It's official: Harpoon 4 is dead. They pulled the plug on it today. Ultimation will continue to work on Silent Hunter II and Destroyer Commander, and that seems to be one reason Harpoon 4 got the axe. They didn't want Ultimation wasting resources on a game that was so far from being done and which few at UbiSoft or even SSI anticipated would be anything close to a big seller.

In talking to my contact at SSI I got the impression that this kind of bummed them but didn't surprise anyone.

Well, I would have bought it.

I thought Jane's Fleet Command absolutely sucked, because it was kinda like playing Missile Command with boats... but the Harpoon games were a satisfying tactical exercise for me. Harpoon 4 looked like it promised the best of both.

Submarine games are fun, if a bit on the slow-paced side. They're going to have to convince me to get the destroyer game though. Can we get a remake of HMS Pegasus? I'd be right there for that.

Missile Command with boats!? That does it, I'm installing my never-opened copy of Fleet Command tonight!

;-)

Missle Command with incredibly sluggish, jerky, and inexact mouse control. And boats.

Get the patch. Then it's like Automatic Missle Command. No clicking reqired.

DeanCo--

Tom Chick visited SSI for our Silent Hunter II/Destroyer Commander feature and saw some of H4 before it sank. He said it looked a tad too much like Fleet Commander . Seriously, when I talked with Larry Bond at E3 last year the game wasn't really "showable," and you couldn't actually do anything; when I talked with SSI earlier this year they emphasized they didn't want to show it until they had more attractive 3D gizmos in place, etc. I suspect the damn thing never really did work.

You're probably right about it never really getting off the ground. What would a game like this sell, anyway? I'm surprised it lasted this long.

Silent Hunter II and Destroyer Commander may be the last naval games we'll see for some time. Let's hope they actually get finished and are good.

I played harpoon and Harpoon 2. harpoon just about made me wear out my tab key, I played it so much. Harpoon 2 didn't last long. it kept crashing my screen and I didn't like the 2-D green line drawings.
Fleet command was dreadful. God, I hated that game. The descriptions above are spot-on.
Having thus branded myself as a wargame mook, I'm thinking harpoon 4 would be a good game to sell over the internet-direct, like a lot of wargames are doing these days. I don't see it as a huge seller, but it could be made simply and be very fun and affordable.

mark, do you think Auran jet would work for a project like Harpoon 4? The rights are probably going for a song right about now.

I burned plenty of time on Harpoon as well. I gave it up after I sneaked a Victor III into a Nimitz-class battle group and sank the carrier. I was looking forward to Harpoon 4, until I heard they were focusing on the 3D graphics. Please, any attempt to tart up a wargame with graphics unrelated to gameplay (like Fleet Command, and unlike Combat Mission) just results in a game that neither the wargamers or the casual gamers want. Perhaps it is best H4 was mercifully put down now, rather than later.

Destroyer Command has lots of potential. I've played plenty of sub games so SH2 doesn't appeal to me (Gato for the Mac was the first I played), but I look forward to both hunting AI subs while defending shipping, and playing a cat-and-mouse battle against a human-commanded sub.

Yeah, good 3D stuff helps Combat Mission, by giving you a great view of the battlefield and helping you to make tactical decisions. In Harpoon4, the 3D stuff seemed by their own admission mostly designed to lure in non-wargamers. Yeah, right--your average gamer gives a rat's ass about the difference between a Spruance and an Arleigh Burke, or between a Mk46 and a Mk48 ADCAP....

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Yeah, right--your average gamer gives a rat's ass about the difference between a Spruance and an Arleigh Burke, or between a Mk46 and a Mk48 ADCAP....

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