Old Gamers Never Die: 'Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm - Player's Edition'

Title screenshot of Flashpoint Campaign: Red Storm - Player's Edition. © 2014 Slitherine Ltd/Matrix Games and On Target Simulations

On November 21, 2014, the UK-based computer game publisher Matrix Games released Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm - Player's Edition, a revamped version of the original turn-based strategy game set in an alternate history of the 1980s in which the Cold War turned hot and the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact clashes with the U.S.-led NATO forces in West Germany.

Created by On Target Simulations for the merged Slitherine Ltd/Matrix Games studio and inspired by several fictional works about a hypothetical Third World War fought in the mid- to late 1980s, including Sir John Hackett's The Third World War: August 1985 and Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm - Player's Edition puts you in command of either the Allied or Soviet armies in several campaigns and more than 20 stand-alone scenarios, including many player-created simulations of battles that include armor, mechanized infantry, tube and rocket artillery, air support, attack helicopters, and even weapons of mass destruction.

You are the commander of either NATO or Soviet forces locked in battle on the ground in 1980s Central Europe. As commander, it is your task to provide the battle plan orders to your units. You need to know your mission objectives, strength and weakness of both your forces and your enemy, lay of the land, weather, and time of day in order to come out on the winning end. Your crews will do their best to follow your orders and execute the plan, but in war, no plan survives first contact. You will need to think on the fly and adjust to the ever-changing flow of battle. - Publisher's Blurb,  Matrix Games

 Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is not a simple shoot-'em-up video game or a tactical level/vehicle simulation. It's a turn-based grand strategy game where one or two players command multiple units in Central Europe, primarily in what was then West Germany. Depending on the scenario, you are in command of a combined arms team that might be as small as a battalion or as large as a brigade, complete with supporting units such as engineers, field artillery, close air support, attack and recce helicopters, and anti-tank units.

Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm features an innovative asynchronous turn structure that models the OODA loop*, huge maps, hundreds of meticulously researched platforms and weapons, detailed orders of battle, realistic modeling of modern combat including armor, infantry, helicopters, airpower and chemical and nuclear weapons, 2 campaigns and over 20 single scenarios, realistic weather conditions, modding options and much more! - Publisher's Blurb, Matrix Games

A screenshot from my first attempt to play the Fulda Gap scenario.

My Take

Back in 1987, when my father's brother Sixto presented me with my first computer (an Apple IIe with a color monitor and an Imagewriter dot-matrix printer), I purchased a few strategy games to play on my downtime from my busy college life. One of the first that I bought back then was MicroProse's NATO Commander, an "accelerated real-time strategy" wargame that simulated a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe in the then-near future.

Cover art by David Martin. Game design: Sid Meier. © 1984 MicroProse Software

Although the game's graphics (designed in an era where 64K bytes was state of the art tech) were rudimentary, Sid Meier's NATO Commander was the first RTS game to take advantage of computers' processing power. In the one-player game, you assumed the role of Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR) and took command of NATO's forces in Central Europe to repel an artificial intelligence-controlled Warsaw Pact invasion.

As in other MicroProse strategy games that used its game engine, NATO Commander consisted of several scenarios, which got progressively larger and more complex. Players controlled NATO units from various countries, including the U.S., West Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, and, in some scenarios, France. There were various options related to unit size (you could choose, say, to command mostly division-sized formations or smaller but more numerous brigades), the use of chemical and tactical nuclear weapons (although you lost political points if you used them first), assignment of air units, and the employment of attack helicopters.

I can't devote much more space or time to NATO Commander, except to say that Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is the spiritual heir to Sid Meier's first best-selling strategy game in both concept and overall design.

Like its 1980s ancestor, Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is a taut, intelligently-designed wargame that puts you in command of a combined arms force in mid-1980s Europe during a conflict that thankfully never really broke out. And like NATO Commander, it is a maps-and-symbols grand strategy game where you must make decisions about where to deploy your units, where to attack or defend, when to give ground, and how best to preserve your assets for a decisive counterattack.

I only bought the game from Steam yesterday (it was on sale for $14.49), so I have only played the Fulda Defense scenario, but these are my observations so far.

