, like simply defeating your enemies or obtain some valuable artifacts. The campaign follows four civilizations: the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Babylonians and the Yamato civilizations. You can adjust the difficulty in five levels: Very easy, easy, moderate, hard and very hard.

Aside from the Campaign mode you can also play a random map, in which the computer randomly generates a map. You can also play death matches in which you have very much resources. It's also possible to create your own maps and play them single-or multiplayer.

The graphics of this game are very nice for a 2D game. Some people say this is a cross between Warcraft II and Civilization, but I think this game is unique. The sound is also remarkable, it really fits in with the game. Stephen Rippy was the music director. He created the original music in Age of Empires using sounds from actual instruments from the periods in the game, as well as their digital samples. The tunes were the result of extensive research on the cultures, styles, and instruments used. The game won numerous awards, including Gamecenter's 1997 Game of the Year and the 1998 AIAS Computer Strategy Game of the Year award.

In conclusion: This game is a true classic, and I think it's the best game in the series. If you manage to find it somewhere just buy it, I don't think it costs very much since it's more than ten years old.

Sid Meier's Pirates! is a game developed by Firaxis Games and was published by Atari in 2004. This studio was founded by the Sid Meier himself, Jeff Brigs and Brian Reynolds in 1996. It focuses on strategy games and is known for the Civilization series.

In Pirates! you play as a young pirate who sails the Caribbean. The game begins with a small intro where you see a family being kidnapped because they can't repay their debt. A boy manages to escape before the family's kidnapped. You play this boy ten years later as an adult. Then you are granted the option of choosing your captain: a Dutch, French, British or Spanish captain. The four countries are also the main factions in the game. There really aren't any differences between the captains as all four treat you and your fellow sailors like crap. Finally you stand up and cause a mutiny on the ship. The mutiny is a success and you become the captain of the ship. From this moment on you can do whatever you want.

There are a lot of things you can do in Pirates!. Here is a list of things you can do:

You can engage ships on see. You can either decide to destroy the ship or decide to board the ship (you can also be boarded). Two ships can happen when boarding a ship. Ships can decide to surrender and then boarding isn't that of a problem, or you will have to engage into a sword fight with the ships captain (same case when you are being boarded)

You can sneak into enemy villages and towns

Take over towns and appoint new governors, this gives you a one-time ransom depending on how big and wealthy the town is and how many inhabitants it has

You can go on a treasure hunt. In almost every town or village you can buy a map or a part of it from a trader in the town's Tavern

You can dance with a town governor's daughter at a ball. When you are successful you'll get special items like vests so you are better at sword fighting or valuable information.

Now the gameplay. The AI isn't that bad and depending on the level of difficulty it can really be a pain. The graphics aren't bad and look almost similar to the graphics of the console version of Civilization. Every faction in the game has their own ship, only the pirates can have a mixture of ships. Land battles are turn based and the ways of winning a battle are slaughtering your enemy or getting a group of pirates at the town's gate.

Every ship can be upgraded. The only issue is every town offers a different upgrade. So the only way to get your ship fully upgraded is to travel from town to town and sail around the Caribbean.
Another issue in the game is keeping your men happy. A happy crew fights harder and the chance of mutiny is very small.

So to conclude this review of Pirates!. It's a good sandbox game and keeps you busy for many hours. So if you think that the game appeals to you, go and buy the game.

Warcraft III is a game released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, US release. This game is the third game in the Warcraft RTS series. This game was released before World of Warcraft and it's an RTS with RPG influences, some examples of this is the fact that you can level your heroes and that they can get equipment. The expansion pack, The Frozen Throne came out in 2003.

The campaign features a storyline which introduces you to the four races in this game, which are the humans, the undead, the orcs and the nightelves. The storyline features three main characters, Arthas, Thrall and Tyrande. The storylines of these three characters tie in together at the end. We don't want to spoil too much so that's why we keep things vague.

Like we stated before in this review this game is an RTS with RPG influences. You're building a base, create forces and gather resources with the objective to destroy your enemy by laying siege to their base. In the campaign there are some levels that differ from this and have other objectives like surviving for a certain amount of time. The levels are usually mirrored giving both sides an equal opportunity to win, on the maps there are quite a number of scattered units which don't belong to a faction, just like the Gaia faction in Age Of Empires. They usually defend certain spots on the map such as Goldmines, Goblin Laboratories and Goblin Shipyards. At these Goblin buildings you can hire certain mercenary units, which are usually better than your own and can give an advantage in battle. There are shops scattered throughout the map as well, giving the ability to purchase equipment for your hero. Equipment is also dropped randomly by the units that don't belong to a faction. You also have the ability to play scenario's in this game, which can also be made or downloaded from other players.

