command-and-conquer-red-alert posts

Sometimes you just need to sit down, slide a floppy into your A: drive, and enjoy gaming retro style. We know this all too well! That's why we have a list of the best and brightest from days long gone. These are some of our favorite games of all time, and we're sure that you'll love them as much as we do, if not more. Welcome to Boot Disk, and enjoy the retro ride!

Where the first Command and Conquer established a dynasty whose influence on the strategy scene is still felt to this day, it is hardly the defining strategy game from Westwood. No, that honor is bestowed upon Red Alert, quite possibly one of the best real-time strategy games ever made. Easily surpassing its predecessor, Red Alert forever changed the face of real-time strategy and paved the way for later genre-definer Starcraft. It's hard to overstate the impact Red Alert has had, and a look back at this classic is always well-deserved.

As promised Electronic Arts has provided the original Command and Conquer: Red Alert RTS game as a free download. The web site with the downloads has requested that mirror sites not provide the download at their locations so Big Download won't be able to offer up our mirrors as planned.

EA has provided the full Soviet and Allied portions of the the game as separated ISO downloads of 500 MB each. The ISO file must be burned into a CD in order for the game to run. The software will work on Windows XP and older Windows programs down to Windows 95. While Vista is not officially supported, EA suggests going to various fan sites for tips to run the game on that OS.

As a promotion for the upcoming release of Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3, Electronic Arts has announced that C&C: Red Alert, the first game in the series, will be made available as a free download beginning on Sunday. The original game was created by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Interactive way back in 1996 (EA bought both Westwood and Virgin's US operations in 1998).

The alternate history RTS game will be first made available on the official C&C: Red Alert 3 web site at 12 noon PT on Sunday but we will have the download on our ultra fast servers right here at Big Download soon afterward. As we have previously reported, people whe pre-order Red Alert 3 will gain access to C&C: Red Alert 2 for free as well.