Treyarch released last month Call of Duty: Black Ops, the latest in the much-hyped “Call of Duty” game lineup. Black Ops made headlines when, within 24 hours of going on sale, it managed to sell some 7 million copies in the US and the UK. However, all is not well in the land of Call of Duty, while this game has received rave reviews from a number of gaming sites, including Game Spot and Metacritic. But reviewers at Amazon seem to get it right, with a thus-far average rating of only 1.8/5 stars. The reasons? Many.

I’ve personally been a fan of the Call of Duty series for quite some time, as the games tend to be well-developed and well-written on both the technical and storyline aspects. But Black Ops falls far, far short of the mark and in many ways is a step back from what we’ve come to expect of its predecessors. On many different fronts, Black Ops fails to deliver — consistently failing to impress and, perhaps most disturbingly, almost as if it was intentionally made this way.

Problems with the Plot and Design

The very first question you find yourself asking when you start playing Black Ops is “What the hell is going on?” While this works well for many other games where you learn as you go along, and the thrill is in discovering the game and its universe, this is not the case with Black Ops. Instead, a number of factors collude to make it near impossible to actually feel like you are in the game, constantly being reminded that you’re playing a PC game, reminded of the device(s) between you and the storyline, and the limitations of the hardware you’re using to play the role of the gung-ho warrior on his journeys.

To start with, the audio quality during all the cut-scenes is, for lack of a better word, crap. While your character is strapped down to a chair, a distant and unclear voice begins interrogating. Unfortunately, Treyarch thought it would be nice to add severe static and garble effects to the interrogators voice. The words are unclear, the ideas are lost, and the general effect is nothing short of confusion and active bewilderment. Most ridiculously of all, no one at Treyarch bothered to add subtitles — something so basic, simple, and effective that you have to wonder whose bright idea it was to not put them, and what where they thinking at the time. Sure, it’s a neat effect to make the interrogator all the more mysterious… but if it means the player will end up frustrated and angry at the game, well, let’s just say that’s not a good idea.

Black Ops is, by design, disjointed. It’s based around the flashbacks of the main character as he recalls past missions and adventures across the world. Unfortunately, Treyarch could not and did not pull this off with the same finesse that others *cough* Ubisoft *cough* have in the past. Mission transitions are abrupt and sudden, the gamer is not given a chance to be sufficiently immersed in the gameplay and storyline before being roughly and crudely jerked out of the flashback, back to the garbled voice, dimly-lit scenes, and confusing activities. Disjointed isn’t necessarily bad; assuming it’s done right, it can probably make for an interesting game. But “done right” and “Black Ops” do not go too well together in a sentence, and the disjointed plot winds up leaving the game with an unfinished, amateurish feel instead.

Aaaand now to discuss the actual gameplay and missions. You’d think that, with the Call of Duty series’ impressive performances and showings in the past, the actual gameplay might paint a prettier scene. But, of course, you would be quite wrong. It could not be more obvious that Black Ops is just an attempt to milk the Call of Duty cash cow for all its worth, without even the slightest attempts to hide it under the guise of an interesting story or well-designed missions/levels. While previous CoD offerings were enjoyable and interesting to play with spacious and well-made maps, Black Ops is nothing of that sort:

Imagine a long, dark corridor. Good guys on one end, bad guys on the other. Along the corridor are desks/junk/debrise/cover arranged in a pattern – first one on the right, and a few feet down, another on the left. Got that picture in your head? That’s pretty much every level of CoD Black Ops right there. Extremely redundant. Very boring. And very badly designed. Your job is to simply start off at one end of the long, rectangular map and make your way to the other side. Every few feet there’s something you can use to take cover, and you just need to clear the way through.

Perhaps most insultingly of all though is the game’s AI engine, which feels like something out of the 90s. I’m used to playing all FPS games on the “Legendary” setting. The good ones truly evolve into something interesting, difficult, and intellectually challenging where you need to use strategy and reflexes to best a quicker, smarter, more powerful, and more resilient enemy; all the while balancing your own set of handicaps to speed, accuracy, and health regeneration. On the other hand, Black Ops feels like a cheat – the already badly designed maps and checkpoints (a checkpoint at the end of every corridor) become even more blindingly obvious, as the games incredibly dumb AI kicks in…

