Requires: Color 68020 Macintosh, 12" monitor, 4.5 MB Free RAM, System 7.0, CD-ROM drive
Protection: None
Power Mac Native: Yes
 
Harpoon II really should not need much of an introduction. It is the successor to the original Harpoon, which was critically acclaimed by simulation enthusiasts and military professionals alike for its detailed portrayal of modern naval combat. It was the product which established 360 as a strategy wargame powerhouse. Harpoon has remained popular and it continues to be marketed in an updated form by Alliance Interactive.
360 had leaked quite a bit of information about Harpoon II prior to the release. It was widely known that the design team had received support from several major defense contractors as well as both the US Navy and Air Force. Screenshots were made available on the major on-line services and certain design details were circulated on the Internet. The preliminary buildup to the release of Harpoon II would have even made Bill Gates proud.
The company seemed unusually willing to disclose information about their new product. This may have had something to do with the financial difficulties experienced by 360 at the time, or it may just have been a publicity ploy. Without realizing it, 360’s policy resulted in a situation in which the strategy gaming community began to have increasingly greater expectations of the finished product.
Then there were the rumors of a troubled development program and the growing apprehension that 360 was about to ship a another bug-infested dud like Victory at Sea (VaS). The company was still smarting from that embarrassing episode and it could ill afford another debacle. It was not long before the rumors caused some to see strong similarities between the two programs: both were naval strategy simulations, each was produced with direct assistance from foremost experts in the field, and they both involved large production teams and an extended design period. The argument ran that if the similarities continued and Harpoon II shipped with a ton of bugs, it would join VaS in the bargain basement in no time. Players will finally get to find out for themselves if there is fire where there is smoke. Harpoon II is now available for the Mac.
In The Navy. Harpoon II projected a no-nonsense image from the moment it arrived. It ships in a plain black game box that carries the game logo superimposed over an abstract radar terminal. The box contains the CD, a keyboard shortcut Command Card and a 300 page user’s guide. No, the number of pages was not a typo.
The size of the manual did not phase me initially. I figured that there would be numerous illustrations and charts, and these would take up the majority of the pages. I was wrong. There are hardly any illustrations in the manual at all! As “Anchors Away” began to play in the back of my head, I quickly realized that this game was an exceedingly detailed simulation. Yet, In all fairness, I must commend 360 for reducing the steep learning curve into a series of reasonable steps.
The tutorial, organized into 8 distinct lessons, covers the first 100 or so pages of the manual. Each lesson teaches a basic concept such as “Using Weapons” or “Air Operations.” Every lesson revolves around a simple tutorial scenario, frequently involving no more than one or two ships or a single submarine. The manual was designed both for the Mac and PC versions, and clearly identifies features that are unique to one version or another.
 
