688 Attack Sub

688 Attack Sub is a submarine simulator published by Electronic Arts in 1989 and credited to programmer John W. Ratcliff. The number in the title refers to the American Los Angeles class of attack submarines, and this record covers the later conversion for the Sega Mega Drive console.

The game bet on tension instead of action. Submarine warfare is a contest of patience: the player watches the sonar, evaluates contacts and creeps through the deep, knowing that a launched torpedo betrays your position as reliably as it destroys its target. Missions are available for both the American and the Soviet side — a spicy detail in the closing days of the Cold War.

The simulator stood at the beginning of a whole wave of submarine games and is remembered for giving the genre its modern shape: the submarine's stations are represented as instrument screens, and the player switches between them like a real captain moving between periscope, chart table and sonar. The computer original even offered head-to-head duels between two captains over a modem link.

The console version is a curiosity in its own right — military simulations rarely made it to consoles, since their audience sat mostly at computers. The Mega Drive release thus offers an unusual pairing: a thoughtful simulation on a machine built for fast action.

You can take the submarine out right in your browser — the Mega Drive version runs online at OldGame.cz.