Unlike most FPS games, Black Ops does not have a finite number of “baddies” whose asses need kicking. Instead, so long as you are barricaded behind any particular cover along the corridor in any of the levels, the bad guys will keep coming. Sort of like “Space Invaders,” if you get the drift. It doesn’t matter how many of them you shoot, so long as you don’t cover more ground and push forward, the enemy will keep coming. The fact that your teammates are useless aside, the game quickly gets incredibly tedious and boring as you realize that no thought went into to the design of the levels. Play it on the hardest difficulty and try to use strategy — you’ll realize the futility of it all soon enough. If you want to play by strategy instead of luck and are prepared to take your time advancing in order to do the job right, think again. Black Ops does not give you this option, forcing you to push forward in order to end the level. You cannot, I repeat, you cannot use strategy to kill the enemy from afar, because unless you push forward, the enemy will keep re-spawning right where you killed them.

Technical Issues

As if CoD Black Ops was not already a world of hurt due to the painfully stupid gameplay problems described above, the game is also plagued with a number of technical issues that make it impossible to even pretend to enjoy it:

• No multitasking support. If you get bored of the silly levels and badly designed gameplay and want to alt-tab to your web browser or music player, the game will hang, HANG, HANG when you go back. Apparently someone at Treyarch forgot that the PC version means there will be other programs running in the background, unlike on an XBOX or PS3.
• (Comparatively) bad graphics. It’s 2011 and we’ve come to expect more than what Black Ops is giving. The graphics on Black Ops are not noticeably better than what we had back in ’07, except that for some reason you get worse frame rates for equal graphics. Other games over the past 3 years have shown much better rendering and performance – I guess the recycling of the CoD engine over all these years without any real improvements is at last showing.
• No support for DVORAK. Even the simplest and silliest of full-screen games recognize and support the DVORAK keymap these days, but again, looks like Treyarch forgot that the PC is not an XBOX.
• Terribly designed and misthought-out UI for the main software. The initial menus were designed to be “cute” in that they appear from a first-person POV: you “look” at what you want and “click” to choose. Except Treyarch completely blew this one, even disregarding the fact that it’s hard to use and unintuitive, Treyarch gets a complete “fail” here when selecting certain menu options takes you back to a normal (read: sane) menu; flipping between menu entries requires you to repeatedly switch between FPS and normal mouse modes. Quite stupid, really.

All things considered, this game is definitely one of the worst that I have played in recent memory. Perhaps the fact that it was so heavily hyped beforehand is to blame, maybe if it came from an indie developer I’d have been more accepting of its shortcomings. But for a sequel to such an excellent series, one had higher expectations than what was delivered.

Final score: 4/10

We’ve compiled a list of our top highly-anticipated games for OS X, most of which are actually geared for simultaneous release on Windows and Mac, making it clear that Mac gamers will take a backseat no more. Honestly, we’re not going to bother ranking them or making this a “Top 10 Games for OS X this year” kind of article. This is just a geeky gamers’ list of games to look out for, on a Mac, soon. We’re not including games that were previously available on other platforms, because that’s just sad.

And, without further ado, here’s NeoSmart Technologies’ exclusive list of upcoming Mac OS X games, sorted by expected release date from the ones you can soonest get your grubby paws on to those you’ll have to not-so-patiently wait and pray for:

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Release Date: July 27, 2010
Platforms: Mac OS X and Windows

Set in the 26th century in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy, the game is built around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a race of insectoid genetic assimilators; and the Protoss, a species with vast psionic power. Wings of Liberty will focus on the Terrans specifically, while the expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void will focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. The game is expected to be set four years after the events of StarCraft: Brood War, and follow the exploits of Jim Raynor as he leads an insurgent group against the autocratic Terran Dominion. The game will include old characters from the original game, as well as introduce new characters and locations to the franchise.

Source: Wikipedia

You can watch trailers of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty on the Blizzard site here.

Pre-order Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty from Amazon for $59.99 with a lowest-price pre-order guarantee.

Civilization V
Developer: Firaxis Games
Release Date: September 2010
Platforms: Windows then OS X

Civilization V will feature an entirely new game engine scripted in Lua, as well as a hexagonal map instead of the square tiles of earlier games in the series. The combat system will also be overhauled, including allowing only one unit per tile and giving cities the ability to defend themselves. Many elements new to Civilization IV and its expansion packs will be removed or changed in the game, such as religion and espionage. In addition, the maps will contain a number of computer controlled city states as non-player characters that are available for trade, diplomacy and conquest. A civilization’s borders will also expand more realistically, favoring more productive terrain, and the concept of roads will be changed.