These lessons are effective at acquainting the user with the game system. The success of the tutorials lies in the fact that the supporting scenarios were built specifically for the lesson. The players can concentrate on one type of game control at a time, and are not overwhelmed by the complexity of Harpoon II. Should they have to replay a tutorial in order to understand a difficult concept, such as “The Formation Editor,” they can do so with the certainty that they will not get confused by variance or random factors.
The tutorials also demonstrated something else about Harpoon II: it does indeed have serious bugs! I ran into the first such problem during the lesson on “Air Operations.” For some reason, this lesson consistently crashes as soon as the first air-to-air missile impacts a target. As a result, the tutorial can not even be completed if the player does not completely skip the section on Air-to-Air Engagements. This anomaly only manifests itself in this tutorial. Air-to-air missiles work properly, and without crashing, in the rest of the game.
I was glad to see that Harpoon II had such low stated hardware requirements, making it available to the vast majority of Mac owners. The tutorials loaded right away and I found the game’s performance acceptable. I quickly had to change my opinion when I loaded the first real scenario: the game slowed to a crawl. When I switched to the PowerPC version the performance improved. Still, I think that 360 is being exceptionally optimistic to claim that Harpoon II will provide satisfactory performance on a 68020 machine. I doubt that there are many who could tolerate the performance penalty.
I formed another early opinion of Harpoon II: the interface demands either multiple monitors or a large screen area. The designers opted for a presentation which allows players TOTAL control over their displays. This is an excellent idea for an expert player, but will confuse the novice. For example, when one loads a larger scenario, the AI just dumps open windows all over the desktop, frequently obscuring one such window two or three layers below another. The main map, the tactical display, and the windows of several formation editors are haphazardly strewn about. Competing for display area in this melange of sensory overload is the game clock, the platform display window and a message box into which various contacts and reports get dumped.
But wait, there’s MORE! In addition, Staff Officers report to the players in their own pop-up windows, which persist on the screen. During a large raid, the screen can become obliterated by these contact and identification messages. Each one must be acknowledged individually. Players can loose valuable time just closing these windows so that they can get back to the tactical window from which they can take the required action. Certain events, such as missile launches and torpedo attacks are accompanied by a Quicktime (QT) movie, but these only last a few seconds and can also be deselected. The only solution to the clutter is to use Windowshade (a shareware control panel that minimizes open windows and has been incorporated into System 7.5) and stack the title bars.
Short Range Operations. Considering that it takes 8 tutorial lessons to familiarize the player with Harpoon II, I think it a poor decision to only include 15 actual scenarios. None of these can be edited, and we should not even count one in the first place, since it is the missile boat tutorial from the original Harpoon! The other scenarios are loosely based on contemporary conflicts.
Overall, I found most of these engagements unimaginative. Several, such as a shooting war between England and the European Economic Community take a real stretch of the imagination. Others appear more plausible. For example, there is a scenario which simulates Russia’s attempt to liberate its Black Sea Fleet from a Ukrainian port. Considering the recent events in Chechnia, this battle even appears likely. The remainder are contemporary recreations of the Inchon Landing and the Battle for the Falklands.
Full Speed Ahead. Whatever faults Harpoon II may have, I have to give it credit for technical excellence. This is an amazing simulation. I could describe the gameplay in detail, but it might suffice to say that Harpoon II is a close as the players can come to serving in the control center of a naval battle group without going to sea for six months at a time. The first Harpoon looked and played like a game. Harpoon II is a huge step forward.
This is a detailed simulation with great fidelity to the look and feel of actual naval command and control systems. Players can select a display which is based on the actual system in use on board the Navy’s Aegis cruisers. There is even the option to display contacts using the symbols of the Naval Tactical Display System. The map system used in Harpoon II is a fully scalable vector map utilizing data from such sources as the Central Intelligence Agency the Defense Mapping Agency. It has the precise look of maps used by actual tactical systems such as the Marine Corps’ Modular Control Equipment, and may very well be the most accurate map of its kind.
The platform database contains an absolute treasuretrove of information about ships, planes and missiles. Each major system is accompanied by a photo. These are only BW and rather small, but at least they are recent and reasonably clear. This thorough database allowed the programmers to make the game execution even more sophisticated and accurate.
The realism has been enhanced by making the players environment more like the real world. The game will now place and track airliners and commercial ships. Unlike Harpoon, an unknown contact can no longer be engaged for fear of civilian casualties. Senior Staff officers make verbal reports on contacts and these sounds have been edited to replicate a crackling intercom. There is an option for full reality, where players can not pause the game and continue taking actions — with this selected the clock is always ticking. Lastly the game duplicates the limit on the span of command. Players will need to make extensive preparations at the beginning of the scenario, but once contact is made and the missile fly, they will be able to do little to alter the course of the battle.
Due to the constraints of the game system, players can only select the AI as an opponent. This is too bad. Harpoon II would be an excellent network game. 360 makes no apologies for this: all along they were after a “no compromises” strategy simulation and everything else was secondary. And I have to say that despite some bugs and glitches, they have succeeded on this most fundamental objective.
 
General Quarters. 360 includes a warning about the incompatibility of QT 2.0 and Harpoon II. Considering how long 2.0 has been available this would be inexcusable. Were it not for the fact that Harpoon II and Quicktime 2.0 collaborated productively on my machine. I installed QT 1.6.1 in order to alleviate some of the bugs, but the game continued to exhibit the same quirks and crashes as before.
I contacted 360 about the recurring crashes. I was informed that they were aware of the root cause of several bugs, and were going to release a patch. Right after they release a patch for the PC version! Expected availability date of this patch is unknown.
The Verdict. A game of this complexity has some initial frustration built into it, simply because there is so much to learn about the control mechanisms. I expected this about Harpoon II. I did not expect how much I would be baffled by the bugs and the unusual interface of Harpoon II. This may be a significantly more polished product than VaS, but it still does suffer from discrepancies. I spent several hours trying to isolate the cause of the crash related to the “Air Operations” demo, only to realize that no particular combination of extensions or control panels were to be blamed. I lost more time trying to figure out a way to set up all the windows of Harpoon II so they would fit on my 13” screen. Of course I never accomplished this feat.
I was impressed by the technical details and the accuracy of the simulation, and I enjoyed the game once I had spent about a week with it. I don’t know if many other players will have the stamina to stick with Harpoon II long enough to get a fair grip on what is going on and how to how to attempt to control it. I suspect that many will balk at the slope of the learning curve.
Harpoon II is indeed a difficult game. I consider myself a veteran strategy gamer with a solid understanding of the principles of naval operations. But Harpoon II humbled me. I had to read the User’s Guide twice, and I had to replay several of tutorial lessons until I was comfortable with the use of sonobuoyes and patrol zones. I learned more and understood more and was pleased with the game, but I had to really work for it. Those considering buying Harpoon II can expect to have to do the same.
Pros
• Well designed tutorial lessons; each features a particular aspect of the game in a purpose built engagement
• Technically a superb achievement; incorporates original source data
• Replicates the look and feel of actual command and control systems
• Has an extensive on-line database with a wealth of detail about the various weapon systems in the game.
• Players experience a realistic environment that includes commercial ships and aircraft
• Recreates the limits of span of command
Cons
• BUGS — one of the tutorial lessons crashes consistently!
• Advertised minimum system requirements entirely too optimistic, this game NEEDS a PowerPC!
• Game requires a large screen area or preferably multiple monitors
• Limited number of scenarios
• Scenarios show limited imagination: several are either reprints of scenarios from the original game or updated versions of historic engagements from the Cold War period
• No two player, modem or network games allowed by the game engine
• Steep, steep learning curve: this is a game for the serious strategy affectionado
