Sub Command

by Electronic Arts

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005MJ9O
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 12, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,481 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PC | Edition: Standard

Amazon.com Product Description

Take charge of the most deadly modern-day submarines in the world in Sub Command. Command three distinct submarines across two unique and challenging campaigns. Utilize cutting-edge technology to navigate the world's oceans to locate, track, and destroy enemy convoys. Or park your sub off hostile shores to deliver Tomahawk missiles to inland targets. Whether diving, scouring, or surfacing, you'll control the smartest, stealthiest, and most feared subs in the water today.

From the makers of 688(I): Hunter/Killer, Sub Command is one of the most realistic submarine simulations ever. Take control of the most technologically advanced submarines in the world--the Seawolf, the 688(I), and the Akula. Each sub contains authentic naval systems such as sonar, radar, and target motion analysis. Test your skills in missions straight from the headlines as you fire Tomahawk missiles at enemy structures, rescue crippled subs, rise through the polar caps to communicate vital information, and much more.

Multiplayer mode extends the action by giving the option of playing cooperatively or head-to-head over the Internet on EA.com's matchmaking system for endless hours of submarine warfare. With the game's new, easy-to-use interface, controlling a submarine has never been easier for the advanced or casual gamer. With enhanced sound and 3-D graphics engines, you can experience more than 250 3-D objects, from Russian trawlers to France's Mirage fighters, and the exacting sound modes will pull you into a realistic battle experience like no other. You won't just hear depth charges, you'll feel them.

Product Description

Take charge of the most deadly modern-day submarines in the world in Sub Command. Command three distinct submarines across two unique and challenging campaigns. Utilize cutting-edge technology to navigate the world's oceans to locate, track, and destroy enemy convoys. Or park your sub off hostile shores to deliver Tomahawk missiles to inland targets. Whether diving, scouring, or surfacing, you'll control the smartest, stealthiest, and most feared subs in the water today.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars NOT for "casual" gamers!!! 3 for hardcore sub-sim gamers!, November 21, 2001

By 

John Alderson "icemoose" (Central Maine, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sub Command (CD-ROM)

I am a hardcore sub-sim gamer, among other types of games. For hardcore sim gamers I rate this game 3 of 5. For casual gamers I rate this game 0 of 5, IF YOU ARE A "CASUAL GAMER" DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS GAME. I give this game an average of 3 only because of a very hard learning curve and a manual that is in .pdf from and too large to bother printing.

Graphics: Excellent for a sub sim.
Realism: Too real (a bit too much micro-management, sonar contacts sometimes a bit too ambiguous, too many available russian weapons).
Sound: Excellent, but needs a few more controls for volume of individual types of sounds, incoming sonar and contact engine noise for instance.
Voice acting: Excellent. Does not get tiresome quickly.
Mission breifing: Excellent.
Gameplay: Good. Difficult (this is a good thing for hardcore gamers), could use better "Auto-crew" AI, especially in the sonar department. No difficulty levels except a half dozen options for "auto-crew" and fast reload times (also reinforces the "too real" concept).

The very hard learning curve means THIS GAME IS NOT FOR CASUAL GAMERS, regardless of the developer's claims. It took me about 25 hours of play just to get familiar with all the necessary controls and procedures. During this time, I was sunk once by another ship, and heavily damaged a dozen times due to running into icebergs or the surface ice pack. Don't get me wrong, this is an excellent sim. It's just that they could've made it a little easier to play. The three short tutorial missions do not cover nearly enough procedures for normal "auto-crew" gameplay. You WILL have to read the manual included as .pdf file on disk, or you WILL give up and put this game away forever. It is a big help to be familiar with the details of real submarine procedures (as I was) before playing this game. This game will allow you to switch between stations and give orders while the time is paused! This is very handy, especially for beginners. There are more contacts than just military, and not all military contacts are your enemy or target. This is a refreshing change from the sub-sims I have played in the past, where you knew if you found a contact you could immediatly fire opon it.

My main gripes about this game are:
1. MAIN GRIPE: The "auto-crew" at the sonar station: Is too slow, and often designates (many) multiple trackers for the same contact. Some contacts are called out once and never again for a long time, and these do not appear on the "nav" view or the weapon control view, therefore you cannot fire at these contacts. It also will sometimes re-assign an incorrect designation (ship or sub class) for one already correctly assigned by me with 100% confidence. I have seen a ship re-designated as an enemy torpedo! This would be okay if the ship did launch a torpedo, and the torpedo tracking continued, but this was not the case. The ship continued to be designated as a torpedo without another contact being reported. Running the Akula (russian) sonar is too tough to do yourself, and turning off the sonar "auto-crew" can be a fatal mistake for any sub, you need the station manned at ALL times. After about fifteeen minutes of good contact, many contacts are not yet designated (type) by the sonar "auto-crew". When I interceeded it was easy to find the designation of these contacts. Why didn't the sonar "auto-crew" designate these (NOT EVEN SURFACE/AIR/SUBMERGED type)??? By the time the sonar "auto-crew" designates a contact, surely they will have pinpointed you (if enemy).