Source: Wikipedia

You can watch trailers of Civilization V here.

Pre-order Civilization V from Amazon for $49.99 with a lowest-price pre-order guarantee.

Nuclear Dawn
Developer: Firaxis Games
Release Date: October 2010
Platforms: Windows then OS X

Nuclear Dawn is an upcoming post-apocalyptic video game that blends the FPS and RTS genres. It was originally announced in February 2006 as an amateur mod for the Source engine, but in April 2009 was revealed to have become a commercial project, still using Source, aimed at Windows PCs and the Xbox 360. It is unclear whether a retail release is planned.
Nuclear Dawn joins Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Natural Selection, The Ship, They Hunger: Lost Souls and Garry’s Mod as former mods of Valve products that have become commercial projects.

Source: Wikipedia

You can watch trailers of Nuclear Dawn on YouTube here.

RAGE
Developer: id Software
Release Date: Jan 4, 2011
Platforms: Mac OS X and Windows

RAGE is an upcoming first-person shooter and racing video game in development by id Software. It will use the company’s new id Tech 5 engine. The game was announced on August 2, 2007 at QuakeCon. On the same day, a trailer for the game was released by Gametrailers.com.

Information available so far indicates that the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world similar to that of films such as Mad Max 2. In an interview with GameSpot, designer Tim Willits revealed that the game is set in the near future following the impact of 99942 Apophis. Matthew J. Costello, who worked on the plot of Doom 3, is also working on the Rage plot. Influences on the driving and racing gameplay include games such as MotorStorm and Burnout, according to another Willits interview by Shacknews. Players will be able to upgrade their cars with money won from races.

Source: Wikipedia

You can watch trailers of RAGE on YouTube here.

Pre-order RAGE from Amazon for $59.99 with a lowest-price pre-order guarantee.

Portal 2
Developer: Valve Corporation
Release Date: TBA 2011
Platforms: Mac OS X and Windows

Portal 2 will continue to challenge the player by solving puzzles in test chambers within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center using the portal gun (the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device), a device that can create two portals connecting two surfaces across space. Players solve puzzles by using these portals to move unconventionally between rooms or to use the ability to fling objects or themselves across a distance. The functionality of the gun has not changed between the games, but within Portal 2, players can take advantage of the bleeding of other physical effects through the portals.

Game Informer identified two examples of this: one was the ability to use air currents created by a series of transport pneumatic tubes through a set of portal openings to push a turret over or to draw objects into the suction. The second example was to use the power of tractor beams through portals to bring Chell or other objects to otherwise inaccessible areas. The game also introduces special paint that can be used to impart certain physical effects to a surface (for example, one identified by Game Informer is an orange paint that when stepped on will impart high speed to the player). The player will be required to determine how to transport that paint to appropriate surfaces using portals in order to progress. This paint can also be applied to objects, such as the Weighted Storage Cube crates that affect their own physical nature. In addition to the Storage Cube, there are new types of portable objects that assist the player, including Redirection Cubes with mirrored, reflective surfaces, Aerial Faith Plates that can launch objects placed on them, and spherical Weighted Storage Balls, which made a brief appearance in the original game in one of the advanced chambers.

Source: Wikipedia

Diablo III
Developer: Blizzard Entertainment
Release Date: TBA
Platforms: Mac OS X and Windows

The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II. Warriors that survived the onslaught of the armies of the Burning Hells have gone mad from their ordeals and it is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary. Players will have the opportunity to explore familiar settings such as Tristram.

The only confirmed NPC is Deckard Cain, who has appeared in both of the previous games. Cain’s journal on the official site brings the player up to speed on the events of the first two games. Diablo’s world map is composed primarily of two main continents with several small islands in the Northwest region.

Source: Wikipedia

You can watch trailers of Diablo III on YouTube here.

Pre-order Diablo III from Amazon for $59.99 with a lowest-price pre-order guarantee.

Kudos go to my girlfriend for sussing this one out.

