     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

