10 Ambitious Video Games With Immensely Disappointing Stories
5. Command & Conquer: Red Alert
With such an amazing premise, this game should be among the best, most introspective and interesting of all time. Instead, it prefers to rely on easy laughs rather than a deep historical analysis.
Albert Einstein travels back in time to kill a young Adolf Hitler just after he leaves prison. This creates an alternative timeline, in which USSR rises to power and takes complete control over Eurasia. Einstein doesn't prevent World War II - it still takes place, only between years 1946 and 1953, positioning the Soviets against the Allies.
This should be awesome, right?
Well, not really. For starters, if they were able to kill Hitler, why didn't they kill Stalin as well?
The man was an actual monster and a bureaucratic genius, but throughout the game Stalin is presented as an idiot and a joke. He's tricked by Kane, the Command and Conquer fan favorite, to start a war and is killed at the end, no matter if you play as the Allies or the Soviets.
It takes just basic historical knowledge to see the ridiculousness of this plot.