Recently, we came across a conundrum concerning the computer game Sacred 2 running under Windows 7. Long story short, it just wouldn’t work. It should be noted that the reason for this not working, has nothing to do with Nvidia / ATI Graphics cards, but it is related to Physx/Ageia. Make sure you have the latest version of Physx installed. Sacred 2 does come with the last version of Physx known as Ageia Physx (before nvidia bought it and rebranded it to just Physx). You can also obtain the latest stand alone Physx package from the nvidia website. Even if you have an ATI graphics card, you still need to have this installed to play Sacred 2 and any other games that require Physx. So long as your CPU supports it and it is powerful enough, you’ll get CPU powered physics, instead of physics powered by your graphics card. Some people call this “Software Physics” or “Software” mode. I’ve noticed no performance difference between a computer playing Sacred 2 with an Nvidia graphics card and a computer with an ATI graphics card.

This fix should work for owners of Sacred 2 under Windows 7, regardless of the version you have (Steam, Impulse, Stand alone or whatever).

1. Create a shortcut to the Sacred 2 executable. You’ll find it in the game directory, in another directory called ‘system’. For me, it is: D:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Sacred 2\System\Sacred2.exe
2. Put the shortcut on your desktop, or somewhere handy.
3. Right click the shortcut and select properties
4. Click the Shortcut tab
5. In the Target field, you need to add the following: -skipopenal -nocpubinding. The contents of my Target field look like this: "D:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\sacred 2\system\sacred2.exe" -skipopenal -nocpubinding
6. Click Apply and Click OK.
7. Double click the shortcut and play Sacred 2!

Still can’t get it to work? Leave a comment and I’ll see what I can do to help you out. Further comments and suggestions are welcome. These are just simply the steps that worked for us. In case you are wondering, we are using the RTM (Release To Manfacture) version of Windows 7 (we are Microsoft Technet Partners). This is the same version that is available to consumers and end users as of mid October 2009.

RF Online is quite possibly the best MMORPG I have ever played, given that I have only played it for 2 hours so far, and I am already hooked! The music, the beautiful graphics, the story line, the playability, everything, it’s perfect! It even has FMV cut scene footage! Better yet, it is entirely free to play! That’s right! No fees, no credit card required! Entirely free to play forever!

For ages I have been searching for an MMORPG that I could really sink my teeth into, without having to worry about losing money or credit time, because I had to work, and now I have found it! I had found a few before, but the graphics were always clunky, the game play strange, and it just never really stuck with me. RF Online has certainly changed that!

Chrnocat recently began a free Ragnarok Online server, called Pegasus Ragnarok Online. In fact, we are set to have a Ragnarok LAN this weekend! A few of us are meeting up at our place to play together, and the rest play remotely. 10x10x10 stats (at least I hope) so that we can make a good amount of progress over the weekend. Should be good fun!
I wonder if I can convince them all to play RF Online instead? I love this game so much already! I have found my calling!

So far I have managed to do a fair amount of complaining about Windows Vista. In particular, I have referred my quality of computer gaming, gone down the drain, due to the strain and drain that Windows Vista puts on my computer. Well campers, I found a solution to my problems just hours ago.

WARNING:

BY FOLLOWING THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW, YOU AGREE THAT I WILL ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR DAMAGE CAUSED TO ANYONES COMPUTER THROUGH MISS USE OR MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW. PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW AT YOUR OWN RISK. JUST COVERING MY ASS. FEEL FREE TO POST ANY QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS

Step 1 – Install TweakVista

Yep, download and install this baby. Once installed, customise to your hearts content. Try disabling lots of things. TweakVista won’t let you break your computer, so go ahead, disable stuff. In particular, disable any services or programs you don’t need running. You might need to visit the services list in the Windows Vista administrative tools (not a section in TweakVista). Once there, go through the list and stop / disable any services that you do not use.

Do yourself a favour. If you haven’t already, disable User Account Access Control. Windows Vista will fuss about it, so disable the annoying pop ups too. If you don’t have a home network, there are heaps of services you can disable that would otherwise be sucking up precious memory!

Step 2 – Disable Windows Display Manager

Yep. This is the fancy smancy applet/gizmo that runs on top of windows and gives you that funky glass (or not so funky glass if you have Vista Basic) look on your desktop. You can disable the Windows Display Manager in TweakVista. Alternatively, you can tune your computer for performance instead of looks. You can do this under Advanced System Settings, in the Control Panel, under System.

Your desktop environment will be reminiscent of Windows XP Classic, but heck, does it really matter?

Step 3 – Update!

Make sure you have all available Windows Vista updates installed. Also, make sure you have the latest graphics drivers installed. If you are like me and have an ATI Radeon 9800 SE (software modded to be an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) then make sure you have the latest modded driver.

