Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Westwood's Command & Conquer series -- born into a great tradition of like RTS experiences first established by the seminal Dune 2 -- has always offered a robust sort of real-time strategy.

But while the original C&C often found itself contending with Blizzard's Warcraft brand for supremacy, Red Alert really had no equal. Westwood's alternate history RTS presented unparalleled strategy that perfectly married currently-applicable RTS interface conventions with diverse units to create some utterly compelling gameplay.

Although it has a futuristic theme, the game is set on an Earth where time travel has eliminated Hitler from history and the Second World War never happened. As a result the Western Allies are left facing a powerful USSR with both sides equipped with futuristic technology. The game consists of a series of timed missions. Scenarios and objectives are varied. Objectives range from overrunning the enemy force to more subtle missions such infiltrating bases.

NOTE: On August 31, 2008, which marked the 13th anniversary of the Command & Conquer gaming series, EA officially rendered Command & Conquer: Red Alert freeware, which can be downloaded, installed and played for free by everyone without payment or credit card required. There are two versions of Command & Conquer Red Alert game ISO images available – Allied or Soviet. The free full version game download is available in ISO format.