Harpoon 1.3 and the Designers Edition By Thomas Petrocelli I just love it when someone takes a game that I like, adds to it, and makes it better. I much prefer a strong upgrade or add-on over a sequel any day; you get to keep playing the game that you know and love, yet still get something new and exciting. This is what Three-Sixty has done with its latest update and add-on set to the Harpoon naval warfare game. Packaged as The Designer's Edition, this is really three separate but interrelated pieces of software. First is the latest upgrade to Harpoon, version 1.3; it fixes some of the bugs still lingering from earlier editions and does much better with memory management. If you will recall from previous articles, Harpoon has always had a nasty tendency to run out of memory and crash in the middle of your games. Originally it just dumped you out of your game, sometimes locking up your computer for good measure. Subsequent upgrades fixed some memory management problems and at least allowed you to save your game before heading off into the sunset. This wasn't always so helpful, though: often, when you loaded up the saved game, the same memory problem would immediately exhibit itself and crash the game anyway. The newest release fixes many of these problems, and you tend to get dumped out of games a lot less frequently. Some other smaller additions are also part of release 1.3. Torpedoes are more realistic, especially in the way that they are launched. Previously, if a sub carried 20 torpedoes, you could fire all 20 at once; it didn't matter that the sub only had two tubes to fire them out of. It was possible to fire huge spreads of everything you had on board at a formation of ships, and then creep quietly away. That bit of silliness has been fixed: now you can only fire as many torpedoes as you have tubes, and then can't fire anymore until the torpedo tubes finish reloading. Gone are the days of the rapid fire torpedo launchers! Other changes include more accurate and realistic sonobuoys, gun ammunition and sighting, and spy satellites; these changes tend to favour the NATO forces (especially the American forces), who have better equipment in these areas. The second part of this wonderful package deal is an expanded set of scenarios. There are a dozen or more new scenarios for each of the four battlesets. Many of these reflect the changing political climate in the world, and include conflict in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union. Some use a "future history" approach as well; popular among science fiction writers and their fans, a future history is a projection of current history to some point in the future, and establishment of an elaborate socio-political-economic model of the world (or in some cases the galaxy) at that point in time, complete with historical perspective. It is the ultimate "what-if". Cobalt Shiva, one the scenario designers, works all of his scenarios around the Restored Romanoff Empire. In his future history, the Romanoff Dynasty in Russia is restored to the throne and immediately sets out to re-establish the Russian Empire's greatness. Other designers assume a world where the Communists come back to power in the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Europeans form a true political union. Most of the new scenarios are well thought out, interesting, and just plain fun. Some are set pieces, designed to highlight the capabilities of a new type of weapon or a tactical style. Many, such as the European Community intervention in what was Yugoslavia, are very relevant. The third prize in this grab bag stems from the second one. Three-Sixty has expanded greatly the number of platforms available for use by the Scenario Editor so that the scenario designers had more to work with. One of the big complaints about previous battlesets was that you couldn't use platforms from one battleset in another. If, for example, you wanted to use an AEGIS cruiser in the Mediterranean Sea, you couldn't, because it was not included in the original Med Sea battleset. Very annoying! This problem has for the most part been rectified, mostly by expanding the number of ships, subs and aircraft available in each battleset. You still can't do something totally weird, like have an Indian carrier in a North Atlantic Convoys scenario, but that's only a minor limitation. Finally, I can put a Nimitz carrier in the Med. Three-Sixty has also added a bunch of new platforms ranging from the obscure to the truly interesting. The forces of many small countries has been added (such a the Yugoslavian units) or expanded. There are now more types of small patrol boat then you can imagine; they are getting to be like gnats in the late summer. What I personally like the most about the Designer's Edition is the inclusion of all the new weapons systems that are either being introduced now or may be introduced in the future. Some examples are: the Wasp class amphibious assault ship, the F-22 advanced tactical fighter, and the European AMX attack plane. The latter may never even happen, but it's fun to include them in your scenarios. As Stimpy from "Ren and Stimpy" would say, "Joy!". The big problem with all this is that the memory requirements seem to have increased by an order of magnitude. Often, when I try to display the information on a new platform (mostly to check out the cool graphic of the F-22) I get a message telling me I don't have the memory to do so. Even more annoying is the return of those nasty "Out of Memory" messages and crashes. Three-Sixty really should learn how to use extended or expanded memory; this is getting ridiculous. If you are a serious Harpoon nut, this new package will make you drool. If you are a beginner, it's still a fun way to start playing the game. If only they could do something about these memory problems, Harpoon in its latest incarnation would be perfect. Technical Requirements (including Harpoon and all battlesets) Disk 8.5 Megabytes RAM 640K+ Sound Adlib, Soundblaster Video EGA, VGA, TANDY 16 color CPU 80286 or better