Review by Tim Still

Name:           Tom Clancy - SSN
Publisher:      Clancy Interactive Entertainment
Format:         CD-Rom (2 Cds) (second CD is multimedia interview)
Available:      Now

Requires:

O/S:            Windows 95 only.
Processor:      60 Mhz Pentium (120Mhz preferred)
RAM:            8 meg (16 preferred)
Graphics:       256-colour SVGA or better
CD-Rom:         Double-speed or faster
Soundcard:      Soundblaster 16 or compatible

Tested on:

O/S:            Win95
Processor:      Intel Pentium75
RAM:            32meg
Graphics:       2meg Orchid (Cirrus Logic chipset)
CD-ROM:         Quad-speed
Soundcard:      Sound-Blaster 16 ASP
Controls:       MS Sidewinder Pro

Tom Clancy - SSN

Anyone who has seen 'Das Boot' knows that submariners had a hard time of things during the second world war. Living in a cramped metal tube with barely enough room to live and fight, it was arguably one of the most dangerous professions. At least with most other combat posts, you could either bail out, jump overboard or surrender. Unfortunately, most of the time, the crew of a badly damaged sub perished beneath the waves, with the famous (or infamous) German Wolfpack squadrons of U-boats suffering a staggering 70% of crews lost. Things have improved since then, both in living conditions and survivability. Modern subs have advanced sonar, torpedoes, countermeasures and a host of other features that make life and combat easier for the crew. But with more advanced technology comes more acute threats. Quieter, faster, more powerful, and harder to detect, serving on a modern sub is still a dangerous job. Films such as 'The Hunt For Red October' and 'Crimson Tide' show this only too well. This is where SSN comes into the picture.

Tom Clancy has teamed up with Juan Benito to produce, in their words, an action-orientated flight simulator for submarines. What this actually means is this is a 'light' sub sim. You have control over major functions and information on major systems on board your improved Los Angles class attack sub, (designated a 688i), but an awful lot of smaller sub systems have no bearing on the game, and you have no information on them. Things such as torpedo tube doors and compartment damage are non existent. Instead, you only have to fire the torpedoes, and the doors are not even mentioned. Damage to the ship is dealt with on a per section basis, such as propulsion, ballast, and hull.

The actual game screen is a floating camera view of the sub and the surrounding water. As there are no windows in a submarine, what you see is not necessarily what you get. The view you see is only a graphical representation of what you can see with the aid of sonar. For example, if there is a enemy sub right behind you, unless your sonar operator can see the sonar return from the other submarine, you can rotate the view to your hearts' content, but you still won't be able to see anything until you get a message from your sonar operator saying "unknown contact bearing 178 degrees", or, more likely, if it's an enemy submarine in your baffles (the area of disturbed water behind your boat caused by your wake) probably the first time you realise he's there is the chilling message "Fish in the water bearing 180 degrees and 2150 yards!" at which point you'd better pop some countermeasures, and make a fast change in direction, speed and depth! The big problem with this is when a contact in on the sonar screen but unclassified, if you're within visual range of the object, you can tell almost straight away whether it's a mine, biologic (whale or other living creature) or sub.

Also presented to you on the main screen around the main view is a window showing various screens, representing torpedo status, damage, vertical launch system for tomahawk cruise missiles, satellite communications, waypoint navigation and a map. All screens are fairly simplified, and allow quick and easy monitoring and control of most ship functions. The damage screen is an indicator, showing various major ship systems. Items that can be damaged by combat or collision are rudder, propulsion, hull, sonar, ballast, torpedoes, and planes. All these systems effect the ship in different ways, for example, ballast problems can cause you to go into an uncontrollable dive, so if you don't restore ballast control before you reach crush depth, it's all over.

The torpedo screen shows the status of the four tubes your ship is equipped with, displaying either a ready, loading, flooding tube, empty or damaged status. From here you can change the type of torpedo operation (not the actual torpedo itself) from unguided to stealth to fast operation. From this window you can also select to load and fire a MOSS (MObile Submarine Simulator) which is a torpedo-like device that sounds exactly like a submarine when launched, and can be used for training or as a decoy. Another window is the VLS or Vertical Launch System, which is the control panel for the 12 Tomahawk cruise missiles. The only control you have over this system is the launch button. In-flight guidance and targeting is handled by some external power over which you exercise no control. The panel itself indicates the status of the missiles after you hit the launch button, such as spinning up and firing.

