Harpoon 3: Advanced Naval Warfare

Harpoon 3: Advanced Naval Warfare is a reminder that today’s gamers have it easy. Advanced Gaming Systems’ refit and revision of the classic naval wargame leaves the cumbersome and confusing interface from Harpoon 2 and 3 in place. You don’t need your right mouse button, and it takes four or five clicks of the left one to do anything. Plus, newcomers must read the manual, even for the tutorial.
Once you get over that hurdle, the fading glory that was and is the finest naval series ever made for the computer is apparent. The scenario variety can’t be beaten, as you lead fleets and flotillas of dozens of nations in dozens of scenarios. You have to translate an almost bewildering display of data into useable information, plan your attack or defense, and strike a blow for the good guys.
Beyond the full menu of missions, Harpoon is still fresh because of how it keeps challenging you to handle multiple tasks in a crisis situation without being overwhelming. You can pause at any time to get your bearings, but the momentary lack of a ticking clock will do nothing to stop that missile from hitting your aircraft carrier once time starts again. Few games accomplish this marriage of tension and patience so well.
Still, the only major addition is the potential for multiplayer. Long desired by Harpoon fanatics, Advanced Naval Warfare only partially delivers. The multiplayer system is as dated as the game’s interface and sense of global threats. A stand-alone server is recommended, and setting it up requires mucking about in configuration files and doing other things that were too much trouble even when Harpoon was new. Once established, the experience doesn’t quite live up to the hype, unless both parties are already comfortable with the archaic windows in front of them.
Advanced Naval Warfare is not for rookies reared on rollover tooltips, but even seasoned salts will require a bit of time to get reacquainted. Plus, the price tag is a stunner, even if you can’t get this experience anywhere else. It’s still an impressive and compelling game; it’s just badly in need of modernization.

This article originally appeared in Computer Games Magazine #190