I’m looking for a fun submarine simulator. Free or shareware, if possible. I remember playing this one back on my mac many moons ago, in which you controlled depth, speed, etc, and your detection bubble shrank or grew acordingly, you could attack with torpedos or long range rocket torpedos. It was simple, and fun. I need one like that for PC.
Not sure whether this fits your bill or not, but you might want to give Danger from the Deep a looksee.
What about Macs? I used to play Wolfpack a long time ago and I liked that.
If you’re interested in WWII era, I’d try “Enigma: Rising Tide”. I have it and it’s pretty fun. You can control everything with the mouse/keyboard or with voice commands. You don’t get the nifty sonar stuff of the modern subs, but you can surface and man the deck guns.
People think I’m crazy when they hear me in here going “Set depth 50, rig for silence”
But it’s fun.
as far as im concerned, the simpler the better. one of the things i hated about the later versions of F-18 Hornet was that they made it too realistic. I dont want to juggle 8 different kinds of radar, i just want to shoot stuff.
The very best submarine sim at the moment is Silent Hunter III, where you assume the role of a German U-boat captain in World War II. Realism can be set to any level from what’s basically point-and-shoot all the way up to ultra-realistic where you have to identify the target yourself, determine its distance and bearing, track it to determine its speed and heading, give the right orders to maneuver your boat to the optimal position, program the firing computer with the right numbers, watch as it computes a targeting solution, then fire torpedoes. You can take over any of the major positions like weapons officer or navigator. If you sit at the hydrophone position, you can listen for enemy ships; if you’re really good, you can identify the type of ship - merchant or warship - by the sound of the propellers alone. Rig for silent running and listen to that destroyer get closer and closer. Hear the ping! of the ASDIC and pray they don’t detect you.
It’s not free, but you can get it for $20 or so. A major drawback is its use of the controversial Starforce copy protection scheme. If you don’t want that contaminating your hard drive, you may wish to wait for Silent Hunter IV, currently in development.
Kids, today… I played Gato!
Dangerous Waters is a good sim, although may be too complex and realistic for your tastes.
Red Storm Rising and Silent Service II were fun games for older PCs.
Ahhh, Gato. I get all misty thinking about those rudimentary graphics.
I always pronounced it “GATE-oh” even though, it occurs to me, that it should probably be pronounced “GOT-oh.” Kind of weird, because I had taken enough Spanish, even back then, to know better.
Kids? What kids? I played Gato on our Apple //e, as well as Silent Service on the NES. I even started the Wikipedia article on Gato.
Yeah? Well, I started the one on Champion Base Ball.
OH YEAH? Well, I’m working on getting a screenshot so my article will almost be as good as your article!
If you can, actually, I’d like to find out where you got the GATO software (if legally, of course), since I feel some odd compulsion to play it again.
I don’t have it, I’m seeing about copying a screenshot off a website. Also somebody recently sold an old floppy on Ebay and they have a picture I want. I’d also like to be able to play Gato or Wolfpack again.
Well, I found GATO on an abandonware (i.e. software whose copyright holder has gone bankrupt or otherwise relinquished control of the product) site, and needed a third-party program to slow it down enough to be playable and boy, does this suck. My urge is cured for at least another 20 years.
The original Silent Hunter is also good if you can find it.
As an aside, I had the opportunity to work on Silent Hunter II, but in the end declined for a better paying job.
Opinions are best sought in IMHO.
MOved from GQ. samclem