Classics: Red Storm Rising

In the previous segment of Classic Games, I wrote about F19-Stealth Fighter. This edition features another Micro Prose game, Red Storm Rising. Red Storm Rising is a submarine simulation based off of Tom Clancy's book of the same name. You take command of an American nuclear attack submarine in the North Atlantic during World War 3.

The game was released in 1988 and I played it on the same computer that I played F19 on, a 286 system with a CGA monitor. The game is extremely detailed when it comes to the submarine gameplay. I was too young to understand many of the concepts, like temperature, sonar and noise. These are all critical elements, which explains my lack of success in many cases.

There was a map of Europe, which let you know how you were doing. If your missions were unsuccessful, you would see red start to creep over the continent. News stories and medals were also a part of the game. One memory that sticks out is when you start up a new game, you have to take a Warship Identification test. If you failed this test, you could only do training missions. I am guessing this was an anti-piracy measure. Speaking of ships, there were a good number of real-world ships, planes and subs that you would use and destroy.

Like F19, the manual is outstanding. It is 100 pages and full of useful and educational information. I recently purchased a copy of Red Storm Rising off of eBay, mainly for the manual. Sadly I do not have a 5.25 disk drive around. I wonder if anyone sells a USB version? The game fetches a good price still as it is still sought after by submarine simulation fans. It was another amazing game by Micro Prose, who will appear more in this series.

Side fact: There is a board game too.

(Post taken from an older blog attempt)

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Classics: Scorched Earth

Scorched Earth was a multi-player PC game that was popular in the early 90's. The basic premise was you controlled a piece of artillery, on a 2D destructible landscape, mostly mountains. Your opponents were scatted around the board as well. You all took turns shooting each other with a variety of weapons. The challenge was to line up the correct angles to actually hit your target.

I remember me and a bunch of grade school friends getting playing this at a friends house. it seemed pretty amazing then, and it was a lot of fun. There were some pretty big weapons that you could purchase, which took out a large chunk of the landscape. MIRV, a warhead which separated into multiple warheads (3 I think), was always fun as well.

The reason this game came to mind is that a real-time Scorched Earth is coming to X-Box Live, called Death Tank. This game was actually on the Sega Saturn, an Easter egg in Duke Nukem 3d. They have upgraded it a lot for the X-Box hardware. The old version was turn based, so we will have to see how this one goes. I will likely download the demo at least. Check out a gameplay video:


Death Tank XBLA from Rlan on Vimeo.

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Classics: F19 Stealth Fighter

F19 Stealth Fighter is one of my all-time favorite games. It was probably the first computer game that I played constantly.

I was young at the time, so I really did not understand all of the concepts. I played on my Dad's CGA (4 color) 286 PC at the time. F19 is a flight simulator game that takes place in Europe and the Middle East (crazy huh?). The game came out around 1988. You were the pilot of the secret stealth fighter, which would later turn out to be the F-117. At the time though, no one knew what it was called, hence the F19.

There was a career mode and medals you could earn by completing missions. Missions ranged from destroying ground targets to air targets. The graphics were great at the time.. you could fly under a bridge! The enemies were realistic and the technology at your disposal was incredibly cool and real.

Two of the concepts I could not grasp were landing and the stealth game. I would normally just eject rather than land, since I was so awful at it. The game features a very detailed stealth/radar system so you were supposed to get to your target quietly in most cases. I could not grasp this and just went in with guns a blazing. It was fun none-the less. Another great thing about this game is the manual. It is a 200 page book. Not one of those little handbooks.. we are talking ~8x6 sized pages. It is one of the best parts of the game. I always hate what is shipped with games today in those small little boxes.

Recently I cam across a copy of the game on ebay and had to pick it up. It came with the manual, maps and 3 5.25 floppies. Sure, I don't have a drive that can read them, but it is nice to know they are there.

(This is actually a post from an old blog attempt)

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