Harpoon

Harpoon is an extensive simulation of modern naval warfare, based on the professional board wargame of the same name designed by Larry Bond. Unlike submarine simulators focused on a single ship, Harpoon puts an entire fleet of ships, submarines and aircraft into the player's hands and lets them run large-scale Cold War weapons operations - from patrol frigates to guided missiles and anti-submarine helicopters. The scenarios cover various geographic theaters and various hostile factions, so the player gradually gets to know the full breadth of possible modern conflicts at sea.

The game works with a semi-professional model of weapon systems, sensors and tactics that was unusually detailed at the time of release even for enthusiasts of military simulators, let alone for casual players. The user plans the movement of units on the tactical map, sets rules of engagement, and has to handle combat at long range, where the opponent often shows up first only as a signal on radar before being visible physically, and a wrong decision about firing can mean the loss of an expensive ship within moments. This abstraction makes Harpoon more of a wargame with military precision than an action simulation, which was appreciated especially by players interested in the Cold War and modern naval strategy, even though it demanded patience and a willingness to study extensive documentation from them.

Harpoon earned a reputation after release as one of the most authentic computer treatments of modern naval warfare and spawned a whole series of expansions and sequels that further developed the system. For today's player it is demanding due to its complexity and DOS text interface, but as a historical record of what professional wargaming looked like when transferred to a home computer, it still carries weight and is often mentioned as one of the most ambitious projects of its kind, as well as evidence of how close computer and tabletop wargaming could be to each other at the end of the 1980s.

Why play it: For patient players interested in professional wargaming who aren't put off by the DOS text interface — one of the most ambitious transfers of modern naval warfare to the computer.