Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2

The fourth main game in the Command and Conquer series, Red Alert 2 is set during the 70's, when the supposed puppet-Premier of the USSR leads a world communist alliance in a surprise invasion of the United States, with the help of the mindbending psychic Yuri. Though once more the Allies rally to win the war, Yuri has his own plans and steals a time machine in an attempt to conquer the past. He's thwarted, but the time travel shenanigans aren't finished.

'''Please note that this page is for tropes specific to this game. Please add tropes relating to multiple games to the Red Alert series page.'''

This game and its expansion contain examples of:

 * Awesome Personnel Carrier: The Battle Fortress and IFV are awesome in their own way. The IFV can change armaments depending on the troop type it is carrying; the Battle Fortress can crush other vehicles!
 * Badass: The Hollywood actors that help the Allied commander during the Hollywood mission in Yuri's Revenge are fairly badass in their own right.
 * Badass Bystander: Generic civilians in other RA 2 missions will sometimes open fire on enemy troops (yours or the opposition, depending). They don't do very much damage. This is slightly more prevalent in Yuri's Revenge, if any mind-controlled civilians happen to be standing around Yuri's structures when the player disables the psychic dominators on the map.
 * Present, in typical awesome fashion in the second Allied mission in Yuri's Revenge, where you defend Hollywood, and find a few curiously familiar names, such as Flint Westwood, Arnnie Frankenfurter, and Sammy Stallion. 'Flint' can insta-kill infantry with his revolver, 'Arnnie' totes a minigun and is Nigh Invulnerable, and 'Sammy' somehow managed to put a Grenade Launcher attachment on his M-60 that can blow up any structure instantly. As such, Flint can annihilate waves of infantry, Arnnie just laughs when anything up to a tank shoots him, and Sammy can demolish entire bases in a few seconds, if you can keep them away from their horrendous weakness to various things.
 * Bald of Evil: Yuri.
 * Bland-Name Product: McBurger Kong, a spoof of McDonald's and Burger King.
 * Cartoonish Supervillainy: Pretty much the entire premise of Yuri and his faction, which ups the somewhat ridiculous RA arsenal Up to Eleven with the addition of genetically mutated Hulk look-a-likes, psychically powered infantry, UFOs, and so on. Then there's the expansion campaign, which features such gems as weaponized Moai statues, an Arctic/Moon base, and a gothic Transylvanian mansion headquarters. Regardless of which campaign, all of Yuri's plans end up failing spectacularly and then Yuri himself eventually being submitted to some humiliating fate.
 * Casting Gag: Barry Corbin, who plays General Carville in RA2, is basically reprising his role as General Berringer from War Games. There's even an explicit Shout-Out during one of the Ant missions ("I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good!").
 * Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: General Vladimir, who was an important supporting character in Red Alert 2, is nowhere to be seen in Yuri's Revenge, its expansion pack.
 * Devil in Plain Sight: Yuri. Sure he's part of a villain faction, but he's Obviously Evil even compared to the other characters, and nobody but the brainless General Failure suspects him of treachery. See also, Obvious Judas below.
 * Dirty Coward: Yuri's gattling tanks and Magnatrons: they certainly like to dish out punishment at long range but flee at the first whiff of a counterattack.
 * Early-Bird Cameo: Many people don't realize that General Carville (and his actor) appeared in the second expansion of Red Alert 1, making him the only actor to appear in multiple titles and the only character other than Einstein to do so. This may have something to do with his only appearing in the Playstation release of the game under the Retaliation name.
 * Easy Level Trick: The second Allied level can be beaten by skipping your base building and using your starting forces to destroy the levels target.
 * Everything Is Big in Texas: In Red Alert 2, one Soviet mission has you hunting down the U.S. president in San Antonio. All of the male civilians wear cowboy hats and fire handguns at you. The U.S. base is actually around the Alamo, though they don't garrison it. But you can.
 * Everything's Squishier with Cephalopods: Soviet anti-ship squids.
 * Evil Laugh: Crazy Ivan.
 * General Failure: General Vladimir, the incompetent glory hound who's your superior in the first half of the Soviet campaign. He gets you into trouble in the second mission by assaulting the vastly superior American fleet with only his personal command ship, and then leaving you to deal with them as he flees the battle. Then when you have completed the destruction of the U.S. East Coast fleet, he takes credit for your accomplishments by returning to Moscow before you can. His one saving grace is being savvy enough to see through Yuri, but it feels rewarding when you finally remove him from command.
 * Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: Literally; Yuri's "Genetic Mutator" superweapon instantly converts a bunch of people into massive musclemen.
 * The Good, the Bad, and The Evil: The Allies, the Soviets and Yuri (and his faction).
 * Historical In-Joke: Possible example in the briefing for one of the Soviet missions. The player is shown a picture of Stalin, with Yuri edited in on his right. This picture really exists and is famous for being doctored, the real life version showing Stalin sat next to Lenin, who bears a fairly strong resemblance to Yuri. This version of the picture, created at the behest of Stalin, is a forgery to try and give him more credibility as one of Lenin's closest collaborators.
 * Human Resources: Yuri's Bio-Reactors from the Red Alert 2 expansion. They don't generate much power on their own, but "garrison" infantry in them and they become some of the best power plants in the game.
 * Large Ham: Premier Romanov
 * General Vladimir too: Behold the power. OF MOTHER RUSSIA!
 * Lighter and Softer: Unlike its darker and more serious predecessor, Red Alert 2 has a rather campy and light-hearted tone.
 * Mad Bomber: Crazy Ivan. Full of one-liners to match. "I lost a bomb... do you have it?"
 * "Here, hold this!"
 * Made of Explodium:
 * Not only barrels, but pretty much every scenery prop explodes (albeit harmlessly), even if you only ordered a GI/Conscript/Initiate to shoot at it. A bunch of tires is passable, but beach towels?
 * Yuri's "Psychic Dominator" weapon permanently mind-controls a few enemy units. It also, for some bizarre reason, makes all nearby buildings explode.
 * Mood Dissonance: The game's cheery atmosphere gets a bit more serious when Carville dies.
 * No Campaign for the Wicked: Yuri in Yuri's Revenge does not have a campaign.
 * Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Justified. The Allied supply is detonated at the start of the game.
 * Averted by the Soviet Union, though. Romanov assures the player in one mission that "After you feel pain from my nuclear bombs, you will WEESH for ANOTHAIR chance!"
 * Obvious Judas: . There's something suspicious about him from the very beginning, and he only gets more suspicious as the game goes on. By the time it gets the point that   is murdered, it's already blatently obvious that he has an agenda. Then comes his 'proof' that   is responsible. Miraculously, the player character still seems to see nothing wrong.
 * The Player Is the Most Important Resource: The video cutscenes after the final mission acknowledge that the success of the final battle was due to your leadership.
 * Playing with Fire: Yuri's Initiates are psychics who attack by burning things with their powers.
 * Power Glows: Starting with Red Alert 2, any unit that makes it to Heroic (max veterancy) status will find their weapon fire glowing red, either in the form of a large red muzzle flash, the projectiles themselves glow, or the explosions they create are bright red mushroom clouds bigger than the unit itself. Heroic-level Grizzly, Rhino, and Apocalypse tanks launched two miniature nuclear shells per barrel, and Heroic-level V3 Launchers and Dreadnoughts launched V3 rockets with small nuclear warheads. Kirovs also got tesla bombs, at least doubling the area of effect with a blue electrical glow.
 * Spiteful AI: The mind control tanks take damage if it mind controls too many units. It will happily push forward and Mind Rape as many units as it can regardless of this until it is destroyed.
 * Symbology Research Failure: Red Alert 2 has Russian Orthodox Church architecture on Communist structures.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything:
 * McBurger Kong restaurants from RA2 feature a giant ape statue/sign on the roof. When the building is garrisoned the ape gains a commando-style headband, when the building is damaged into the red the ape covers its eyes as if cowering in fear.
 * An Allied mission of Yuri's Revenge, which takes place in Sidney, Australia, has instead the McRoo Burger restaurant, complete with a giant kangaroo on the roof!
 * Unperson: Yuri brands general Vladimir a traitor and a "non-person" after setting him up for Romanov's murder. Having known Stalin personally, he probably picked up the habit from the man himself.
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: Yuri's faction has the Grinder machine, which you can send your obedient soldiers (or hypnotized enemies/civilians) into to be shredded into valuable scrap bits.
 * One allied mission sees you trying to destroy a network of such devices Yuri's built in Los Angeles. There's no time limit on the mission, though, so you're free to watch brainwashed civilians walk into them for as long as you like while you build up your forces.
 * Villainous Breakdown: Premier Romanov in Allies campaign, especially after the player destroyer the 3 nuclear silos in one of the missions.
 * Violent Glaswegian: The crew of the Allied Battle Fortress in Yuri's Revenge certainly qualifies, though the accent is pretty bad.
 * Battle Fortress: ROLLING THUNDER!!