Something a bit exciting to start your Tuesday - a tasty demo from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 is coming your way! The sampler contains the entire cinematic opening from the full game (all 7 minutes of it!), plus three tutorials and two complete campaign missions. You can grab the 1.8 gig file right now, and it'll download happily over breakfast.

If you haven't yet tried Red Alert 3, now's your chance to dip your toe in the water of the game's "unique, fun, over-the-top universe" - before the first major content patch arrives, which promises to change the playing field, literally.

In the update due shortly, in addition to the usual balance tweaks and some enhancements to AutoMatch for multiplayer, the new patch is promising the powerful WorldBuilder map-making and mod tool, so you can set things up just the way you like.

...those of you jumping from PC to PC will like the other element of the patch too - a handy de-authorisation tool, allowing you to de-authorise previously authenticated versions of Red Alert 3 that you've installed on machines you don't want to play on any more. This will free up authorisation tokens, so you can set up the game on another PC, without having to deal with EA support.


Not sure whether you prefer the Soviets or the Allies? The demo doesn't mind, offering one campaign mission from each campaign to give you a proper taste of just what's in store in the full game.

* Krasna-45: Circus of Treachery – The second mission of the Soviet campaign, players will immediately be introduced to battling the series’ newest faction, the Empire of the Rising Sun, escorting the Soviet’s commando Natasha to a launch facility, protecting her from the Imperial ambush division waiting to attack.

* Heidelberg: The Famous Liberation – Players will then switch their attention over to the Allied cause, in the third mission in the Allied campaign, teaming up with an in-game Co-Commander to take out the Soviet’s powerful Iron Curtain and headquarters in Germany.

Available now for PC and Xbox 360, Red Alert 3 includes more naval warfare than ever before, and marks the genre's first foray into co-op play - all alongside the series' trademark live-action cheesy movie sequences, this time with the biggest, most impressive cast "in the history of video games". Gamers will see Jenny McCarthy, George Takei, Tim Curry, J.K. Simmons, Randy Couture, Gina Carano, Autumn Reeser, Kelly Hu and Gemma Atkinson all taking important roles in the outcome of the campaign.

So - remind me again, what are you waiting for, comrade? The demo is a free download to Internode customers... get in there!