Step 3 – Reboot and Play Games

I couldn’t believe the performance hit! Suddenly my games were fast, EVERYTHING was fast! My computer logged on to the desktop in seconds. It now also only takes seconds to shut down! Absolutely amazing stuff!

Summary

Install TweakVista – Customise your system for performance rather than features

Disable any unneeded or unnecessary services – Take your time, read the descriptions. Disabled as much as you can. If you are unsure – LEAVE IT!

Adjust your system for best performance – Disable Windows Display Manager (WDM). You won’t have your fancy looking interface, but you will be saving on that new graphics card you were considering purchasing.

Well! To all those of you who told me Starcraft 2 would never here; To all those of you who told me the original developers took it to their graves when they left Blizzard; To all those of you who told me Blizzard were too busy with World of Warcraft; and finally to all those of you who were just talking out your asses;

NYYYYYEEEERRRRRRRRR!!!! It’s here!!! So go and check it out right now!

Starcraft 2 Official Website

Windows 2000 note

To get the executables (EXE) files to work under Windows 2000 and Windows XP, we’re going to use a feature of Windows 2000 SP2 and Windows XP called “compatibility mode”. Windows XP users have this feature enabled by default, but users of Windows 2000 (and only users of Windows 2000) must first install at least Service Pack 2 (SP4 is the latest). Once you’ve installed SP2,SP3 or SP4, you must then perform the following, as detailed in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 279792.

1. Make sure you are logged on to Windows 2000 as a user with Administrative privileges (or as the Administrator account itself). If yours is the only account on the system then it’s probably an administrator account. Administrators accounts can make any changes in the control panel, so if you can do that, then you’re an administrator.

2. Open the start menu and click on “Run…”

3. Type: regsvr32 %systemroot%\apppatch\slayerui.dll

4. Hit Run (or press enter)

That’s it. Now you have compatibility modes available to you, so move on to the next section.

NOTE: This guide is for the Windows Version of Both C&C and Red Alert – I am providing no support for the DOS versions whatsoever. NB: The Gold Version of C&C is just simply the Windows Version (aka C&C95) of C&C. There are no special features in the game other then the Internet play.

Installation and Playing – C&C

Installation

1. Insert either C&C95 disk into the CD-ROM drive.

2. Close the Command & Conquer Windows 95 Edition CD-ROM Autoplay window that appears (if Autoplay is turned on)

3. Click on the Start button at the bottom Left Of Your screen, and then click on My Computer

4. In the My Computer window, right-click on the C&C95 CD-ROM icon (labeled GDI95 or NOD95) and select Open.

5. In the CD-ROM window, right-click on the Autorun icon, and select Properties.

6. On the Autorun Properties window, click on the Compatibility tab.

7. On the Compatibility tab, make sure the “Run this program in compatibility mode” check box is selected, and that Windows 95 is selected in the drop down box.

8. Click OK.

9. Double-click the Autorun.exe icon to start the setup process. This will start the Command & Conquer Windows 95 Edition CD-ROM Autoplay Program.

10. Select the Install C&C:Win95 button, this will start the installation process.

11. On the Select Components screen, unselect the DirectX audio and video drivers (recommended) option. You do not need to install DirectX on Windows XP.

12. Follow the remainder of the steps until you reach the Install Westwood Online Program. It is important to install this component now if you plan to play C&C95 on the Internet.

13. When installation of all components is complete, select “I will restart my computer later”, then click Finish.

14. Installation is now complete.

Playing

1. Click on the Start button at the bottom Left of your screen, then click All Programs.

2. Click on the Westwood entry in the list that appears, then click on Command & Conquer 95.

3. Right-click on Command & Conquer Windows 95 Edition and select Properties.

4. Click on the Compatibility tab, and make sure the “Run this program in compatibility mode” check box is selected, and that Windows 95 appears in the drop down box.

5. Click OK.

6. Click on the Start button at the bottom Left Of Your screen, then click All Programs.

7. Click on the Westwood entry in the list that appears, then click on Westwood Chat.

8. Right-click on Westwood Chat and select Properties.

9. Click on the Compatibility tab, and make sure the “Run this program in compatibility mode” check box is selected, and that Windows 95 appears in the drop down down box.

10. Click OK.

11. In order to run C&C95 you will need the Latest product update. This will happen automatically if you connect to the Westwood Online service by running the Westwood Chat application, and then following the instructions contained in the manual to play a game. However it is possible (I haven’t checked though) that Westwood online is not longer running, so alternatively, you can update your game without the use of Westwood chat by downloading the XP patch.

