RED LIGHTNING

 RED LIGHTNING (RL) is an advanced-level simulation of World War III battles in
Europe. The game is written by Norman Koger (STELLAR CRUSADE), published by
Strategic Simulations, and distributed by Electronic Arts. RL offers good
graphics, excellent gameplay, three scenarios based on conflicts between NATO
and the Warsaw Pact nations, five levels of difficulty, all kinds of modern
weapons (including the Stealth bomber), a two-player mode, a save-game option, a
mouse-controlled GEM interface, and no copy protection. The Atari ST version is
the basis of this review; Amiga version notes follow.

 Unlike the impenetrable STELLAR CRUSADE (Mr. Koger's previous SSI release), RED
LIGHTNING is clear and down-to-earth. The mouse works perfectly and play is
straightforward. In SSI terms, the Advanced rating actually means Incredibly
Difficult (much like Introductory really means Intermediate). This shouldn't
deter you from buying RED LIGHTNING, although its $59.95 retail price may
encourage you to locate an economically-benevolent software dealer or a
mail-order house on the verge of bankruptcy.

 The three scenarios of RL are Red Lightning, "Lions & Tigers & Bears...," and
Gathering of Hosts. A scenario can be short (20 turns) or long (60 turns). You
may set a scenario in any season, and the resulting weather conditions will
affect airpower and chemical weapons -- both of which can used or not used. You
can control either NATO or Pact forces, or you can play with a friend. The
difficulty levels are Pushover, Moderate, Challenging, Hairy, and Hideous.

 There are four Control Levels: Limited Intelligence, Sub Divisional deployment,
Air Campaign, and North Atlantic/Special Operations. Setting Limited
Intelligence to "On" puts you on a par with the computer, which always functions
with limited intelligence; "Off" informs you of the location of all enemy forces
at all times. Setting Air Campaign to "On" gives you control of your air forces;
"Off" hands over control of air forces (for both sides) to the computer.

 A turn consists of six phases, beginning with a Save Game opportunity: Pact
Orders, NATO Orders, Joint Air Combat, Joint Ground Combat and Movement, and
General Resolutions. Each player studies reports from the Info Menu, and give
operational orders to air forces (if selected), airborne and marine and special
forces, and amphibious forces; also, movement orders are given to divisions,
brigades, and regiments.

 On exiting the Orders Phase, movement and combat take place, casualties are
counted, the turn is resolved, and a new turn begins with the Game Save
opportunity. An interesting feature of the Resolutions Phase is National Morale.
All countries except the Soviet Union are affected by combat and hex losses,
which reduce overall morale. If a nation concludes a separate peace treaty, that
nation's forces are removed from the map and the entire alliance loses morale.

 The Atari ST screen display consists of a hexagonal map of central Europe. The
map can be scrolled by clicking the mouse pointer on the buttons to the right of
the map; other buttons enable/disable unit icons and hex possession. The "O"
button displays, at a much-reduced scale, a strategic view of the map; clicking
on a location centers the tactical map on that location and removes the
strategic view. Additional information can be gleaned by moving the cursor to a
map hex and pressing the mouse button.

 Above the map are the Menus: Info, Orders, and General. From the Info Menu, you
can study five reports: Strategic, Political, Full Hex, Weather, and Supply Net,
each of which provides a wealth of information. The Orders Menu gives access to
Air Operations (including data and drawings of individual aircraft), Special
Operations (from which intelligence-gathering and harassment activities can be
assigned), and Unit Movement. From the General Menu, screens can be erased and
redrawn (useful for two human players), and the game can be exited.

 Other than typing in a filename for a saved game, RL is controlled completely
with the mouse, which pulls down menus, highlights and selects options, brings
up related informational displays, and scrolls the map.

 The RED LIGHTNING package comes with two disks that are not copy-protected.
(There are documentation checks.) You can make single- or double-sided backups,
or copy all game and scenario files to a hard drive. Strictly speaking, a hard
drive (or a double-sided drive, for that matter) is not necessary, because once
RED LIGHTNING is loaded, it's resident in memory. If you have more than 512K of
memory (the minimum you'll need to play), you can save games to a RAM disk, a
nearly instantaneous operation.

 Also in the package is an instruction manual, which showcases clarity in SSI's
usual manner. On the scenario disk is a 64K ASCII file that, when printed,
becomes what SSI used to call a Briefing Manual. There is a colorful, laminated
map of central Europe.

 Like all SSI war simulations, RED LIGHTNING plays perfectly. In fact, with the
mouse-controlled GEM interface, it plays even better than perfectly, if such a
thing is possible. Map graphics are clear and bright and large; report screens
brim with information; and nothing gets in the way of play. Although RL is an
operational-level (rather than a tactical) simulation, the designers included a
stunning variety of details -- many of which may be less than accurate, due to
the classified nature of the information. RED LIGHTNING is easy to play, but
tough to play well. The only drawback is its rather steep price.

 AMIGA VERSION NOTES

 As with STELLAR CRUSADE, SSI has done an excellent job of converting RED
LIGHTNING for the Amiga. Both games (designed by Norm Koger, Jr. on an Atari ST)
make best use of the 16-bit machines' calculations abilities. The graphics do
all they need to do for the purposes of the game, and the mouse-controlled
interface is fast and easy to manage. The design of the game itself has
obviously made conversion easy, as it requires nothing particularly tricky in
either the visual or sound departments.

 The game comes on two unprotected disks, and can be installed on a hard drive.
It is essentially memory-resident, so few disk accesses take place during play
(only for saves and loads). It can be windowed into the background, making it
possible to multi-task, though you need more than 512K of memory.

 RED LIGHTNING has become one of my all-time favorite strategy games, and I gave
it a top rating in the "Best Amiga Games of '89" article in TEG. Based on the
recent work they've done, I'm looking forward with great anticipation to future
releases of SSI games.

 RED LIGHTNING is published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. and distributed by
Electronic Arts.

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