ENIGMA was a cipher machine used by the German armed forces to encrypt messages sent by radio. ENIGMA was believed to be so secure that even the capture of a machine by the Allies was not considered serious, since the cipher key was changed once or twice a day. In fact, ENIGMA was a patented commercial product. Between the wars, the inventor of ENIGMA tried with limited success to sell his machine to large corporations for the purpose of encrypting telegrams sent to their international business concerns. Around that time the German armed forces began to realize that only communication by radio offered the speed and flexibility necessary to maintain contact with distant ships, Uboats and rapidly moving land forces. Knowing that their signals would be monitored by the enemy, a reliable and secure means of encrypting radio traffic was essential. ENIGMA, which offered more than 712 million possible key combinations, seemed unbreakable….
But this game isnt about the ENIGMA machine or about spys or intrigue, its about the drama that was played out on the oceans of the world in the 1930’s and 1940’s during the War to end All Wars, World War II.
In Enigma: Rising Tide, we are given an opportunity to command ships on the high seas; to join in battle and to defeat the enemy and send them to Davy Jones Locker at the bottom of the oceans of the world. The ships that are under your command range from Corvettes to Destroyers on the surface, to Submarines that sneak below the waves searching for prey. Missions range from simple (heh) escorting to search and destroy.
Initially you are given a choice of choosing a Patrol, or a Campaign. The Patrols are training-style missions to get you familiar with the game play and controls. The first Training Mission is commanding a Corvette and hunting down drones set out for target practice. This is an excellent opportunity to learn the ropes and get familiar with game controls for surface actions.
*One point of note for the game - it uses voice input for command and control of the vessels. So, you will need to have a microphone attached to the system. It is possible to play the game without it, but I would highly recoomend using the voice functions. Besides its to yell at your computer “Battle Stations!!” and have it immediately respond to your orders by blowing ships out of the water and shooting down enemy planes. The voice function removes the need to spend a lot of time looking at the keyboard or manipulating the mouse. And in the real time environment of Enigma, the time it takes to find the right key combination to complete the same task as saying 3 words can make the difference between getting a sun tan and having barnacles attached to your forehead.
The active voice controls allow you to control all aspects of the ship - from determining course and speed, to firing ships weapons and determining depth charge depth - making the game completely hands free so that you can sit back and wave your arms dramatically at the computer as you play, instead of being hunched over a keyboard and mouse.
The game is a complete 3D environment where the weather has an effect on the gameplay. During the Training Missions, as the ship began to take damage and catch fire, the smoke from the battle damage obscured my vission of the area surrounding the ship preventing me from seeing what was going on and where the enemy had gone. As the ship moved and the wind shifted, it created periods of clear vision and periods of darkness depending on where the clouds of smoke shifted. In the Campaign setting, the first Mission sent me after a German sub that had sunk a merchantman, while maneauvering around the ocean in search of the sub the seas were choppy and the swells had a significant impact on the ships stability. After about 15 minutes of watching the screen I was starting to get sea sick.
Submarine service was very claustrophobic. If this game is any indication of what it was like to serve on a WWII submarine, my respect for those men has increased a hundredfold. At least on a surface ship, you can look around and see your enemy as they appear over the horizon. In a submarine under the waves, all you have to go by is your sonar, or a small single eye view of the world through the periscope.
Voice commands for the sub include all those for the surface ship, plus commands specifically for use on a submarine - diving and surfacing the ship, use of the periscope, firing torpedo tubes individually or all at once - as well as the use of the deck guns for those times when you find yourself engaged in battle on the surface.
Campaigns have a number of aspects to them that give you a good feel of being in command of a naval vessel. First you are given “Classified” orders that put you into your area of operation. There is a running commentary from the crew to tell you what is going on (mostly text based) and before and after the missions there is a view from the public sector with the inclusion of newspaper articles which headline events that are occuring in the Campaign.
As for the graphics quality, the detail on the ships is amazing. The water looks about as real as, well, the ocean. And the special effects and environmental graphics are both interactive and affect the game play. The game allows for a “Spectator” view which takes you outside the ship/sub and allows you to rotate the camera around the vessel. One aspect of this that I found quite amazing is that you can pause the game and still rotate your view of the ship. Which gives you a great “Matrix freezeframe feel” especially if there is a lot of smoke in the air.
Enigma: Rising Tide - not a game about code breaking but a game about sea based combat during WWII. For my experience of the game I have to say that it is an absolute blast. With the variation of ships, surface vs submarine, and scenarios there is enough to keep a person busy for a long while. The story and game concept are solid and well thought out allowing for the missions to become more difficult as you progress and will test your skills as a ship commander. The controls are relatively easy to use, though there are a lot of them, and the voice activated commands add a level of realism that I have not experienced before in a computer game. I quickly found myself completely immersed in the game and would lose track of the passage of time while I played. Enigma is a great choice for all you naval history buffs and anyone that likes a good sea borne RTS challenge.
I've been gaming since the days of the original TSR D&D and have grown up playing just about every PnP RPG created. Eventually with the age of computers, I started getting into RTS and military strategy games. And then came the MMORPG Asherons Call which changed my computer gaming forever. These days when i'm not gaming I'm working with the Los Padre's Council BSA and my son's Cub Pack - when not conquering the virtual world.