The Windows XP Patch can be found here:

ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/ccgold/CCGOLDXPPATCH.ZIP

Unfortunately, LAN play is disabled. There is no way to enable LAN play at all. The number one reason is due to the fact that the IPX protocol was re-written in Windows XP/2000, and is now incompatible with C&C. C&C uses a different layer of the IPX protocol to play multiplayer over a network. This layer is no longer used and was phased out of the IPX protocol. Your best bet would be to find a program that can emulate the Westwood online server locally, and play across that. I have no idea if such a thing exists though. There may also be other ways to play across IPX, but that would mean you don’t apply the patch, and therefore can’t run the game in Windows XP or 2000.

To install the Covert Operations, you will need to have installed C&C95 into its default location, or one that is similar to its default location, or the DOS based setup program will not be able to locate your installation due to its limited ability to read long directory names.

Installing and Playing C&C – Red Alert

Installation

1. Insert either C&C – Red Alert disk into the CD-ROM drive.

2. Close the Command & Conquer – Red Alert Windows 95 Edition CD-ROM Autoplay window that appears (if Autoplay is turned on)

3. Click on the Start button at the bottom Left Of Your screen, and then click on My Computer

4. In the My Computer window, right-click on the Red Alert CD-ROM icon (labeled RA1 or RA2) and select Open.

5. In the CD-ROM window, right-click on the Autorun icon, and select Properties.

6. On the Autorun Properties window, click on the Compatibility tab.

7. On the Compatibility tab, make sure the “Run this program in compatibility mode” check box is selected, and that Windows 95 is selected in the drop down box.

8. Click OK.

9. Double-click the Autorun.exe icon to start the setup process. This will start the Command & Conquer Windows 95 Edition CD-ROM Autoplay Program.

10. Select the Install Red Alert button, this will start the installation process.

11. On the Select Components screen, unselect the DirectX audio and video drivers (recommended) option. You do not need to install DirectX on Windows XP.

12. Follow the remainder of the steps until you reach the Install Westwood Online Program. It is important to install this component now if you plan to play Red Alert on the Internet. Yes, this will update the version of Westwood Online you may currently have if you installed it from C&C earlier.

13. When installation of all components is complete, select “I will restart my computer later”, then click Finish.

14. Installation is now complete.

Playing

1. Click on the Start button at the bottom Left of your screen, then click All Programs.

2. Click on the Westwood entry in the list that appears, then click on Red Alert 95.

3. Right-click on Red Alert Windows 95 Edition and select Properties.

4. Click on the Compatibility tab, and make sure the “Run this program in compatibility mode” check box is selected, and that Windows 95 appears in the drop down box.

5. Click OK.

6. Click on the Start button at the bottom Left Of Your screen, then click All Programs.

7. Click on the Westwood entry in the list that appears, then click on Westwood Chat.

8. Right-click on Westwood Chat and select Properties.

9. Click on the Compatibility tab, and make sure the “Run this program in compatibility mode” check box is selected, and that Windows 95 appears in the drop down down box

10. Click OK.

11. In order to run Red Alert 95 you will need the Latest product update. This will happen automatically if you connect to the Westwood Online service by running the Westwood Chat application, and then following the instructions contained in the manual to play a game. However it is possible (I havent’ checked though) that Westwood online is not longer running, so alternatively, you can update your game without the use of Westwood chat by downloading the XP patch. The Windows XP Patch can be found here:

ftp://ftp.westwood.com/pub/redalert/updates/RA108USP.EXE

Download the RA108USP.EXE patch to your Red Alert directory (this is usually C:\REDALERT or C:\WESTWOOD\REDALERT directory). After the files are copied, simply Double click on RA108USP.EXE to begin the update process, and select Y to replace the three existing files.

Now you should be able to run Red Alert using the “Red Alert Windows 95 Edition” icon in your Red Alert folder in the Start Menu.

LAN and Internet Play should function Normally in Red Alert, although there are many people who have found and encounter quirks with it. You may want to search the Internet for solutions to these.

To install the expansions Counterstrike, and Aftermath, follow the same instructions as above to install Red Alert. If you have both expansions, you should install Counterstrike first, and then install Aftermath.

If you are unable to play multiplayer, please refer to the tutorial entitled Command and Conquer Windows Edition Over TCP / IP.