From the outset, Gunboat has more in common with F-19 Stealth Fighter or M1 Tank Platoon than it has with, say, Operation Wolf. It's a simulation of the uses to which American River Patrol Boats (PBRs) have been or could be used. Hence, in the scenario selection you can run on missions in Vietnam, Colombia and the Panama Canal. The scenarios form a loose plot. Your first missions are in Vietnam because "that's where it all began".
As you're promoted for successfully completing missions, you can move into the Colombian operation zone. The very best will be put on assignment along the Panama Canal. Designer Tom Loughry claims there's an earthquake-driven rockfall in one scenario which he put in there because he was working on the game through the aftershocks of a fat 7.1.
But you don't have to go on a mission immediately. You can practise on either the bow or stern gun positions or try your hand at the helm. There are a number of settings to take care of which fall into the category of pre-game miscellany. These include setting the detail level to high or low (standard flight sim territory) and the slew rate for steering or firing weapons and choosing the firepower itself (.50 calibre Brownings and M129 grenade launchers being standard). PBRs recently sent to Panama mount the GE M134 Minigun and these too are available from the arsenal.
Once you're at station you kick power into the weapon system (or the boat itself) and begin your cruise down one more Viet-sim creek. A gunner can send instructions to the pilot and vice versa. You can abdicate responsibility for the vessel as a whole while you're familiarising yourself with any one particular piece of equipment but you'll soon feel confident enough to control every aspect of a mission. (Anyway, it makes sense to tell the pilot to rotate the water jets left to avoid an incoming missile.)
One thing you have to cope with right from the start however is night combat. To this end, both gun positions are fitted with powerful searchlights, the trade off being that they give away your PBR's position. Land your cone of light on the enemy and you've as good as got them in your sights. Another habit you should get into is that of asking for target ID in order to avoid problems with 'friendly fire', though frankly there didn't seem much call for it on the early missions. Perhaps it's something which complicated more confined and difficult combat situations later on.
My first mission, I confess, felt like something of a turkey shoot. I'd had a few hours at the various stations and the only thing I wasn't familiar with was the program's time compression routine. I was soon hot tailing it (well, trying to pull a 30mph turn in a river boat) away from a jetty choc-a-bloc with the reunion party of an NVA armour unit. I actually got out of there with boat and crew intact but wasn't in a position to do anything constructive afterwards.
You can meet the opposition in almost any manner of its choosing. There are riverside concrete bunkers, Hind helicopters, infantry, sampans, PT-76s - you name it. Gunboat has as much going for it in terms od fetail as many a tank of flight sim, but it's not without its problems.
The graphics are a busy mix of filled polygons and what look like expanded sprites but semi-animated is the best word for the sprites, which sometimes look too large. What really takes a bit out of the playability is the response speed which is too slow to be useful on many occasions. Much of the sluggishness is deliberate and probably conveys some of the difficulty of overcoming the inertia of the PBR. Still, enjoyable and atmospheric fun.
If you're into simulations, Gunboat delivers the goods with originality and style. If you haven't tried sims yet, however, you'd be better off with a flight game - it'll have far more in the way of immediate appeal. One meg only too, which spoilts it for a lot of you.
1st August 1991
