The first submarine simulation game I played when I was a kid and despite its retro status, I still find myself playing it once in a while. Even though I mainly played the Amiga version when I was a kid, the Mega Drive version is literally the same and I'm currently trying it out again years later through an emulator.

Plotline

Taking place during the Cold War between the USA and the Soviet Union. 688 Attack Sub uses the what if scenarios and shows the worst what could have happened all those years ago. Starting from minor threats between the two countries and eventually turning into a world war.

Gameplay

The entire interface gives you that instant feeling that you're inside a submarine and in total command. As you can see from one of my pictures, there are several stations that need to be commanded and waiting for orders. Moving the cursor onto a particular person on that bridge will bring up a new window, such as the torpedo room, navigation and engine room, sonar/radar room, radio room etc.

Starting the game will give you the choice of being the Americans or the Soviets. Very much the same, but have their slight differences in terms of submarines. For instance, the Americans have better weaponry where as the Soviets have faster and more stealthy vessels.

The briefing and radio room is what it should do, bringing in faxes of your mission order or mission updates. This is where the HQ will dish out your commands and give you your mission objectives for the upcoming scenario. Depending on what happens, new orders can instantly come in. If you fail or disobey certain objectives, the game will end in this room will your commander giving you a very bitchy message and this was always very comical. If your submarine was destroyed, it still ends in this room but shows a fax message being sent across to friendly ships to what exactly happened and what is going to happen now. Generally, this causes the Cold War scenario to get even more serious with your submarine being destroyed. So overall, the fate of the world is pretty much is in your hands. An SOS message can also be sent out when you're really under heavy fire and need assistance. However, support usually never arrives in time. The player can even mess around with messages. Being a kid I was back then, I did send a few abusive messages to my commander. One for instance saying: "F you!" and I received a reply saying: "Captain Hughes, grow up. Anymore transmissions like this and I will be forced to order you back to port and relieve you of command!" Although, the game never did end up with my comical spamming.

The periscope view has to be the true highlight of the game. Not just for the graphics, but the satisfying view of blowing up your targets and getting a clear view of the action when still being hidden underwater. It was rather scary when raising your periscope, only to see a gigantic battleship right up to your lens. However, with too many dangerous targets on the surface, the periscope view cannot really be used and automatic weapon systems will have to be relied on.

The torpedo room is where the player can load all the torpedo tubes and use certain types of their choosing. Despite the classic torpedoes, none of the submarines are equipped with deck guns. Instead, they are both using missile launchers. Extremely powerful, yet risky to use when armed targets are on the surface and should only be used as a last resort. Torpedoes can even be trigger to explode at any moment you want. So say there are many targets hovering in the same area, detonating your torpedo in the middle can cause some considerable damage.

The navigation room is as it does, to choose your destination at a particular speed and a particular depth. This heavily relies on your success and requires some heavy thinking to be mixed in with your tactics. After all, the submarine needs to progress further but quietly and unseen by the enemy. Also, its never a good idea to make your submarine ram straight into land. Submarines were designed to be in the water after all!

The sonar area is required to found out all your targets and get detailed information on what you're up against. It's a lot trickier to pinpoint underwater targets and will require a sonar ping, which will rebound back sounds of movements and engines. The second time around playing is when you will be truly ready to take on the enemy. For example, I didn't realise a target approaching me at high speed was actually a torpedo! From the radar view, it simply looked like an enemy submarine speeding towards me. Evasive manoeuvres will need to be used quickly when you see something like that closing in. You can even activate scanning of a target, listening in on the sounds. This will confirm more if it's actually a submarine, boat, or even a sea mammal.

When underwater, the sea camera on the front of your submarine can be activated to view the terrain under water to see if it is safe to drive at full speed when nearing the bottom. I could have sworn I've also seen some unusual things when doing this, such as whales, but too hard to be sure with the old school graphics.

The damage report screen is always fun to watch, especially when your submarine is in a critical stage after surviving many attacks. Parts of your submarine diagram will be bright red with a report of what is going on in that area, such as flooding, fires, smoke etc.

A lot of freedom can be used too when completing missions and can even take a completely unexpected turn. During my training mission for my American campaign, my submarine encountered some technical problems with the navigation and I ended up straying into Soviet territory. I was then sunk to the bottom of the ocean by their forces, and this was supposed to be a training exercise! A shocking news bulletin was sent out by my HQ and pretty much started World War 3, when the Cold War hadn't even properly started yet. Messing around and destroying your own fleet which usually cause a helicopter to take photographs and report your actions back to base. I always wondered why I could never target that helicopter with my missile, but yet I could do it with any other ship?

