The attack dog doesn’t have a sonic stun-bark because it needs it for its early anti-infantry defense role it has one because RA3’s unit design is “the more abilities we can chuck on these units, the better.” Unfortunately, quantity does not equal quality, and the result is three armies of units all crippled with bloat, an excessive number of buttons to press that are unnecessary at best, overwhelming at worst.
Where RA2’s units had their quirks built into their standard functions like moving or attacking, RA3 simply takes a bucket full of different powers you could find in any MOBA and throws them at you. Even the damn attack dog has a “Sonic Bark.” It’s a hamfisted attempt to build upon RA2’s interesting and unique units. RA2’s gameplay features were taken to their extreme, most notably the way that every damn unit in RA3 has an activated ability. The result is three armies of units all crippled with bloat.
And the problem with that is it highlights just how much better Westwood was at designing an RTS. Bringing back iconic units in itself isn’t the issue-it’s that trying to imitate RA2 is all the game knows how to do.
