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)

Posted in: Clancy,Classics