Alright, I'll admit it, the majority of my seafaring knowledge was obtained from Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler novels. But I love a good sim so when the opportunity arose to try out Dangerous Waters from Sonalysts Combat Simulations, I jumped on it.



Please excuse the pun, but this game is deep. Dangerous Waters is a straight up naval combat simulation, nothing more, nothing less. If you are looking for a high octane, adrenaline pumping, torpedo dodging action game, then you will be disappointed. If you want to know what it feels like to be the captain of a Los Angeles class attack submarine running intercept missions in the Sea of Japan, then you've come to the right place.



Dangerous Waters boasts some truly excellent features. The graphics are on par with most standard simulators and may only lag some of the top notch flight sims in the area of eye candy. Audio quality is superb with excellent voices provided for all of the applicable areas. Change course? Course change confirmation is given by a clean, clear, military style vocal feedback. Increase speed, a different, but similar voice confirms your command from the maneuvering station.

What's this? Relayed commands a little too warm and fuzzy for you? Not hands on enough? No problem, just turn off the "Auto-Crew" feature and you can (and will have to) run the entire ship yourself. Move from station to station, set your depth, increase your speed, listen to the sonar, deploy the Towed Array, load the torpedo tubes, etc. You can control it all. Each of the stations is unique, but clearly defined and easy to use. I'm not a Navy man myself but I've been on plenty of Navy ships and believe me when I tell you, they did not go for accuracy when replicating the control layout for the station. Real ship control stations range from shockingly spartan to dizzyingly complex. Aside from the obvious problem of complexity with the actual stations, there is also the matter of control to consider. In many cases a control station can consist of a number of wheels, dials, levers and switches. It really would not have been prudent for Sonalysts to even attempt at an accurate recreation of naval control stations. Instead they use stylized versions that keep to the spirit of the real live incarnation while providing simple, easy to use functionality. Oh and if you are feeling really squidly, you can even go to the plotting station and watch as your course is plotted along the map. It's actually pretty fascinating.

My favorite feature of Dangerous Waters has nothing to do with playing the game. Of course this is just my personal preference since I'm a knowledge whore, but Sonalysts provides and awesome amount of reference material in the form of the "USNI Reference Guide". This is truly an amazing reference. In it you'll find a plethora of information on hundreds of vessels, aircraft (both fixed-wing and rotor-wing), and weapons. Details specification of ships from a multitude of countries, actual black and white photographs of nearly every entry as well as their 3D rendered game object equivalent. Reading through this compendium is like having a key to the offices of Jane's.



Dangerous Waters has several game modes including, Campaigns, Missions, Quick Missions and Multiplayer modes. There were a total of 25 missions including specific missions for surface vessels, submarines, rotor-wing aircraft and fixed-wing aircraft. The missions are quite good and exactly what you would expect from a Naval Combat Simulation.

There is also the option of a Quick Mission. Quick Missions are much like the standard mission type except they require a lot less time to complete. Standard missions can get very long and have multifaceted objectives. Quick Missions are far more simplistic and generally consist of a single task, such as escort a freighter from one point to another and sink any enemy vessels.



One of the other cool features is the ability to issue voice commands to control your ship operations. Dangerous Waters has the capability of using the Microsoft Speech Engine to interpret your vocal commands into game control commands. While this worked out pretty well for me, especially considering the pace of the game, as an old school gamer, I still felt very awkward trying to keep my hands off the keyboard and mouse. Most often I would use the voice commands to set things in motion, then, when it came time for a correction I simply forgot to issue voice commands and used the keyboard. Also, I could not get the speech recognition to work properly while playing music, go figure.

The action, such that it is, takes place in all the hotspots all over the globe. The Quick Mission allows you to choose from eleven very distinct areas. Northern Australia, India, Kamchatka Peninsula, Korea, Malaysia, Mediterranean, Persian Gulf, Sea of Japan, Straights of Gibraltar, Taiwan and the East Cost of the United States. Perhaps I just missed them, but I was mildly surprised to not see any locations off the European coast, including Greenland and Iceland.

The vessels and aircraft are an interesting mix. I'm guessing these specific vessels were chosen to represent specific roles within Naval combat, but as a neophyte it merely amounts to speculation (see our notes below for technical details - ed.). There is only one surface class vessel that I found, the Oscar Hazard Perry class frigate. As I understand it the Perry class of ships serve as escorts and anti-submarine interceptors, equipped with MH-60 Seahawks that can deliver torpedoes and missile batteries for anti-aircraft support as well. And speaking of Seahawks, the MH-60 Seahawk is the only rotor-wing aircraft in the game. Again, I assume it was chosen specifically because of its anti-submarine capabilities and its ties to the Perry class frigate. Also, the P-3C Orion is the only fixed-wing aircraft in the game. This is a really interesting choice as I am not aware of any combat capabilities for the P-3C. To my very limited knowledge, this is strictly a reconnaissance aircraft capable of using sonar, radar and other advanced detection technology to find and identify waterborne vessels both above and below the surface.

All of the other vessels in the game are submarines. The Seawolf class, the Los Angeles (688i) class, the Akula class, and Kilo class submarines are all included, as well as improved versions of the Akula and Kilo class. All of the submarines are very distinct and operate in very distinct manners, which, I suspect, is why they were chosen. But all of the basics still apply. Constantly monitor your sonar, run deep when possible, don't cavitate and above all else, think stealth. Submarines are supposed to be silent killers. The first time the enemy knows there is a submarine in the area is when they hear a torpedo coming out of the tube.



And for totally rubes like me, the game includes 10 excellent tutorial videos that are external to the game itself. They are not interactive, but quite thorough. If you are new to naval simulations these tutorials are an excellent way to learn about seafaring, navigation and nautical terms.



Dangerous Waters is a very good simulator for naval combat that includes realistic ships, aircraft, mission types and mission areas. This is a great naval experience whether you have legs born of years at sea or if you are just looking to get your feet wet (that pun was intended).

S.C.S. Dangerous Waters is only available for purchase through Battlefront.com . Visit the site for availability, pricing and gameplay features. S.C.S. Dangerous Waters is tentatively scheduled for release sometime next week.



Editor's Note: Sonalysts producer Jamie Carlson pointed out a few facts about the OHP, MH-60R, MH-60 and P-3C that the average Joe might not be aware of: The P-3C is a potent anti-submarine platform that can carry up to 8 MK46 and MK50 torpedoes, has some anti-surface capabilities with the Maverick missile and land attack capabilities with the SLAM-ER missile. The MH-60R is designed for anti-submarine warfare. The Penguin and Hellfire are anti-surface weapons, while the MH-60 (and the P-3) have no anti-aircraft capabilities to speak of and can’t defend against an air attack.