Of course I probably wouldn't know much about it without the detailed manual, and Dangerous Waters is the type of game that requires both time and interest to learn. But once one gets into it I'm constantly amazed at how sitting looking into a static console, bar the readout it's handing me, can be so immersive that you actually enjoy it.

Of course playing sonar man on a sub is not the only task one can perform in DW, and as well as having a competent auto crew to do the dirty jobs for you one can occupy any station from helm to controlling the whole show from an overall tactical map. Subs aren't the only playable objects either, with a helicopter, frigate and fixed-wing propeller aircraft also on offer alongside the three nuclear and one diesel powered subs.

Aim your torpedoes well, and hope they don't come back at you...

The only area where DW really falls down is in the actual combat. Building up to launching your torpedoes is quite enthralling, but when you hear an approaching destroyer blasting pings into the water, or the ominous report of a "Torpedo in the water", it's not quite as exciting as one might hope. I pointed earlier to Silent Hunter III as a good game for combat - the build up and the actual fireworks are equally as exciting. DW just seems to fall down - you don't really find yourself clutching the table having gone deep, increased to flank and milled out countermeasures, waiting to see if the torpedoes hunting you will lose the scent.

Only once has a nuclear sub actually fired its torpedoes in anger. The headline says it all...

It's relatively exciting, but not quite as nail biting as it should be. In reality only one nuclear attack submarine has ever fired its torpedoes to kill - HMS Conqueror, when she put two up the arse of the Argentine light cruiser ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War. Interestingly enough, the Belgrano was actually the USS Phoenix, which survived Pearl Harbour, before being sold to Argentina in 1951.

Never the less, Dangerous Waters is an excellent simulation of the cat and mouse game which has gone on for the last fifty years, and which persists to a much lesser degree even today. It simulates too what happens when these underwater boats fire their torpedoes and it all goes to hell, but the thrill of successfully stalking another submarine or slinking into a harbour undetected to let loose some special forces is thrill enough.

Another week, another interesting gaming experience err, experienced. See what we can do when there's no console wars about? Dangerous Waters recently got its Steam release, by the by. I have the original copy with a full ring-bound manual which is actually quite thick, but I'd expect the Steam release to come in PDF format.