A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Final Outcome screen in Cold Waters' South China Sea 2000 Campaign game. (All game design elements in this and other screenshots are © 2017 Killerfish Games.) The South China Sea conflict between the United States and the People's Republic of China has ended in a victory for America and its NATO allies and a humiliating defeat, and I can now say that I successfully completed my first Campaign in Killerfish Games' 2017 submarine game Cold Waters.    © 2017 Killerfish Games After 114 days of the war, the loss of five submarines — out of six total — under my command, and quite a few frustrating war patrols, my career as a seagoing combat officer in the late 20th Century U.S. Navy has come to a conclusion. The boats I commanded, along with their crews, did their part in destroying much of the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) between October 2000 and February 2001 and ended (momentarily, at least) Beijing's aggressive foreign policy in East Asia and the Weste

A Chinese warship's topmast and some smoke from her funnel can be seen above the horizon in this periscope-view screenshot. (All of the graphics elements in these screengrabs are © 2017 Killerfish Games.)  Hello again and welcome to another installment of Old Gamers Never Die, the section of this blog where I talk about computer games and gaming in general. Today we return to my series of updates about my playthrough of Cold Waters' South China Sea Campaign, which depicts a hypothetical war between the People's Republic of China - which is allied with Vietnam and a Soviet Union that never vanished - and the United States in an alternate version of the year 2000. A Mark-48 ADCAP torpedo hits home, as seen from USS Jefferson City's periscope.  An aerial view of that same ship. Note the shock wave (in the water) and the fireball as the enemy vessel's magazines explode as a result of that torpedo hit.  It is now late December 2000, and USS Jefferson City has returned to

A Chinese frigate sinks in the East China Sea after a hit from a Mark-48 ADCAP torpedo. All game design elements in these screenshots are © 2017 Killerfish Games  Hello, again, Dear Reader.  As you can tell, I am still playing the U.S. vs. China South China Sea 2000 campaign in Cold Waters, a submarine simulation from Killerfish Games that its designers tout as the spiritual heir to MicroProse's 1988 classic Red Storm Rising. As in that sub sim — which was designed by Sid Meier and is based on Tom Clancy's 1986 novel about a conventional war between the Soviet Union and NATO — Cold Waters depicts undersea warfare in an alternate timeline with three different iterations of the Cold War turning hot at three distinct periods; 1968, 1984, and 2000. A beautiful shot of USS Jefferson City, my third command in this deadly war between the U.S. and China.  Since this is my first serious attempt at playing a Campaign game, I think I am holding my own even though I am not winning outright

The Transit Map in Cold Waters'  US vs. China 2000 Campaign. All graphics/game elements in this post are © 2017 Killerfish Games.   Last summer — you might remember — I bought a submarine simulation, Cold Waters, which was developed and published by Australia's Killerfish Games in 2017. Inspired by MicroProse Software's 1988 game Red Storm Rising, Cold Waters takes players into the chilling and thrilling world of late 20th Century submarine warfare in three "alternative history" Cold War-turns-hot scenarios: US vs. USSR 1984 US vs. USSR 1968 US vs. China 2000 Like the Sid Meier-designed Red Storm Rising (which was based on Tom Clancy's eponymous 1986 novel), Cold Waters is divided into three separate sections: Training, Single Battles, and Campaigns. The first one, of course, teaches players how to operate and fight their boats (submarines are never called ships by their operators or by those who know the traditions of the Silent Service); the second is a ser