Sprawling Red Alert 2 mod Mental Omega is finally finished
With 133 missions, it has grown well beyond an unofficial expansion. It's a beast all its own.
When we first wrote about Mental Omega back in 2018, the now 16 year old mod was already huge. But what Phil said at the time is still true, it's "a dramatic expansion" to one of the last great classic RTS. Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is one of those games that has a lot of fans not just because of its absurdly enjoyable FMV cutscenes, though those do rule, but because it's a hell of a lot of fun.
Its oddly asymmetrical factions and strange balance only got weirder with the Yuri's Revenge expansion, but the creators of Mental Omega really understand the game in a way that you'd need some 16 years of development time to implement. First rebalancing, then rebuilding the game with an entirely extra faction, and finally charting their own story for the game world's future through 133 campaign missions spread across the Allies, Soviets, the Yuri faction, and the new Foehn.
The work is done - our #RedAlert2 campaign is finally complete. All 133 missions are now available in the latest update of #MentalOmega. pic.twitter.com/XEOftXy3FqNovember 1, 2021
In addition to those campaigns it has features the original never did, like cooperative campaign missions that take place alongside the normal campaign. Improvements made to the game engine also add all manner of weird new effects: Anti-gravity weapons can send tanks flying through the air, or flip them over, for example.
There are even three subfactions for each major faction, giving each flavor a whole set of new gameplay options. Don't love the plodding soviets normal army? Check out the South American faction, which uses hit-and-run tactics. You can even play multiplayer with a pretty active community, thanks to the wizards at cncnet.
Mental Omega is free if you own a copy of Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 - Yuri's Revenge. You can find more informationa bout Mental Omega on its official website, mentalomega.com, and on moddb.
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Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.