Red Zone
Red Zone is a helicopter action shooter in which you pilot an AH-64B Apache
into the heart of enemy territory to thwart the plans of a nuclear armed
dictator. Under threat of global nuclear war the dictator has begun to annex
his neighbor countries, with plans to continue his territorial expansion, so
three special operatives are covertly sent in with a lone gunship to remove
his ability to wage war.
The majority of the game consists of air-to-ground attack while flying in the
Apache, using its hefty loadout of rockets, guided missiles, built-in 30 mm
cannon and defensive infrared air-to-air missiles in order to eliminate the
hostiles from the air, land and sea. Fuel drums, repair kits and ammunition
depletion are both factors to keep in mind, and careful planning of where the
pickups are located so that the chopper is able to stay in the air and is able
to keep fighting, elements that are very similar in implementation to the
Strike series. Differences between the games include the fact that as your
systems get damaged, your helicopter becomes harder to control and the weapon
and radar systems become affected.
Interspersed with the plentiful in-chopper combat, there are numerous mission-
oriented sequences in which the occupants of the helicopter disembark and
perform missions on-foot inside of buildings. Each of the three characters
have a unique set of weapons, and the player can choose from either of the
three to use, so long as none of them have been killed during previous on-foot
missions.
Red Zone bears many gameplay similarities to the early entries of the
Strike series of games, though while the first three games of that series had
a fixed isometric point-of-view, Red Zone has a straight-down POV that
rotates along with the helicopter. Red Zone is also highly reminiscent of
Zyrinx’s earlier and similarly technologically advanced Genesis game Sub-
Terrania, with the most notable similarities being in the relative difficulty
of the games, and in the manipulation of the Genesis’ hardware into providing
visual effects not seen in other games, such as simulated video.
Red Zone