Xbox and PlayStation consoles have done well with their respective free-game schemes. They can reward loyal players and help tempt in new ones by giving away hours and hours of button-bashing entertainment, so why wouldn’t it work on other platforms too? That’s what EA is hoping with its next On the House promotion, with this giveaway making the classic RTS Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 and its expansion, Yuri’s Revenge, free for everyone.
There’s no timing on this exclusive, but you need to go download it to make it yours. Once you’ve done that though, it will remain part of your Origin collection forever — though considering this is a game released in 2000 (no matter how classic it is) this isn’t a big, costly release for EA.
Red Alert 2 was one of the last games produced by Westwood Pacific, with just a couple of more titles launched through the early 2000s, before EA, its parent company, shut it down for good in 2003. It’s good then that Red Alert 2 was so well received. It chronicles a fictional struggle between “Allied” Western nations and the Soviet Union in a war filled with lasers, attack dogs, mutants, and more outlandish weaponry.
It also features live-action cut scenes with some wonderfully hammy acting, if you like that sort of thing.
Although EA’s Origin is said to have a large install base in the many tens of millions — mostly thanks to large franchises like Battlefield — it certainly falls behind in public support and user-base compared to the likes of Steam. Although a somewhat comparable platform in terms of the service it offers, many people have found its usage a pain, as it further fragments their game collection.
How do you find EA’s Origin service, and if you haven’t used it, will a free copy of Red Alert 2 tempt you over?
