688 ATTACK SUB Submarine warfare is a slow-paced affair. Computer game authors are challenged to balance between realism and boredom when designing a submarine simulation. 688 ATTACK SUB has met the challenge. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version; Amiga version notes follow.) The game is played solo as a series of ten scenarios that progress from cold to hot war. Each scenario has a strategic or tactical objective that goes beyond sinking as much shipping tonnage as possible. 688 ATTACK SUB tests a player's ability to adapt to the different aspects of submarine warfare. Six scenarios are playable via modem against a human opponent, which takes the game beyond beating the programmed strategy. Players can choose either an American or a Russian submarine. The two types of subs have different strengths and weaknesses. The Russian Alfa-class sub is faster, while the American Los Angeles-class sub is quieter and has more high-tech instrumentation. The submarine's systems are controlled from seven stations. The game always opens in the Radio Room, with a display of the mission's orders and objectives. The ship's Helm has rudder, engine, and ballast controls. The Periscope view allows visual targeting. The Navigation Board automatically pilots the sub to selected waypoints. The Weapons Room fires torpedoes, missiles, and noisemakers. The Sonar Room controls the active and passive sonars for detecting submerged or surface targets. The Status Panel shows damage to the submarine's systems. Keyboard or mouse controls all systems. Except for the Status Panel and Radio Room, the sub's stations display a top-down map, which has eleven magnification levels. The map depicts land masses and water depths, as well as the locations of any targets that have been detected by sonar. In VGA mode, sixteen shades of blue show the depths of the waters. A contour imaging display is available on the American Los Angeles-class sub. This high-frequency sonar shows the peaks and valleys of the ocean floor in a side-view, three-dimensional relief. I found the display useful when maneuvering in narrow valleys to avoid detection. The documentation is adequate to get a new player started. The most difficult task facing a novice is learning to "drive" a simulator. The Quick-Start Guide runs through the most important skills that a new submarine commander will need to master for full game enjoyment. Weapons control in 688 ATTACK SUB can be simple, or quite sophisticated. The Mk-48 torpedo can be launched at a targeted ship or sub in automatic tracking mode. The torpedo can also be steered by a seven nautical mile-long cable. When the cable is severed, the torpedo goes into search mode, and tries to hit the nearest target. It took me a long time to become skillful enough to complete all the 688 ATTACK SUB scenarios. Even after I had mastered steering, navigating, and weapons control, I needed some hints from Electronic Arts to complete the last two missions. The user manual didn't stress the importance of active sonar; in fact, more was said about the dangers of detection when using active sonar. Consequently, I was ill-prepared to take on some formidable opposition in the later scenarios. As of this writing, some problems with the two-player modem game have been reported. I experienced inconsistent communications in my test of modem games. The most common problem was losing the connection before game start-up. Electronic Arts is aware of these problems and has pledged to fix them. I tested 688 ATTACK SUB on a GenTech 386/20, with Everex EVGA and Mitsubishi Diamond Scan monitor. (I used the CH Products Mach IV joystick in mouse emulation mode as a pointing device.) This is a well-designed and pretty game, especially if you have VGA. I enjoyed playing the ten scenarios, and wish there were more. I was disappointed that the two-player game did not work flawlessly. Ultimately, the greatest challenge is playing against another human being instead of a program. A scenario design utility would make 688 ATTACK SUB a great game. Competing against another player does not necessarily require you to play online. Users would be able to design more missions and increase the value of the game. I hope Electronic Arts considers it. AMIGA VERSION NOTES Despite the fact that the label on the disk reads 668 ATTACK SUB, the Amiga version of this simulator does not feature a hitherto unknown vessel; it allows you to command a 688 Los Angeles-class submarine (or a Soviet Alfa-class), just as in the MS-DOS version. Gameplay is identical to the MS-DOS version reviewed above, although there is no modem option in the Amiga version. Graphics are nicely drawn. The ships and aircraft you spot through your periscope look like digitizations of the real thing, and digitizations of various crew members are clearly detailed. Sound effects are also rendered faithfully -- from the sonar pings and explosions you'd expect in a submarine simulation to crew members' voices, and even whale songs. I encountered no major bugs, although the graphics display in the periscope and top-down windows occasionally had trouble refreshing, leaving a black rectangle that disappeared after switching displays a couple of times. Also, you can stop the sub dead in the water by clicking on the "target" button, and then not selecting a target. 688 ATTACK SUB is easy to get up and running and installs quickly on a hard drive. The increasingly difficult scenarios pull you ever deeper into the intricacies of submarine warfare. Design trade-offs (such as limited torpedo range, and speeding up the time it takes for some things to happen) make the game more playable, and don't detract from the feeling that you're in charge of a nuclear submarine. The game is a definite step beyond the first generation of submarine simulators (e.g., SILENT SERVICE), and I heartily recommend it. 688 ATTACK SUB is published and distributed by Electronic Arts. *****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253