doug@edge.UUCP (Doug Pardee) (02/13/88)
Title: Up Periscope!
Description: WW-II Submarine Warfare Game
Publisher: ActionSoft
Price: $20 (discount)
Overall grade: B+
Up Periscope! is a re-creation of the U.S. submarine attacks on Japanese
shipping during World War II. The packaging makes it sound like an action
oriented simulation, but submarine warfare is a game of cat-and-mouse.
Expect to spend half an hour of maneuvering around while looking at a map,
followed by a couple of minutes of looking through the periscope and
firing a torpedo or two, then diving back down to make your escape.
You probably should consider Up Periscope! to be a "strategy" game.
Up Periscope!'s biggest "plus" is that it doesn't go out of its way to make
game play difficult. In fact, the designers have done an excellent job of
organizing the information displays and the command structure. The displays
and commands not only simulate the submarine equipment, but also the normal
functioning of the crew -- you don't have to *ask* for information that you
obviously need, nor for updates on that information. And you don't have to
keep flipping back and forth between a supplemental display (map, radar, or
Torpedo Data Computer) and the visual display -- the visual display remains
visible in a half-width window.
Unfortunately, that visual display isn't a strong point. The objects are
presented in solid-filled form, but with very little detail. And the
graphics are slow. In SubLogic tradition, the display lags well behind the
action, so that you're always "overshooting" by at least one step. This is
really serious when looking around with the periscope at high power and the
window shrunk in half (usually you'll have the TDC display active whenever
you're using the periscope). By the time a ship appears in the periscope,
you've already swung way past it. So you start swinging back the direction
you came, and overshoot it again. Back and forth you go until you finally
get the periscope pointed at the ship.
The documentation is both a strong point and a weak point. It certainly
is *extensive* for a game: 24 pages on how to run the program (loading,
commands, display description), 40 pages on the history of U.S. submarine
operations in WW-II, 12 pages on submarine theory, systems, and equipment,
and 30 pages on submarine strategy and tactics, plus a command reference
card and a map of the four operations areas.
But the part which describes the program's display and command structure
is still too short. The worst offense: the reference card shows "D - Deck
Gun", and this is the *only* reference anywhere to the deck gun. The
instructions for clearing the Torpedo Data Computer when switching targets
are incorrect, and I still haven't found a method that works 100% of the
time. And many of the display items need to be more thoroughly described
in terms of "where the data is coming from". For example, the map is
continuously updated to show the position and direction of all nearby
targets. How? My guess is sonar -- if so, then it will not show any
targets within 30 degrees of "directly astern".
The part which describes the history of the U.S. submarine attacks on
Japanese shipping during World War II is interesting, but I'll almost
guarantee that anyone of Japanese descent will be extremely offended. It
presents a very one-sided view of that aspect of the war. The submarine
captains are always brave and gallant, their victories are glorious and
their defeats are unfortunate. The Japanese are the enemy, who are
hopelessly overconfident of their control of their shipping lanes, and
whose economy will be brought to its knees by the U.S. submarine fleet.
The sound effects are pretty good; there's quite a variety of sounds. I
wasn't impressed, however, with the "hull creaking" sound which results if
you dive below the maximum tested depth. It sounded more like bursts of
hail on the roof than the creaking I've heard in submarine movies.
Up Periscope! provides a number of scenarios: 1 training, 7 specific
encounters based on historical incidents, 7 long-term patrols with enemy
ship locations based on historical patrols, 1 "create your own" patrol with
randomly placed enemy ships, and 1 peacetime "create your own" patrol with
no enemy ships. There are no friendly or neutral ships in any scenario; all
ships are enemy targets. Both nighttime and low visibility can be simulated.
The publisher deserves a few "boo"s. The description on the package goes
overboard with its hyperbole and has a number of factual errors as well.
The disk doesn't have a fast-loader (it takes 45 seconds just to load the
title screen). And the copy protection is the old head-banging disk drive
wrecker. The documentation doesn't always match the program, and has a
number of internal inconsistencies -- the most amusing goof being that the
cover of one manual actually has an error in the wording of the title (the
title page has it right). [Interestingly, plain old typos and misspellings
are almost nonexistent, a major accomplishment given the quantity of text.]
Up Periscope! demands some unusual skills. Much of the challenge is in
intercepting the enemy convoy. You'll need to be able to estimate angles
and distances from the map and radar views. You'll do a *lot* of computing
with angles -- for example, you sight a target ship at 345 degrees true
bearing from your sub. The target is estimated heading at 190 degrees true.
You compute: angle on the bow is 25 degrees; double the angle on the bow is
50 degrees; so the rule-of-thumb says that you should steer a course of 295
degrees true in order to intercept. Drawing the tactical map on paper helps
to visualize the situation and to determine a more precise course.
In summary, I would judge Up Periscope! to be much better than average --
as a battle strategy game, though, not an action game. Unless the jingoist
documentation bothers you, the only real disappointment is in the "3-D"
graphics. On the other hand, very little of the play time is spent with
anything visible so maybe that isn't a big drawback.
--
Doug Pardee {ames,hplabs,sun,amdahl,ihnp4,allegra}!oliveb!edge!doug
Edge Computer Corp., Scottsdale, AZ uunet!ism780c!edge!doug