A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

  © 2024 Triassic Games/MicroProse As someone who came of age during the latter half of the Cold War, I’ve always been captivated by the scenarios in which tensions between NATO and the Warsaw Pact could have escalated into full-scale war. It’s not that I wished for a Third World War to erupt in the late 1970s and early 1980s during my brief flirtation with conservatism. True, I disliked the Soviet Union then as much as I dislike Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation now. However, I desperately wanted sanity and diplomacy to prevail during those tense times. At the same time, I hoped that if a war between East and West did break out, our military forces—especially the U.S. and Royal Navies—would triumph in a Third Battle of the Atlantic. © 1988 MicroProse & Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd.  It should therefore come as no surprise that many of the books, movies, and computer games I enjoy, even in my more liberal incarnation, center on actual Cold War incidents such as the Cuban M...

 From the lead designer of Cold Waters, Sea Power lets you control NATO and Warsaw Pact forces in modern naval conflict campaigns. Use your advanced naval weaponry and sensors to respect rules of engagement and defeat the enemy forces in a tense fight for initiative and air/naval supremacy. – Promotional blurb on Steam, MicroProse/Triassic Games Well, it's been nearly a week since MicroProse released Triassic Games' Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, and I'm impressed by how much attention to detail the game's developers lavished on this sim.  If I had to describe the game succinctly, I'd say it's a more muscular and visually appealing version of both Harpoon Classic '97 and Fleet Command, with a bit of Cold Waters added for good measure,  (That latter bit is not a casual observation because, as MicroProse's promo blurb states, the lead designer of Killerfish Games' 2017 submarine sim created Sea Power along with others in his new studio, T...

A Chinese destroyer is hit by a torpedo in this "low-light" periscope view in Cold Waters . (All of the illustrations are actual screengrabs from sessions of Cold Waters, and all game design elements are © 2017 Killerfish Games As you know, one of my favorite computer games of recent vintage is Killerfish Games’ Cold Waters (2017), a submarine warfare simulator that was inspired by MicroProse Software’s classic “subsim” Red Storm Rising (1988). I bought Cold Waters nearly two years ago during Steam’s Fourth of July Sale for 2020. I had added the game to my “wish list” on Steam (just as I have MicroProse’s Regiments and Second Front on my wish list now) in 2017 because I thought paying $49.99 or more when the game was new and buggy was a bit too much for my taste. Eventually, though, Steam offered it at a price that I could afford, and by 2020 all the “bugs” and kinks in the game had been fixed. For the better part of my time playing Cold Waters, I avoided playing the Campaig...

HIJMS Shokaku burns in Silent Service II's An Embarrassment of Riches scenario. © 1990, 2015 MicroProse/Retroism (Tommo)  Hi, there, Dear Reader. As you know, my favorite video games or computer simulations deal with some aspects of military conflict. Whether it’s a flight simulator along the lines of F-15 Strike Eagle II or a land warfare sim like M1 Tank Platoon or a grand-strategy game along the lines of Strategic Command WWII: World at War, if it is action-packed, historically interesting, yet not so complex that you must earn a degree in Military Science to play it, the wargame genre is my favorite. Within that category, there is a sub -category of wargame that I am fascinated by, and that’s the submarine simulation game. "Logbook" of USS Cavalla, © 1990, 2015 MicroProse/Retroism (Tommo) Since 1987, I have owned quite a few submarine-centric games. The first one I owned was Silent Service , which was published in 1985 by the original MicroProse Software. Desig...

An enemy ship sinks in Cold Waters.  Game elements © 2017 Killerfish Games  Hi, there, Dear Reader. It's Monday, January 10, 2022, and finally, after two months of not posting anything in A Certain Point of View, I am back with a new - if perhaps brief - post.  I am happy to report that I got my Moderna (Spikevax) vaccine. I received my first shot in mid-November, and I got my second one just a few days before Christmas, I have not gone out anywhere since the second Fauci Ouchie, mainly because I don't go out much anyway, and the woman who used to take me places - doesn't do it anymore. I missed seeing Steven Spielberg's West Side Story because of this, and since there's no easy way for me to go to the nearest theater on my own, I'm resigned to having to wait till the film hits the home media market.  Anyway, I've been busy over on WordPress with our sister blog A Certain Point of View, Too. I write at least one post a day there, and currently, I am on a str...

© 2017 Killerfish Games  As you know, my current favorite computer game is Cold Waters (2017), a submarine warfare simulator set in an alternate timeline where the Cold War turned hot. Inspired by MicroProse Software's 1988 classic Red Storm Rising, this game from Australian game studio Killerfish Games takes players into the cold waters of either the North Atlantic or the Pacific Ocean and depicts three separate and chilling scenarios set in alternate versions of 1968, 1984, and 2000.  I play Cold Waters at least twice a week on average, but there are times when I play the game a bit more. I enjoy it more than most of my other games because:  It does remind me of the many hours that I played Red Storm Rising back when I was younger It has kickass graphics It has immersive sound and dialogue It is full of heart-pounding action and intense situations full of suspense and drama Did I mention the kickass graphics? It is challenging and makes players want to learn more about ...

  Waging Virtual Combat in the War that Could Have Been   © 2017 Killerfish Games If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I came of age during the last stages of the Cold War between the United States (land of my birth) and the Soviet Union. That “war in peacetime” between the world’s superpowers dominated at least half my life. My mom was pregnant with me during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, and I grew up under the shadow of a possible showdown between the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact. In order to cope with “Cold War-gone-hot” anxiety, I tried to reduce my fear of a war with the Soviet Union by learning as much about Soviet military technology and strategic/tactical thought. I also did the same for U.S./NATO military hardware, strategy, and tactical doctrine. I spent countless hours at the public library branch closest to my house, poring over the most recent edition of Jane’s Fightin...