When talking about the graphics, they can be compared to Age Of Mythology. The surroundings aren't too special. They've still managed to maintain a special style when it comes to graphics, the units are quite broad and heavy giving it a special fantasy style. Although some people prefer the old style over the new one, since the graphics of Warcraft II were outstanding and special when the game came out. Every faction has their own certain style to them, which makes you grow a certain liking to a faction and race.

Some sounds haven't changed in Warcraft III, when looking back to Warcraft II. The peasants and grunts for example still say the same sentences with same voice. When clicking repeatedly on units they'll say various funny things, just like in Warcraft II. There are also a few other funny occurrences such as exploding sheep and funny mini-games. You can make a sheep explode by clicking on it a lot. There is some music in this game but it goes really unnoticed, it's just playing softly in the background.

My conclusion on this game is that the game is quite fun to play, especially if you're into multi-player, it has a very active community and there are even some cash-tournaments. But all in all, if you used to be a big fan of the previous ones, you might not be as content with the addition of new races and the introduction of the new style, but if you can get over that, then this game can be very enjoyable.

Diablo II is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game, with elements of the hack and slash and dungeon roaming genres. The game was released in 2000 for Mac OS and Windows bij Blizzard Entertainment and developed by Blizzard North. The game also has an expansion pack, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, which was released in 2001. Diablo II was one of the most popular games of 2000, because of the addictive gameplay and free access to online gaming via Battle.net.

The story of Diablo II takes place after the end of the previous game, Diablo, in the lands of Sanctuary where Diablo, the Lord of Terror, was defeated by an unnamed warrior. The hero who slew Diablo drove the demon's soulstone into his forehead in an attempt to contain him, but this is what Diablo wanted and just made him stronger, and the adventurer is in turn corrupted. The player is an adventurer who appears in the wake of the destruction caused by Diablo and attempts to find out the cause of the destruction, starting with the corrupted warrior (from the first game). As the player continues through each of the four acts, he faces off against the Prime Evils, superpowers of Hell, and the two lesser evils who once overthrew the three prime evils, and learns of the truth behind the corruption. Diablo released Mephisto (Lord of Hatred) and Baal (Lord of Destruction) from their soulstones, as they were taught long ago how to corrupt them by the fallen angel Izual. In the end, the player eventually reaches and slays Mephisto and Diablo. The story continues in the expansion to the game, where the player chases the last of the Prime Evils: Baal (Lord of Destruction) who is going after the mythical Worldstone in an attempt to corrupt it.

In this game you can choose between five different classes:

The Amazon- She is similar to the Rogue from Diablo. They both primarily use bows. The Amazon can also use spears and javelins.

The Necromancer- This guy mostly uses death-themed spells. He can raise skeletons, create golems and resurrect dead monsters to fight along sidehim.

The Barbarian- He is good at the front-lines of a battle. He has more HP than the other characters and also the only character that can dual wield weapons.

The Sorceress- She uses elemental spells, mostly on the offensive. She is also able to teleport to new destinations.

The Paladin- He is an all-rounder. He is able to use thunderbolt spells, he can use bows and he's also good at melee weapons. He is the only character capable of using the shield as a weapon.

In Diablo II you have to complete four acts in order to complete the game. At the end of each act you have to fight a boss. In order to get to these bosses you will have to fight through dungeons and wilderness areas and completing quests. If you want help with completing these quests you can hire mercenaries to aid you in your battles. Item drops, monster attributes, and most dungeon layouts are randomly-generated by Diablo II, just like in the first game.
If you want to make it a little harder you can choose from three difficulties: Normal, Nightmare and Hell. On higher difficulties, monsters are stronger, experience is penalized on dying, and your resistances are handicapped. However, you're always able to change the game-difficulty.

The graphics of this game are greatly improved compared with the first game. The sound and music are delightful to listen to. Some tracks were created by reusing the tracks from the original game, while others by rearranging tracks that were out-takes. Tristram uses the main theme of the first Diablo game and it is the earliest track composed for Diablo II.

The game has got several awards, including the 2000 runner-up Reader's Choice Award for role-playing game of the year. It was also awarded a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records 2000 edition for being the fastest selling computer game ever sold, with more than 1 million units sold in the first two weeks of availability.

I think this game is great, it really is addictive just like the first game. If you're planning to buy Diablo III when it comes out, you should first play and complete this game, it really is awesome.