Red Alarm

August 17th, 2015

Red Alarm is by far my most favorite Virtual Boy game. People seem to be in 2 camps on this game: love it or hate it. Maybe I like it so much because when Virtual Boy game out I couldn’t afford it so I would go to the local Circuit City and play it there. My Mom never bought me one but I was amazed by Red Alarm on VB. I had never seen or played anything like it.

You steer with the left d-pad and shift the space craft up/down left/right with the right d-pad. When shifting around it’s like a mini warp that moves you over in increments. The right trigger is to fire your missiles and the left trigger allows you to turn rather quickly. A and B buttons speed you up or slow you down. These are the controls for the Type 1 control settings and they’re what I’m used to.

The point of the game is to fly around and shoot mechs, fish, weird flying hands, and other various wireframe animals of some sort. There are power ups for missiles and boosters for speed along the way. There are also some hidden gems like the Virtual Boy itself and it’s controller. You fly through caves and levels dodging enemies and shooting at them. You will even fly under water. There are sometimes mid-level bosses and always an end boss. I find that beating the bosses are a matter of shifting around a lot while turning quickly and shooting. I got to the third level boss tonight for the first time in my life!!

Red Alarm chooses to do a wire frame 3D scene but the content extends the entire depth of the VB screen. It’s not fixed at particular levels like Vertical Force or Wario Land. I think this is one of the more unique Virtual Boy games. Maybe it’s just nostalgia but I love this game. It’s certainty unique on the VB and worth being in anyone’s collection. Red Alarm is going for somewhere between $10 and $20 dollars on eBay right now.

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