You know, GamerFan, I was just reading that 688 Attack Sub was published by MicroProse back in ’89. Fun fact: MicroProse was co-founded by Sid Meier, the same mind behind Civilization, and Bill Stealey, an Air Force pilot. They really knew how to bring military realism to the PC, and this submarine sim is no exception.
I can see that. The control panels look like something NASA might envy—sonar, periscope, weapons, navigation… It feels like we’re running an actual nuclear sub, though mostly we tell the crew what to do and they handle the dials.
Gameplay Highlights
- Station Delegation: You can assign sonar tracking and weapons control to your officers while you steer—ideal for multitasking on a 286 with barely 640K RAM.
- Authentic Sound Effects: The ping of the active sonar and the hush of the engine room are delightfully eerie, especially with your pink neon slushie in hand.
- Mission Variety: Ten missions ranging from peaceful patrols to all-out attack runs against Soviet task forces keep the tension high.
- Split National Play: You can choose either the American or Soviet 688-class boat, complete with different torpedo loads and countermeasure kits.
The realism here is both a blessing and a curse. When a brief flicker of a radar sweep shows an enemy destroyer, my pulse definitely ratchets up. And your floppy disk drive suddenly sounds like a jet engine as it tries to load the next mission.
True, though sometimes the text updates lag so much I end up staring at a blank green screen. I half expect the Data General Vax to chime in with “Press any key to continue… whenever you get around to it.”
Hot Tips
- Use Passive Sonar Early: Ping sparingly. You’ll conserve stealth and avoid giving away your position to enemy escorts.
- Delegate Torpedo Loading: Let your weapons officer handle tube assignments so you can monitor incoming threats.
- Keep Your Periscope Time Short: Surface view gives great targeting info, but every second up exposes you to depth charges.
- Save Before Depth Charge Runs: If the consoles freeze or your crew screws up, you won’t want to replay the entire approach.
Remember that anecdote from last night? When your own depth charge countermeasure pinged off a rock and nearly fried our whole crew?
Don’t remind me! I spent three minutes trying to figure out why our decoys were homing in on seabed debris. The sonar readout looked like Morse code after a neon rave.
Memorable Moments & Anecdotes
- First Major Kill: Dropping a spread of Mk48s on an Oscar-class submarine felt epic—like snagging the high score on your favorite shmup.
- Communications Jam: At one point, every radio channel went dead, and we had to scramble with blinking console lights to re-route the signal.
- Narrow Escape: We soaked a full pattern of depth charges on Mission 7—our hull creaked so loud I almost spilled my slushie.
- Final Boss Encounter: Facing the battle group commander’s flagship destroyer was a tense ballet of torpedo evasion and countermeasure deployment.
That endgame was something else. As soon as we surfaced for a quick periscope shot, two cruisers flanked us in seconds. I toggled between helm and weapons so fast my finger got stuck on the numeric keypad.
And I was hollering, “Fire torpedoes now!”—only for the game to freeze momentarily while loading the next screen. Talk about heart-in-your-throat action.
The Grade: B-
It’s a solid sim, no doubt. The crew AI is generally reliable, and plotting an intercept in a three-dimensional underwater chessboard is gratifying.
Yet there are rough edges—periodic freezes, long load times, and that green-screen text sometimes vanishes. For a MicroProse title, I expected fewer hiccups.
Agreed. But the tension, the authenticity of sonar pings, and the strategic options keep us coming back. Especially when we nail that surprise flanking manoeuvre on the last mission.
In short, 688 Attack Sub rewards patience and a steady hand—even if it sometimes feels like wrestling an old dot-matrix printer to spit out your briefing. Not perfect, but a compelling deep dive into submarine warfare.
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