Customer Reviews

TOM CLANCY: SSN

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This is an extremely "lite" nuclear submarine simulator in which you command an improved LA class sub, the USS Cheyenne. There's only one real mode - campaign, and the campaign itself is hard-scripted to conform to a scenario paralleled by FMV sequences which flesh out the story.

Story? That's right, SSN is part simulator, part interactive movie. The scenario involves a limited conflict between the US and the PRC over the oil-rich Spratly Islands. When a militant faction of Chinese officers seizes power in Beijing, they unleash the might of the burgeoning Chinese naval arm against you. Your foe will use both surface and submarine assets against you and some friendlies. As an "improved Los Angeles", your boat comes equipped with the Tomahawk VLS complex, turning your boat (when the mission demands it, and when Tomahawk missiles are available) into an SSGN. For the most part, your tubes are fitted for Mk 48 torpedoes and some smart decoys. The Chinese start with Han SSN's (largely indifferent subs) but soon ramp things up with fast Alfas, stealthy Akula's and ultra-stealthy (if non-nuclear) Kilo subs. Missions will have you fighting your way across unfriendly waters, around mines, dodging torpedoes, sometimes lobbing Tomahawks, but always on the hunt.

ALL COMPARTMENTS REPORT IN: Unfortunately, this sim sinks on nearly every level. The interface is interesting - the screen is split between a lower half with some basic instrumentation, and a larger upper half devoted to the exterior of your sub. You can pan around your boat, but zoom and vertical angles are fixed. You can spot your enemies only as long as sonar detects them, and again, the perspective is fixed to your sub. Your interaction with sonar is pretty limited, and the sonar display itself is a small circle that doesn't even have a map overlay on it. There are several modes for your torpedoes, but your ability to set up meaningful pre-sets will require a different game entirely. You can't really set course or depth instructions for the AI crew, though this is a mixed curse - one that forces you to take a more hands-on approach to your boat (the game's flaws are in demanding too little, not too much). The spot-submarine device makes SSN inherently unrealistic, but the rest of the game suffers from further unnecessary stretches - the Chinese field more Alfas than the Russians ever built (not even accounting for at least three sunk in Clancy's books); subs rely only on conventional torpedoes, and never rocket-boosted torps; surface forces are entirely useless.

There are some nice touches - you have to maneauver your boat in a specific depth and speed window to launch tomahawks; the damage control is nice; and your ship won't hold depth during prolonged turns. Unfortunately, the game's pre-scripted system forces you to relive unsuccesful missions repeatedly. Worse, missions are grouped in mission sets - and you have to start the entire set over, even if you "successfully" completed the first missions.

The game's big draw is its ambience - surrounding you with some almost literally immersive acoustics, from the sound of the sea, to the whine of incoming torpedoes, from the near-silent hum of a nearby sub, to the break-up noises of a sinking ship.

The sound is almost hypnotic - if only it could sustain the rest of the game. Instead, SSN never becomes more than a game with a limited hold on your patience, and near zero replayability.