Criminally Overlooked Games #10: Red Zone

Red Zone is a game that can only be called an eclectic mix of resource management and action. When you start you have one helicopter and three characters with varying abilities. If you lose a character they stay dead for the rest of the game. If you lose the helicopter, you lose everything. It's very important to have a solid strategy to conserve, avoid conflict and make the best use of supplies possible to proceed. Thankfully it also uses a password system. The game is much deeper than it appears on the surface and you'll really need to keep on your toes to adapt to sudden unexpected events.

But Red Zone isn't just unique for it's game play, it also features some of the most impressive technical feats on the Genesis and even outlines them before the game starts. Full motion video and mode-7 style graphics were mostly unheard of at that point. The game also has impressive physics, some very nice sound effects and an excellent soundtrack by Jesper Kyd, who would go on to do music for the Hitman series, Splinter Cell and Unreal Tournament to name just a few.

It was a commercial failure. Maybe it was due to lousy advertising, maybe it was the game's unforgiving difficulty, slightly sticky control or possibly just the messy box art.. for whatever reason it was largely ignored.

Category:

Gaming

Tags:

• red
• zone
• zyrinx
• genesis
• criminally
• overlooked
• video
• games
• big
• bang
• blitz

[BigAlUpdates]

This......This is a GENESIS game!?

O.o

[BigBangBlitz]

Yeah, I still hardly believe it even knowing the tricks they used. The frame rate is always consistent no matter what is going on. It uses no special chips - I don't get it.

[bestwon1]

sound like batman and robin tas music from genesis sounds kinda similar

[BigBangBlitz]

Same guy.

[warc9]

this looks like a ps1 game

[Jegudiel21ZX]

holy shit! the music is awesome

[Daemonocracy]

@StarFoxAutobot Joseph Stalin

[Daemonocracy]

I almost bought this game. I saw an ad for it in a gaming mag, but it looked like an over head shooter from what I remember. I don't remember it having this depth and the visuals and sound are stunning for a genesis game! Hell, it looks and sounds like it could pass for a computer game a times. I think it's bad marketing that hurt, plus, 1994 was a big year in gaming so it must have faced some stiff competition. Wish I did buy it, would like to see it remade on XBLA.

[StarFoxAutobot]

Am I the only one who thinks this game's villain looks like Fidel Castro?

[dami1489]

A picture is worth a thousand words and a video goes beyond ...

How to avoid conflicts? ... not take out the grace of the game, is the most entertaining ... face all of that difficulty is this game special

[BigAlUpdates]

@BigBangBlitz Well, The Follins Brothers were able to compose batshit insane music on the NES and SNES without special chips, so what the hell is this wizardry?

[ramiro2500]

Technically this can be the most impressive game i had ever seen for the Megadrive/genesis. That indoor part is just incredible, and thinking that this was achieved only by software (the genny doesn´t have any mode7 hardware capabilities, unlike the Snes) made it even more amazing.

[ReinaHW]

Enjoyed this game back in the day, it was a great challenge and very brutal. These days such games would be too demanding if it isn't osme dumbed down shooter that holds your hand all the way through.

Fun game, very challenging. Needs a revival.

[gamingsnds]

@BigBangBlitz Yep, good stuff! And the beginning overworld theme would be used in the first land mission in AMOK as well!