1. The game is visually impressive! I love the detailed maps and unit counters, which are color-coded according to nationality and bear easy-to-identify unit symbols. Some are standard NATO unit symbols, while others have silhouettes of tanks, artillery pieces, helos, and aircraft.
2. The asynchronous turn-based structure that somehow doesn't feel like a turn-based game. Again, I have only played one scenario (and lost), but I like how Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm breaks up its turn into an Orders Phase and an Orders Resolution Phase that feels like everything is happening in real-time. 

Because I was playing the game by the seat of my pants rather than reading the Flashpoints Campaign: Red Storm - Player's Edition, I was soundly defeated by the Ivans in a scenario based on the possibility of a battle at the Fulda Gap in central Germany. I played as the Blackhorse Brigade, and after two hours of playing time, I was down to 50% of my starting combat strength and was fighting at the eastern edges of Fulda itself. 

Obviously, I didn't do so well my first time out as a brigade commander because I jumped into the game willy-nilly sans reading the manual. However, I did inflict heavy casualties on the Soviets -the battlefield was littered with scores of "burning vehicle" icons marked red for "USSR/Warsaw Pact"; only late in the game did the tide of battle turn to favor the advancing enemy, and many of my units were destroyed. But even then, I managed to launch a few local counterattacks and recaptured two Victory Points locations.

A screenshot from another session in which I played the Fulda: Frontier of Freedom scenario. Note that it's still early in the battle, yet there are burning Warsaw Pact vehicles marking the path of the first wave of the Soviet attack. An M-1 Abrams platoon has also been destroyed, though. © 2014 Slitherine Ltd./Matrix Games. 

One of my self-imposed handicaps was that I had no idea how to issue orders after the initial deployment of my units. I did pretty well - for a civilian with no military training at all - at setting my initial dispositions; otherwise, I would not have been able to make the USSR forces pay dearly for every Victory Point location that they captured. I only figured out how to give commands to individual units late into the battle, and by then the AI-controlled Soviet force had pushed past the Inner German Boundary and pushed my surviving units nearly to the outskirts of Fulda and the Main River at the far west of the map. 

All in all, Flashpoints Campaign: Red Storm - Player's Edition is a fun and challenging strategy game that's made even more exciting than its ancestor NATO Commander by its mix of detailed maps, nicely rendered unit markers, and an incredible sound mix that includes battle sound effects and tense-but-thrilling music that you can turn off or at least lower the volume of if you need to. 

I wholeheartedly recommend Flashpoints Campaign: Red Storm - Player's Edition to anyone who enjoys strategy wargames, especially those who, like me, are fans of the late Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising.  It is a well-conceived and extremely interesting game that is detailed enough for "grognards" but not as insanely complex as Gary Grigsby's War in the West. Just be sure to read some of the game tips in the manual, or at least watch playthrough videos of the scenarios on YouTube before gioing to battle. 

A screenshot from my first attempt to play Flashpoints Campaign: Red Storm. I had not yet watched a playthrough video, so all my units were way too far west to repel the Warsaw Pact units (marked, of course. in red). © 2014 Slitherine Ltd./Matrix Games. 

Here are some of the game's features, according to the Matrix Games product page:

• Includes 20+ Scenarios featuring the three NATO forces versus the Soviets
• Four Campaign games where you manage your core force through a number of battles
• A crafty AI opponent looking to achieve its mission goals or deny you yours
• Get 20+ game maps based on real-world terrain of Central Europe
• Variable length turns based on current Command, Control and Communication state (C3) of forces. Unit losses and the level of electronic warfare impact you and your enemy's C3 state
• A new and refined combat engine taking into account many factors with weather, sensors, terrain, and troop capability factored in
• Detailed information before, during and after a scenario to keep you informed and aware of the state of your forces
• Platforms and weapons from the decade of the 80s for US, UK, West German and Soviet forces including aircraft (various types and loadouts), helicopters (various types and loadouts), tanks, APCs, Self-Propelled Systems (Gun, Anti-tank, Flak, and SAMs), towed guns, trucks, jeeps, and of course the grunts with their vast array of weapons
• Built-in editors for Map Parameters, Scenario Creation/Editing, and Campaign Creation/Editing. The game was built around having a very large 3rd party following to supplement our planned expansions to the game

* OODA loop = Observe, Orient, Decide, Act loop.