Whilst my heart belongs to the sci-fi futurism of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun, its alternate-timeline sequel; Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is truly the zenith of the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre.
With the exception of the setting and story, every single element of Red Alert 2 is better than every Command & Conquer (C&C) game that has come before it, or since.
The mechanics are tight. The missions are challenging without being unfair. The graphics – whilst dated by any modern day standards – have a depth and charm appropriate for this diorama-like genre. And yes, the story is campy, vampy and stupid; but it is also fun.
Of course these games used to be played on CRT monitors that were tiny by modern standards. So a benefit of it being 2026 is that – instead of just scaling up the interface – you can expand your view of the battlefield to ridiculous sizes. In some cases, the resolutions available are so big now that the entire game map fits on one screen.
No C&C game since has got this balance of all of the things right. Being able to throw 2026 computing horsepower at it to add a modern flavour is just icing on the cake.