Retro Arcade Review: Under Southend Skies
Captain Hans lowered his binoculars, his red eyes burning from vainly trying to pierce the gray mist. He blinked his eyes and returned to scanning the horizon. There he was, the Englishman was creeping out of the mist to attempt another futile assault on the GRAF SPEE. Under Southern Skies (USS) is a combination strategic and tactical level game of naval warfare, with the action taking place in the South Atlantic shipping lanes. USS may be played either solitaire or as a two player game. In the two player game, however, many players will feel like the German player doesn't have enough to do, as there is only one German warship. Nevertheless, the German side is challenging to play in the strategic version. The game mechanics start out bearing a resemblance to an earlier SSI game, Pursuit of the Graf Spee. Once one gets to the tactical display, however, there is a great deal of difference.
USS has added a silhouette for both the attacking ship and its target and a radar screen to show the relative positions of the ships in the engagement. When there is an air attack, the screen shows the planes moving toward the GRAF SPEE'S silhouette. When ships are sunk, the screen shows an explosion on the target silhouette. USS also allows the players to establish the game within a more flexible time frame than the earlier, more historically bound, game. USS is extremely interesting and challenging to play. It does suffer from some problems, however. Many of the problems with the game begin in the weak documentation. For example, the documentation for the operational commands doesn't tell the German NOT to type the parenthesis around the x,y coordinates when the prompt for Order 5 is given with the x and y placed in parentheses. In our first game, one German captain spent nearly one half hour trying to get the program to take his order. A similar misunderstanding arises in the tactical rules. The use of the parenthetical [removed]Graf Spee only) after command 4.1.3 (Fire Main and Secondary Guns) makes it appear that the only armament available to the allied player is his torpedoes.
I hesitated much too long to use my main guns during my first game because I didn't think my shells could actually penetrate the Graf Spee's armour. The parenthesis should only follow command 4.1.2. A more significant problem than documentation is to be found in actually playing the tactical portion of the game. If a ship's bridge is hit and sustains maximum damage, control of the ship is supposed to be transferred to the aft tower. Yet, the program has no order for allowing this procedure to take place. If the Allied player orders the ship to maintain course, he is told that he cannot do this because of the loss of the bridge.
If he tries to change course, he can't do that either, of course. Unfortunately, the only command that works in this situation is the one to disengage. This is a frustrating glitch, as I would often rather sink than disengage in the tactical battle. The strategic hints on page 14 of the documentation are generally helpful. The German will normally be able to elude the British if he avoids high density coastal areas. The Allied player should note, however, that since fuel availability plays an important factor in the game, it is important to patrol the neutral ports. In the tactical game, the book is right in suggesting an aggressive offensive stance. The Allied must follow the suggested NELSON tradition, but remember to change course at least ten degrees after the Graf Spee fires on him. This will cause the German captain to have to re-target his guns. While allowing the Allied player to keep his general vector aimed at the Graf Spee during the entire tactical game.
USS is a fascinating game to play. As a miniatures fan, I've always been interested in games which involve "blind play" and USS does a very good job in this (Exception: Once the Allied commodore orders an air strike, the alert German captain will know where the Allied ships are, since the program does not erase the positions at that particular point. However, once the Allied commodore is in that position, it most likely doesn't matter what the German captain knows about enemy positions.). Indeed, USS's strategic game could serve as a very good referee for a miniatures campaign within the South Atlantic. In that case, of course, the letters representing various ships on the strategic display could represent task forces, too. It would certainly save a lot of book work to let USS referee the strategic movement.
USS has a few relatively minor problems as enumerated above, but it makes up for them in the graphic presentation. As a visiting friend who played the game said, "You really feel like your at the 'Con."' USS is a versatile, interesting and challenging game if one is willing to overlook spelling errors, an occasional visible line number from the program and the flaws mentioned above.
Questions and Answers
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