A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

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

© 2021 Killerfish Games  Hi, Dear Reader. It's been a while since my last post, hasn't it? I have been busy building up A Certain Point of View, Too over on WordPress, and although I initially thought I'd be able to write regularly in both of my blogs, that idea quickly went out the window many months ago. (You know that old saying about the road to Hell is paved with good intentions? Well...)  To be honest, I focus more on stuff there more than here for several reasons. First, the original A Certain Point of View has enough material - 1,360 posts, including this one - to sustain itself for a while without my input. I get fewer views than before the fateful Facebook block that forced me to create our WordPress sister blog, sure, but this blog still gets decent traffic and ad revenue without me publishing one post a day.  Another reason why I need to be more active on WordPress it's because I have to pay annually for the Premium package and a domain name. It's not a

  © 2017 Killerfish Games If you are a regular – or semiregular – reader of A Certain Point of View, you probably know that in July I purchased Killerfish Games’ 2017 submarine game Cold Waters from Steam. I had been wanting to get it for some time, but I waited till it was on sale; I didn’t want to shell out nearly $40 for a computer game, even if said game billed itself as the a spiritual heir to MicroProse’s 1988 classic, Red Storm Rising. Like Red Storm Rising, Cold Waters has Training, Single Mission,  and Campaign modes; unlike Sid Meier’s game, which is based on the late Tom Clancy’s 1986 best-selling novel, it gives players the option to play as an American, Soviet, or Chinese submarine commander in Cold War-turned-hot campaigns set in three distinct eras (1968, 1984, and 2000) in alternative histories which take a turning point in world affairs – say, the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of ’68 – and tweak it so that the two blocs that waged the Cold War find

Single Mission menu from Cold Waters, with Junks on Parade selected. © 2017 Killerfish Games   Death in the Taiwan Straits If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I've been playing a cool submarine simulation by Killerfish Games, Cold Waters. Released three years ago by the Australia-based game designer behind Atlantic Fleet, Cold Waters is the spiritual successor to one of my all-time favorite games, Red Storm Rising,  Like that 1988 MicroProse classic based on Tom Clancy's eponymous 1986 novel — which I've written about in both my blogs — Cold Waters puts the player in command of a nuclear-powered attack sub in a hypothetical conflict set in the latter part of the 20th Century. Unlike Red Storm Rising, which posited a Third World War in what would have been the "near future" in 1986, Cold Waters examines three different "alternative histories" set in three different time periods: 1968: In this alternate version of the tumultuous year

A Soviet warship cruises into battle in Cold Waters. © 2017 Killerfish Games   Greetings, A Certain Point of View readers! Well, it's Friday evening here in my corner of Florida; as I write this, the temperature outside is 88℉ (31℃). With the sun coming down and the wind blowing gently from the north at 5 MPH and humidity at a sticky 67%, the feels-like temperature is 98℉ (37℃). It isn't as hot as it was five hours ago, but it's still not good walking weather, at least not for me. Today was not a productive day here. I went to bed late last night; it was well after midnight when I finished watching two episodes of The War: A Ken Burns Film, that much I know. I'm guessing it was at least 2 AM when I finally hit the sack. I slept well, I think, but because my Significant Other is lax about food shopping, we didn't have milk and we were out of orange juice. As a result, my breakfast - lunch, really - was two slices of pepperoni pizza that someone had taken from the fre

© 2017 Killerfish Games Do you like military-themed simulations or games based on hypothetical wars? Do you like submarine games? Are you a fan of Tom Clancy’s 1986 novel Red Storm Rising or its computer game spin-off from 1988? Then have I got a computer game recommendation for you! In the early 1990s, back when the original version of MicroProse was the go-to source for user-friendly military simulations and strategy games, I played a game called Red Storm Rising.  Based on the eponymous 1986 novel by the late Tom Clancy, Red Storm Rising was a nuclear sub simulation set in a fictional Third World War between the still-in-existence Soviet Union and the U.S. led North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In it, you played the role of a U.S. Navy officer in command of a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine assigned to seek and destroy surface and submarine units of the Red Banner Northern Fleet to thwart the Soviets’ offensives on land and sea, as well as to

© 2017 Killerfish Games Between the Devil and the Deep Blue If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know that I've long been a fan of military-themed computer games, especially those that simulate specific weapons systems, such as aircraft ( F-15 Strike Eagle III ) armored fighting vehicles ( M-1 Tank Platoon ) and warships ( Strike Fleet, Destroyer ). Although my top favorite category of military-themed computer games is "flight simulations," a close second is the submarine simulation genre. Ever since I watched Irwin Allen's 1960s TV series  Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea  and classic movies such as  Destination: Tokyo, Operation Pacific, Run Silent, Run Deep,  and  The Enemy Below  (which is technically a destroyer-vs.-sub film) ,  I have long been fascinated by undersea warfare ﹘   a fascination that was rekindled in the mid-1980s by two novels written by the late Tom Clancy:  The Hunt for Red October  and  Red Storm Rising.  So it sh