Enigma: Rising Tide

Enigma: Rising Tide is a published end of 2002 Marine - simulation . It was originally developed as an online simulation by Tesseraction Games from 2000 onwards, but then reprogrammed to a single player simulation and published by Pointsoft .

In 2004 a slightly improved new edition of the game was released under the title Enigma: Chapter One Gold Edition , which was expanded to include new missions and vehicles .

background

Enigma takes an alternate history version of the 1930s as its background. The game assumes that in 1915 the RMS Lusitania will not be sunk by a German submarine, which is why the USA does not enter the First World War and the German Empire wins the war. The political consequences look like this: The German Empire dominates Europe, the British government and the Royal Navy have withdrawn to Hong Kong and have entered into an alliance with Japan to form the League Of Free Nations (LFN). In 1937, a renewed arms race with battleships and constant skirmishes over trade routes increased the tensions between the three major parties, which in addition to the German Reich and the LFN also included the USA.

Game content

The player takes control of a warship from one of the three parties and has to fulfill his tasks. These tasks take place either as individually selectable patrols or as coherent campaigns . Enigma offers two campaigns for each of the three parties, one for a career as a commander of a surface ship and one for service as a submarine commander.

The missions themselves are explained by a text message before they begin. The mission objectives are broad, but remain within the scope of normal marine simulations and are limited to protecting or attacking a convoy and fighting warships and submarines. Every now and then the player has to help with special tasks, such as B. in securing the boarding of an enemy cargo ship.

The selection of ships is all the more extensive. The player has the opportunity to control a destroyer , an escort destroyer , a corvette , a motor torpedo boat and two types of submarines on the side of each party . The game uses both historical ( Fletcher class , submarine type VII , flower class ) and fictional ship types. In addition to these types, the player also fights against cargo ships and airplanes.

The course of the game itself is clearly different than in common marine simulations such as a Sub Command or Destroyer Command . The player stands on the bridge of his ship and has a clear all-round view of the surrounding sea area. Via a radar screen that can be faded in, but which is not a stand-alone screen, but a fade-in in the middle of the 3D view, the player aims at targets and gives commands to his computer-controlled colleagues. In case of doubt, the player can also operate guns and anti-aircraft weapons himself, and commands to fire depth charges and the Hedgehog mortar must also be given manually . The control of torpedoes is also out of the ordinary: Instead of calculating a fire control solution for the torpedo shot by a mechanical calculator or a crew member - as was common at the time - the player has to aim with a sense of proportion. All in all, Enigma presents the naval battles more action-oriented than realistic, but this benefits the playability a lot, since, among other things, no time-lapse is necessary to experience hits.

technology

From a technical point of view, Enigma has also been implemented well. The graphics were more realistic than in any marine simulation before. The ships were modeled in detail, the swell and the surface of the water looked realistic. There were also well-implemented weather effects (rain, thunderstorms, storms) and explosions, smoke and water jets represented in the form of particle effects. The soundscape was also implemented realistically, but managed without sonar pings (especially since ASDIC was not yet ready for use in 1937).

The lack of a “human” component could be criticized. Despite the detailed ships, the graphics did not show any crew members, and there was no voice output whatsoever. Important messages were only sent as text messages.

A special feature was the availability of voice control. Using a microphone, the player could try to give commands like a real captain using short, concise commands. However, the speech recognition system was also seriously flawed here.

criticism

The trade press was enthusiastic about a new action-packed, but also detailed simulation, as it was last available in 1997 in the form of Tom Clancy's SSN . The easy-to-use way of controlling also showed a viable alternative to older control options, which had made it possible to control competing products such as Silent Hunter II exclusively from the simply designed map screen. In addition, a usable graphic was also available for the first time in a marine simulation. Overall, the trade press reacted very euphorically to the game. The community was also open to the game, but withdrew quickly as there were hardly any options for modifications and add-ons . Nevertheless, the game is still popular today.

Web links

Tesseraction Games website

Review of PC Games

Report from Marinesims.de

Review on Subsim.com (English)