Fire 1! Fire 2!

There is plenty good to say about MicroProse’s new “Silent Service II,” a technically superb World War II submarine warfare simulation. The game makers did an admirable job with what is essentially a one-dimensional tactical concept.

They produced a challenging, lovely game that reasonably replicates the role of submarine commander in the Pacific war. Your orders: Search out and destroy Japanese warships and merchant vessels on the high seas.

The pictures are terrific. And there is even a pleasant, swaggering theatricality to “Silent Service” that owes much to ‘40s submarine movies.

But, like far too many computer games, “Silent Service” is at its core an adolescent boy’s war-making fantasy, just a few years and a couple of steps up the ladder of consumerism from G.I. Joe. Because it is tactical and not strategic, there are no broad issues or big questions here that must be considered before you blast the Japanese to kingdom come. “Silent Service” is technically sophisticated, to be sure, but essentially an aim-and-shoot game.

And that is why writer Arnold Hendrick’s 128-page manual is worth a special comment. It concludes with a three-paragraph “Note About War” that, you’d hope, might be reproduced in the manuals of all war games.

“In a simulation,” Hendrick writes, “you can vicariously experience the thrills of warfare and the responsibilities of battlefield command without anyone getting hurt, much less killed. But always remember that the real thing is unimaginably horrible, full of pain and death. Simulations are deceiving because we edit out the unpleasant parts.”

SILENT SERVICE II

Rating: * * *

IBM PC or compatible; 512K/640K VGA. List: $59.95

Computer games are rated on a five-star system, from one star for poor to five for excellent.