Everyone interested in battleships sims should have started with this!
Strike Fleet was the first military ship simulation for C64. Later came games like Red Storm Rising and The Hunt for Red October. The graphics and sounds was not awesome but they were in the average for C64 games. But is gameplay that made this game a true classic. The game was played totally from the ship main-deck point of view and there was not an “outside”/3rd perspective p.o.v. and if it seem strange that such a thing could be enjoyable, trying to maneuver and battling with the use of radar and sonars, was terrificly realized and it gave the sense of today’s real naval warfare, when visual contact is rarely an option. Ships dimension, stats and weaponry was taken from real US and UK navy logs. The simulation was very easy to handle in maneuvering just like during fights. The strategic map was very friendly to use and it was amazing to track the enemy with an entire fleet of ships. Single missions varied from recon to seek & destroy, to escaping, with single or multiple ships from different classes. Althought the missing of “carriers” was a major lack for this very complete simulation, the chance to send choppers in advance for surface and submarine recon was truly an asset for the game. It was a tremendous enjoyment while under heavy bombardment, try franticly to spread the fleet while using anti-missiles defense and in the meantime try to counter-attack on enemy ships! I played this game for hours as every time you started a new mission any minor changes made things different. Completing tasks was rewardful, too. The sim gave votes on how the battle was played and medals was awarded too. This game could have been a base to build and improve great strategic and tactical battleship simulations, but the Amiga version was a simple, ugly and stuttering port from the C64 and so the project was let down. It’s a pity because I never enjoyed that much a realtime battleship simulation.