The Comms screen is where you receive mid-mission updates and orders. You have to be at a depth of less than 140 ft to use it, as below that depth you can only tell if a message is waiting for you by receiving a notification message via the ELF or Extremely Low Frequency receiver. The final two panel deal with waypoint navigation and overall map. As you near each waypoint, you are usually expected to patrol the area, eliminating any enemy threats that exist, and sometimes also performing a secondary mission, such as launch the cruise missiles. Once you have cleared the area and performed any other tasks, you just whack a button, and you're transported to the next waypoint. One bug I have discovered is that whatever the distance between waypoints, no time passes during you leaving the last waypoint and arriving at the next. I've had damage not repaired and torpedoes still not loaded when arriving, but the most annoying feature is that whatever speed and depth you leave the last point, you arrive at the next at a (usually) different pre-defined depth and speed.

Other windows around the screen include a sonar display, thermocline indicator (more on this shortly), ballast status, target information, your heading, speed and depth, and also the angle in degrees of your rudder and planes. The thermocline indicator shows the 'layers' of water that exist in the oceans of the world. Thermoclines are layers of water that differ in temperature to the surrounding layers. These layers form a sort of barrier through which it's harder for sonar waves to penetrate. Therefore these are very important to a submarine, as you can hide from surface ships under a thermocline by moving slowly and emitting very little noise. This way, the sonar on the surface ships (above the layer) will have a harder time picking you up. Of course this works both ways, with it also harder for you to detect other boats in different layers.

Of course, contacts you do detect all emit sounds (that's how you found them), and if you get close enough, you can hear the sounds you make. All the while the game is going on, there are background under-water type noises. When you do hear other sounds, they are all very well done. You can hear propellers on other boats and subs, helicopter rotors if you're near the surface, torpedoes running and going active, the hull creaks when you start going very deep, and you can even hear seagulls when you're viewing the surface, either with the periscope or when the ship is surfaced. I live on the coast, and the first few times I heard them I thought nothing of it, as I thought they were real! But the piece de resistance are the biologics, specifically the whales. If you sail close to a whale, you can hear their songs, and they sound fantastic. The only major downside of the sound FX is the crew. None of them speak, and considering the game is shipped on CD, it would've sounded so much better to have sound samples for things like the reports that appear on the message bar. Things like "Explosion bearing 036 sir!", "Approaching hull crush depth.", "Message waiting topside, Captain." or "Torpedo bearing 269 degrees, range 4000 yards and closing fast!" would have sounded much better than they look. The crew also come up with other miscellaneous comments through the voyages, and they would have sounded good too.

The documentation is light, but then so is the game. There's a section on submarine warfare, such as attack and defence tactics, but that's not as good as the interactive multimedia interview on the second CD, where Tom Clancy and Capt. Doug Littlejohns, CBE, a former British Royal Navy sub commander are interviewed and asked question both about the game and real submarine tactics and experiences. There's also a small keyboard command summary, but as there are so few keys (most are repeated depending on the screen active at the time), it takes no time at all to learn them. Control is either keyboard or joystick, and if you have a joystick with a throttle wheel and a 'top hat', you'll find that your hand hardly ever leaves the stick. Oh yes, and in the manual, the game requirements state that a preferred system is a 120Mhz Pentium, but it seemed to run OK on my 75Mhz, so take that with a pinch of salt.

On the downside, there are a few things that I was disappointed in (besides the lack of sound for the crew). The periscope view isn't a scope view at all, just a normal view of the surface. It would have added some more realism to the game to fit a simple binoculars type frame around the view when using the scope, but instead the only way you can tell if you're using the scope view or if you're surfaced is if you can see the submarine itself. As to using the scope, it takes quite a bit of practice to get the right depth easily, as you actually move the control surfaces, and not just order to rise, dive or go to a certain depth. Another large downside is the AI. The enemy intelligence leaves quite a lot to be desired. I've had enemy subs do an emergency blow for no reason, (even once when the sub was already surfaced!), and on another occasion, two ASW (anti-submarine warfare) helicopters just hovered about 1000 yards away while I launched 12 cruise missiles right in front of them! The artificial intelligence doesn't seem too bad when actually engaged in combat though. Surface ships don't seem too sure about what to do either, unless you go to them. You can sit there making as much noise as you can, and the ship won't move a muscle, except launch depth charges even if you're hopelessly out of range.

Overall though, this is a good game, but with a little more work, it could have been great. Maybe I'm just being picky, as I'd have preferred a lot more detail and complexity, but then that's not how the game was designed. Saying that, even with the thought that the game is an action-orientated flight simulator for submarines, there still seems to be a couple of things they should have done to finish it off. But if you like sub sims, but have always wanted a bit more action, and a lot less tedious sailing around waiting for something to happen, then this is your game.

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Rating: 7/10 (Good!)
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