As this game was a port from the Amiga and PC versions, the controls are pretty tricky when using the Sega's control pad. The entire game was originally designed to be played through a keyboard and mouse, so the general speed of the pad isn't fast enough and can cost you dearly sometimes. When you need quick reactions, your cursor simply won't move fast enough.

Despite mass realism, there are still a few flaws that I noticed when playing. Your crew can seem to survive under water for a maximum amount of time breathing in the same air. Surely your submarine will need to surface at some point to bring in fresh air to avoid your crew members dying of asphyxiation?

Overall, a very difficult game. Takes a lot of patience and time to get skilled and victorious. It's not a simply a matter of sailing to one way point, finding the targets and blowing them out of the water. The player really needs to take their time and use a stealth approach, like a hit and run tactic before anyone knows you were there.

Multiplayer

The Mega Drive version sadly had no multiplayer included. Not really surprising when the original multiplayer for the PC version required it to be played through the Internet. Never had the satisfaction of doing this either back in the day, would have loved to sink my older brother to the bottom of the ocean seeings he kept making out he was a god at this game!

Graphics

Even with the excellent gameplay, the graphics are even better. First released in the late 80s, but really did feel like a mid 90s game most of the time with some next generation graphics.

Real life photographs are used for each crew member instead of cartoonised pictures. So selecting a certain station, will bring up a person's picture with text appearing to what they are saying to you. A great idea at the same time and doing something different than the usual standard animated people.

3D type motion was even used for the periscope view. Each enemy or friendly ship really did look like the real thing at the time and looked very detailed. However, they did seem to move very slowly and kind of moved instantly to one area from another. The same thing would happen when they turned, suddenly facing me sideways and then head on the next. Even worse when there are so many on the screen at once, the game engine really does struggle when loading so many pixels and details at once. Although, still superb and beautiful. Kudos to the developers for being able to make such lovely graphics for this time of gaming. Smoke and fire even appears as damage, also a little satisfying to see such large ships slowly sink inch by inch.

The view for your sea camera is also quite impressive, letting out a virtual reality type 3D effect when watching your submarine progress through the ocean and keeping an eye on the terrain that could cause a problem. Not really necessary either, but I'm guessing the developers decided to throw in something a little extra.

The interface is very colourful and bright, seems to work well in this chilling atmosphere of the sea.

Music and Sound

The sound effects in this game really caught me off guard at first. It generally felt like next generation at the time. Actual voice overs were used and the sound quality for other effects like explosions sound very worked on.

The screams of your men really add to the chilling and eerie atmosphere of what it was like to be under the sea and getting hit by the enemy. The screen shakes with your crew screaming in pain and fear. Taking too much damage will cause your second officer to scream: "We gotta make an emergency surface, captain!!", an actual voice actor saying it too. Did anyone honestly expect something like that for a game made in 1988? There are also other comical things he will say depending on what situation you brought your submarine into. Hitting a friendly target will make him say: "Err....we just hit a friendly...., sir!" Despite these voice overs being used, he is the only station and crew member that will talk to you in that way. Slightly disappointing more voice overs weren't used, but still mightily impressive for this era in gaming.

Other eerie noises did and still do put chills down my spine. Sending out the sonar pulse to find out what is nearby really does sound creepy. Especially when you know something is close by, but is not appearing on your radar. It can take several minutes of attempting to receive enemy pings and eventually the loud alerts will flash on your radar with multiple targets very close by. Really did make me understand the fear of crew in submarines when they get into situations like this.

Recommendations

688 Attack Sub definitely captures the atmosphere of underwater sea action and the tension the people in this occupation face during war situations. It's definitely no wonder why this game is considered a classic in this genre. Obviously outdated in comparison to more modern titles like Silent Hunter 4, although 688 Attack Sub was a bit more ahead of its time in terms of graphics, sounds and gameplay.

Recommended for people that prefer this type of gaming genre. Still fairly easy to find despite the old age. An MS Dos game for the PC version, so maybe be tricky to get working on a modern system. Doesn't seem to be many on E-Bay for the Mega Drive from what I've seen, but can easily be played on a Sega Mega Drive emulator. The Amiga version is also worth checking out.