Subroc
June 1st, 2009 . by DaCapo WalworthMost first-person shooters will often involve shooting at people, but the Coleco game Subroc, created by Sega in the early 1980’s, places the player in the gunner section and helm of a submarine. The object of this game is to shoot alien ships and flying saucers, as well as water craft, and the missiles, mines and torpedos they shoot at the player’s sub. The ships attack in waves, starting with saucers, then leading to a short encounter with a squadron of three green fighters, then to a wave of purple and magenta fighters and another wave of blue saucers. The final boss is a black command plane that hides behind a shield and shoots missiles at your vessel. One shot and the shield is gone for a split second, and a second, well-timed shot can destroy the boss. In most of the waves, the water is populated by nicely-detailed white submarines and yellow drones.
The display is the gunner’s POV, showing a crosshair site in the middle of the screen. Enemy fire can be avoided by simply maneuvering the crosshairs so that the fire is off the screen. Torpedos can be hard to evade, as they can mess with the water currents and the motion often gets very jerky when a torpedo is being fired. To avoid torpedos, keep the crosshairs as high as possible, out of the water.
There are certain vessels called ‘mystery ships’ that give bonus points for the final boss of the level when destroyed. One common mystery ship is a black boat or sub. In the ‘Super’ version of Subroc, there is a wave in each level where a ship that looks like that ordinary black mystery ship is actually a sort of ‘boss’ that shoots torpedos at your sub. Shooting that boss ship will cause some damage, indicated by smoke rising from the ship. Other mystery ships include a hot air balloon and galleon, both of which are green. The mystery points earned will be used during the dogfight with the ‘command plane’. If the command plane is shot down before the mystery points reach zero, the remaining points are added to the score. Even the green fighters can give a mystery bonus if all three of them are destroyed.
Now, the “Super Game” version of Subroc which I previously mentioned was available to a few housholds for testing with the Adam computer(basically Coleco’s answer to the personal computer). My houshold was one of the lucky recipients, and this game took the original concept and expanded on it. In the super version, the gunner could go under water and navigate through mines and other obstacles. Once the player surfaced, the game played much like the original except the gunner could surface right in the middle of a wave or even the bonus round with the three green fighters.
Other segments that were added included a wave where missiles could be seen rising out of the water and heading towards the player’s vessel, a missile barrage that could only be escaped by submerging, and a final boss that could only be described as unbelievably awesome. The final boss in this game is an underwater vessel that looked like a robot octopus and shot torpedos and ink(or oil) at the gunner’s sub.
The Super Subroc game is available in public domain and with some searching you can find it. I definitely recommend this to anyone who loves the oldschool consoles such as Coleco and Atari.
Subroc was not without its flaws. The motion did get sort of jerky since the Coleco system didn’t like scrolling games that well, and the forward motion was not as smoot as the sideways and upwards scrolling, meaning that in one or two seconds, a missile or bomb that was heading towards the sub would suddenly be close enough to where escape was impossible.
The sound was, in my opinion, perfect for the game. During most waves, there would be a constant pulsing sound in the background, and a higher-pitched pulsing meant a missile or bomb was heading towards the gunner. With torpedos, the sound of rushing water could be heard. Missiles shot by the gunner made a sort of whistling sound while the gunner’s torpedos made a realistic metallic noise. Blowing up enemies or mines made a satisfying soft explosion while blowing up from an enemy’s fire resulted in a louder, longer explosion. When the gunner was submerged in the super game, the background noise gave an almost perfect effect of being under water, complete with sounds of bubbles and sonar.
The graphics in both games were high quality, with many sprites having a complex, multicolour design. In the super game, at the bottom of the screen showed instructions and reports, as well as maneuvers. For example, if the sub were to brush against something that didn’t destroy it, the ticker at the bottom reported that speed would be reduced until repairs were complete. It would also warn of missile barrages and instruct the gunner to submerge the vessel. Another feature of both versions of Subroc was the way even numbered levels showed the progression of day to evening, to night, then dawn and then day again. Odd numbered levels only showed daylight, and the reason for that is unknown.
With all its flaws, Subroc is a cool game. The cartridge version doesn’t have all the cool badguys and levels of the super game, but it still is a lot of fun and a great way to hone reflexes and coordination. The super game is available for download on quite a few sites, and a google search should lead you to it fairly quickly. It will work on the MESS emulator but an ADAM BIOS rom(also available) is required for running the game file. There may be some problems with running the Subroc rom for some people, as emulators are not perfect, but I would still recommend Super Subroc for those who grew up on Coleco or are curious about what their parents played.
I highly recommend Subroc for all gamers, young and oldschool. And to show you just how awesome this game is, here is a video from youtube of Super Subroc in action!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxmV8a0X4X4
Watch and be amazed!
