| SUBSIM Review |
Joel Billings Executive Producer of Fighting Steel March 1999 |
FIGHTING STEEL FIRES BACK!
| The SSR preview of the upcoming
SSI/Mindscape battleship sim Fighting Steel was
responsible for a big surge in our e-mail. Some of you view specialized sims with
suspicion. Some of you took us to task, reminding that subs played a very small part in
most battleship encounters and only one Japanese battleship fell victim to a US torpedo.
Others are so naval/subsim starved you'd jump at the chance to play a computerized version
of Gilligan's Island. One e-note that caught our eye was from Joel Billings, Executive Producer of Fighting Steel. Mr. Billings addressed some of the points raised in the preview. In the interest of keeping our readers better informed, we asked him if we could post his rebuttal and he cordially agreed. So, read this, learn more. And thanks, Joel. |
Dear Neal,
As the Producer of Fighting Steel I wanted to thank you for writing your
preview. While reading the preview I did find a few items I wanted to respond to. First
off, you are correct in pointing out that Fighting Steel is a tactical game with no subs
or airplanes. Our goal was to build a game that allowed players to refight most of the key
surface engagements of the war. Engagements like Cape Esperance, Tassafaronga,
Barents Sea, Denmark Straits did not have subs or airplanes, and these are the
kinds of engagements we wanted to simulate. Battleships and Cruisers did not want to fight
subs as they couldn't do anything but run unless they had a Destroyer escort.
This was also true of their relationship with aircraft. The surface combat that did
occur in WWII occurred in conditions where aircraft could not have a direct impact on the
fighting like night battles off Guadalcanal
and day battles in the middle of the Atlantic. The only major impact planes had on these
engagements was their ability to keep damaged ships from getting home alive, and we have
that impact modeled in the game.
As for your point about firing the guns, we do allow players to pick
targets for their turrets if they want to get to that level of detail. This might be
useful in a day battle at long range, but in a close range night battle players will be
much more interested in firing their torpedoes and driving their ships than they will be
in worrying about a particular turret. The Alpha version you were looking at only allowed
players to choose up to 2 targets for each of their ships, but the final version will
allow players to actually dedicate specific turrets to particular targets if they want to.
You were right in saying that Fighting Steel is a strategy game more than it is a
simulation. We don't give players the ability to jump from gun to gun to manually
elevate the guns and fire at enemy ships.
You are right in saying that we have limited the scope of Fighting Steel, as this was
intentional. However, as you mentioned, the inclusion of a random battle generator
gives Fighting Steel a lot of repeat play value.
Along with a special division commander mode that forces you to identify other ships as
friend or foe and allows for friendly fire, we hope we will provide a fun game that makes
for good scenarios and campaigns against the computer, and great multiplayer
experiences. Fighting Steel is currently scheduled for a June release and
we have 3 more months to make sure the game lives up to our expectations. We obviously
hope that enough people are interested in the subject and can be won over to our approach.
Only time will tell.
As for your interest in submarines, SSI's upcoming Silent Hunter II
and Destroyer Command should make you very happy.
Joel Billings
©1999 SUBSIM Review