Red Alert 1 essentially is a massive expansion pack to the original... or a reskin. Whatever you would call it. Gameplay wise it's superior. I absolutely love both C&C 1 and Red Alert 1 to death, but I think C&C 1 has a slightly cooler setting. Theres more Kane.

Tiberian Sun is fantastic, and the least dated. My personal favorite. However, it does do quite a bit different from the first, and has more of a sci-fi thing going on. Red Alert 2 is basically Tiberian Sun gone Red Alert.
Battle for Middle Earth 1 was excellent. I didn't know that C&C devs went on to make that. The campaign in BFME 1 is one of my favorite RTS campaigns of all time. It's the only LOTR game that I actually wanted to be like the movies instead of the books. Because the movies translate well into RTS form.

I'm a huge fan of the LOTR books and I LOVED LOTRO for capturing the feel of them perfectly. But when BFME 2 was supposedly more "true to the books", I call bullcrap. That campaign was utter boring trash. The gameplay improved I felt, but I wasn't buying the game for the online. I want me a good damn campaign.

I don't like Generals. I played it for the first time this year (after Age of Mythology) and it was too ugly, empty and not RA2. There is no (C&C) soul.

Yes true, but would we have Quake as it is without him?

As for Generals I really don't like the game. For me it isn't a proper C&C game, it has solid gameplay and a good fast paced multiplayer, but singleplayer is almost non existent.
Don't know why it had to be labeled C&C.

C&C is all about Tiberium and Red Alert although they made a complete mess out of those with RA3 and C&C4 and ruined both.
C&C3 was a nice surprise that EA is capable of a good C&C game, too bad it didn't last.

Having not played C&C 4 or RA3 I'm curious to know what's wrong with them - it's a simple enough formula - you harvest, you build, you tank rush - how do you screw that up THAT badly?

Like I said IMO RA3 is great. C&C4 however isn't a C&C game it was some free to play online game that was scrapped and hastily re-packaged as one. You don't even build a base in C&C4 you have a mobile construction vehicle. If it wasn't for the presence of Joe Kucan then there would be nothing connecting the game to C&C at all.

C&C4 completely changed the formula trying to go rts-mmo and failed completely.

RA3 added the Empire of the Rising Sun and I dislike the whole fraction, but it's mostly a matter of taste if you like Japanese meha stuff or not.
The campaign has the same number of missions as in previous games but you have 3 sides now so it's 1/3 shorter with a weak storyline or none at all.

The missions themselves are co-op based so even if you play solo you have always a computer ally who on higher difficulties can't cope with the situation. This leads to much frustration as you are helpless.

They also went for a hard counter system, even harder then seen in Blizzard games with every unit having one unique ability.
So what you get in multiplayer is constant cheese and rushes with most games ending below the 5 minute mark.

It's only good if you have a buddy for the campaign, other than that not much going for that game.

Eugh! How sad - cheers!

And the way they marketed the game was atrocious.
REAL CLASSY

RA3 is fun, but it's also kind of Japanese in style. All the artwork looks like it came from somebody that is more accustomed to designing for JRPGs.

I don't personally think it's too bad, but the whole game is extremely silly.

Red Alert has always been silly, just look at the intro to Yuri's Revenge. RA3 just turned it up to eleven and quite frankly that's why I liked it so much. A refreshing change from all the po-faced serious games that dominate the market these days.

It wasn't always silly, C&C:RA wasn't anymore silly than C&C was, it just had somewhat brighter colors and wasn't so morose.

Which reminds me, I really ought to reinstall C&C:RA3 as I haven't played in a while.

Being silly is OK, even great if you read my real complaints it wasn't a really god game considering real gameplay.

RA2 and Yuri were totally over the top but had a more coherent experience overall, while this is just crammed stuff together and they went full retard with it.

RA2 was the best, hands down. So much content and attention to detail. Blew me away completely.

I enjoyed RA3, nothing more to really say about it. It sure was pretty though.

And EA made them rush RA 2. Imagine that game being even better.