2. Some single Player Campaign missions are unbelievably hard. I cannot believe ANYONE who did not cheat could win the "Escort NATO SAG" mission (Seawolf) without knowing ahead of time where the enemy was!

3. Air contact are not designated as such by the radar "auto-crew". I did the medivac mission and the helocopter which I was expecting was never designated as an air contact, even with my radar on! What would happen if I was surfaced and an unknown aircraft was approaching?!!!

4. When the fire control "auto-crew" is on, I cannot fine-tune the torpedo and missle presets. When I turn the "auto-crew" off at this station, the torpedo just fires in the exact CURRENT bearing of the target (or possibly just straight ahead), and if the control wire breaks when fired, it will miss. This happens even when you turn on the fire control "auto-crew" when designating a target, and then turn it off before actually firing the weapon (this is my usual tactic). Once the weapon is fired, you cannot adjust the running depth, activation point distance, "ceiling", "floor" (max. depth allowed), and type of detection (active/passive). These are called "presets". Also I cannot find a firing direction preset to adjust for the torpedo or missile, even with the fire control "auto-crew" off.

5. There is no "auto-crew" for the passive radar contact designation, i.e. contacts can be designated (identified) with 100% confidence by passive radar, and you have to do this yourself manually (and thus too much micro-management).

6. The game is too buggy! Was apparently released before it was sufficiently debugged. Version 1.01 (patch) is still way too buggy, and EA says they are ending bug fixing this month (Dec.'01)!

7. No printable documentation of the default "hotkeys", even though their use is not necessary (except for the P for Pause).

Hardcore sub-sim gamers should be delighted with this game if they can endure the very long steep learning curve.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great successor to sub simulations!!, November 4, 2001

By 

Christopher M Green (Oswego,NY,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sub Command (CD-ROM)

After seeing some of the reviews I was hestiate to buy Sub Command, however after getting it I now have a new addiction. People complain that it is not 688i Hunter-Killer, in fact all the modeling and the way the game works is almost exactly like it. Those familar with the older Janes game should have little problem using the Los Angeles class submarine in the game since the interface has only minor differences, the Seawolf Class and the two Akula class submarines are an excellent addition and offer their own advantages and disadvantages. I highly recommend the game if you are a fan of submarine simulation games and have played 688i, if you have not played 688i then you probably will find the game pretty difficult and even frustrating at times since acquiring a contact and tracking it to a good firing solution can be time consuming and borders on the level of being a strategy game. Also the sound, music and graphics are far superior to 688i even tho I have seen reviews saying that the graphics quality is the same or even worse (perhaps if you have a low quality computer the graphics will be low quality).

The only flaws I have seen is the limits of the speech engine, this allows you to control the submarine but you can't control the entire submarine just on voice commands. For example you can launch a tube with a voice command but you must select the contact, establish the presets and ready the tube manually and you have to do a couple of readings with the speech engine before it really can be effective (it took me two readings before it could understand most of my commands but after a three it seemed to understand just about every single command I issued). The only other flaw is the serious lack of good training missions, they offer some very basic training missions with the Seawolf class submarine but it only touches the bare surface in the functions of the submarine and teachs you nothing of tactics nor is there any training for the other two submarines.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Fabulous!!, October 4, 2001

By 

LeRoy Brady (Cupertino, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sub Command (CD-ROM)

... This Game is Great! Yeah, Duh, submarine warfare is similar to what it has always been but this game incorporates tons of new features. I played 688(I) a lot and I find this game more tense, suspensful, enjoyable and rewarding then it's predecessor.

You get three platforms to control, and they each have their strong points and advantages that if ignored will cost you a trip down to "Davie Jones' locker". New stand off weapons to drop torpedoes on your enemies head while staying away from his retaliatory response. Or the high speed Shkval (rocket powered torpedo) to level the playing field when your opponent gets the drop on you, are just a couple of the strengths that the new Akula boats offer.
Or the super Quiet Seawolf class of subs with the deadly Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes and awesome sensor suite to help you detect and destroy your opponent before he even knows you are there. Finally the 688(I) boat and its 12 VLS tubes for a Tomahawk strike on ground targets or TASM's for those pesky Surface Action Groups (SAG).

Graphics are dramatically improved over 688(I) but more importantly in a vessel with no windows the sounds are superb. Also improved AI puts this game miles ahead of any other Nuke Subsim out there. I'm hooked!!

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