Last but not least, say hello to the newest combatants in the world of Red Alert, the Empire of the Rising Sun. Or "Japanese", for short. These guys are flexible, but they're easily the most difficult to play, requiring a quick hotkey finger and careful timing for tricky kamikaze attacks, balloon bombs, and banzai charges.

Meet the Japanese after the jump.

Buildings
When the Japanese buy a building from their Construction Yard, they don't get a building. Instead they get a drone. But before you demand your money back, note that you can drive the drone somewhere and unpack into whatever building was ordered. This gives the Japanese a lot of flexibility for where they build, since the drone can go wherever the heck it feels like. But it's also an extra bit of micromanagement. During the beta, I spent a lot of time wondering what happened to that drone I had just ordered…

Infantry
The Burst Drone is a zippy little dragonfly robot that can trigger a five-second self-destruct timer to go out in a blip of glory. Maybe the enemy will stand still long enough to feel the tiny burst.

Imperial Warriors get a Banzai charge to move faster and do extra damage to infantry. Duh. What else would a Banzai charge do?

Tankbuster anti-armor soldiers can burrow into the ground to protect themselves from damage. They wear coolie hats, making them the most identifiable infantry in the game.

Engineers have a sprint ability that will help them get where they need to go faster than other engineers. It's about time someone lit a fire under the pokey engineers. Look for the Japanese to hog all the neutral locations early on because their engineers get there first.

Shinobi ninjas are good at flipping out on infantry and enemy buildings. Their Smoke Bombs help them temporarily evade enemy attacks, like ninjas do.

Flying Rocket Angels can fire multiple blue warheads or they can incapacitate a single target with a single blue beam. The Japanese love blue beams and blue rocket trails.

Yuriko Omega is no mere floating schoolgirl. This Japanese commando's Psychokinetic Burst damages all units around her. By the way, why does Red Alert 3 not have any male commandos? Does EA not think men are qualified to be commandos?

Vehicles
The Sudden Transport can assume the shape of an enemy vehicle and then carry up to five infantry units somewhere crucial, hopefully before the other guy notices one of his tanks driving around of its own accord. It is also the unit in the game with the dumbest name.

Swap the Tengu robot between its flying anti-air "jet" form, and its hovering anti-infantry "mech" form. This sort of role flexibility is a trademark of the Japanese. First it's one thing. Pow! Now it's another!

Tsunami Tanks' Nanodeflectors toggle a brief defensive bonus at the cost of reduced attack damage. And with a name like Tsunami, you know it can drive over water.

The VX is more than meets the eye. It has a flying "chopper" form that attacks ground targets and a walking form that attacks air units. By the way, that was a Transformers reference earlier.

King Oni has wandered in from some anime cartoon. He's the ultimate Japanese bot for dispatching enemy vehicles. With the Bull Rush, he can charge into battle and inflict extra damage.

Wave-Force Artillery has a slow refratory period between energy burst shots. Hit the, uh, Premature Discharge button for a more immediate attack. Ridicule ensues.

Aircraft
Whoa, wait, where's the air force? Surprise, there isn't one! The Rising Sun doesn't have a dedicated air force. Instead, their Jet Tengu, Chopper-VX, and Sky-Wing convert into an air force as needed. The Japanese player will have to perfect his micromanagement skills.

Ships
The stealthy Yari Mini-Sub can perform a suicide strike with its Last Voyage ability. Are you detecting a theme yet?

The Sea-Wing starts out as a submarine, but can covert into a Sky-Wing with a rapid-firing anti-ground beam weapon. Never mind that it looks like a re-skinned Scrin fighter from Command & Conquer 3. It's not. I'm telling you, it's a Japanese Sky-Wing.

Naginata Cruisers are powerful ships that can deploy a spray of forward-fired Type-S Torpedoes. They're kind of boring. I'd much rather have a dolphin or a giant squid.

Initiate the Shogun Battleship's Ramming Speed ability to nose it into enemy ships and hurt them. It's the at-sea version of running over infantry with a tank.

Protocols
As a game progresses, and especially as you fight battles, you earn points you can spend on protocols unique to each factions. Every protocol costs only a single point, but they're arranged in three branches of five protocols. In each branch, you have to purchase the first protocol before the second is available, and so on. Following are the three "branches" for the Rising Sun faction:

Fortified Fleet improves the health, visibility range, and speed of all Japanese ships. With vitamins, it sounds like. Point Defense Drones can be used on a small area to equip Japanese vehicles with little robots that reduce incoming damage. Over time, you can kit out quite a few vehicles with these guys, as they don't go away until they're lost in a fight. Final Squadron I, II, and Omega are powerful kamikaze attacks.

Honorable Discharge causes an explosion when a unit is close to death (not to be confused with Premature Discharge). Emperors Rage, Revenge, and Retribution improve the attack ability of target units, but reduces their movement speed for some reason. Robotic Assembly reduces the time it takes to build new units, which frankly feels like a raw deal when the Soviets get cheaper units and the Allies get improved income.

Advanced Rocket Pods improve the damage of Japanese units that fire rockets. Duh. Sleeper Ambush orders an instant Tankbuster army to emerge from the ground. Perfect for surprise birthday parties. Balloon Bombs, Bomb Blowouts, and Bomb Barrages are three levels of increasingly powerful attacks that drift slowly down from the sky, giving enemy units plenty of time to amble out of the way. Provided, of course, the other player is paying attention.

Superweapon
The Nanoswarm Hive deploys a circular energy barrier that lasts for about twenty-seconds. While it's up, nothing can pass into or out of the barrier. Use it for protection, area denial, or unlawful detainment.