Command & Conquer: Yuri's Revenge
By Jim McHugh

The cold war may be over, but that does not mean that you can’t continue with your own heavy arsenal skirmishes right from the comfort of your own desktop PC. Westwood Studios, the uncontested master’s of the Real Time Strategy genre of games has released another addition to their extremely popular series of Command & Conquer titles. Just in time for the holiday season, Command & Conquer: Yuri’s Revenge is an expansion pack to Westwood’s highly acclaimed title, C&C: Red Alert 2, and contains all of the main attributes, gameplay, and excitement of its parent title while adding several new and unique elements of its own to the both the single player and multi-player campaigns.

Those familiar with Red Alert 2 will find the overall game systems to be the same in Yuri’s Revenge: game controls, set-ups, etc., are all identical to its parent title. Also, the same well produced cinematics and cut-scenes have returned and are present throughout the game, including some memorable theatrics from key-characters from RA2, including Tanya, Romanov, and of course, Yuri himself.

  There are many new features to the game for both the single player version and the multi-player game. Once again you can play as either the Allies or Soviets in both versions, but with the addition of Yuri’s army a new dimension is added to the gameplay that can change the tide of the game in a moments notice. For the single player game, 14 new campaigns have been added that include such new battlegrounds the sands of Egypt , Hollywood , the moon, and even the distant past of the Jurassic era (ever fight a dinosaur with a Robot tank before?) A total of 10 new cooperative missions have been added to the multi-player game, not to mention the added diversity of the regular head to head matches by allowing players to control Yuri’s unique army. Westwood has also revamped and retooled their multiplayer website in time for the release of Yuri’s Revenge, to give online game players more stability and a smoother overall experience

Each side of the conflict has also been given new units and structures in order to diversify the game even more. The Allies have three new fighting units and one structure to experience, including the Guardian GI, the Battle Fortress, and the Robot Tank, and the robot Control Center . The Red Menace has three new units and two structures: Boris (a Tanya counterpart), Siege Choppers, Spy Planes, a Battle Bunker, and an Industrial Plant. The final player of the drama, Yuri’s Forces, has quite a few additions to its fighting fold, with some of the more interesting members being the Virus Sniper (able to decimate forces with her toxic weapons), the genetically made monsters known as the Brutes, and the Yuri Clones which can take control of the minds of weaker individuals.