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Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific Review (continued)
More User Submitted Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific Reviews
Date: 2007-03-30
Skip this game
Everything I have heard about this game is true - the good and bad. Right out of the box there was an immediate problem with Bugs. I have downloaded the patch, but there are still some serious gliches. Ubisoft is known for bugs, but they really out did themselves. It seems that they forgot to do any quality control testing. The game itself is fun - if you get past the low quality programming.
Date: 2007-03-30
Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific
If you enjoyed Silent Hunter 3 then buy this one as long as you have a fast processor. I'm running it on AMD 4400 / 7300 Nivdia Card. I can only run the graphics at "Medium".
Everything that was missing in SH3 is here. Mines, Ships in Harbors, radio traffic, life boats, people on the various ships move around, and even some history of the campaign as you go along.
Date: 2007-03-27
A Great Game! And I am not a Sim Person!
Silent Hunter 4 Review
Great Game! And I'm not a sim-type person!
I just got my SH4 two weeks ago - and I have been playing every minute I can since then. I am not a Sim type person. However, I am totally hooked on SH4. I always wavered on SH3 because it seemed just too sim for me - mainly, the crew management!
In SH4 the crew manages themselves for the most part, which I really like. I still have to move them off the deck guns when I compress time or else they get injured or even die. I have to remember to reclick the BATTLESTATIONS button when a crisis is over or the crew will become seriously fatigued. And I have to remember to reclick the SILENT RUNNING button for the crew to return to repair work and/or loading torpedoes or else things stay broken and the fish don't get reloaded.
The compression time is now much faster so I travel great distances within minutes instead of hours. I have to make sure that my speed is set to standard or less when I compress time - otherwise my sub gets damaged somehow. I can choose to switch off many of the sim features which would bore someone like me, who is not interested in all the nuts and bolts of the ship. Most of the control buttons are easy to locate: S for surface, C for crash dive, D for dive, etc.
I can choose unlimited fuel, Batteries, compressed air, and 11 other more sub-friendly choices which make the game less taxing for one like me. However, with oxygen, even if the realism box is unclicked still needs to be monitor - the clock helps a lot as I can stay underwater only 3 hours before I MUST resurface - otherwise the crew dies! I was also hoping for unlimited torpedoes and gun ammo or at least the ability to reload & refit my sub from friendly sub tenders located in my mission area (so I don't have to travel all the way back to the base) - but no go for now.
I have learned how to aim the torpedoes. The red, yellow and green indicator arrows over the targets indicate the chances of hitting your target: Green =best; yellow = maybe; red = no good. The closer you are to 0 degrees for a forward shot the better and the closer you are to 180 degrees for an aft shot the better.
I had a lot of fun and excitement playing the Sub School. I'm on my first career game (off the coast of Japan) and I played the Midway Quick Mission twice. The first time I learned the hard way how not to attack a Jap Task Force - both periscopes were damaged and I wasted a number of my LIMITED precious torpedoes. The second game was great. I sunk three military ships and played a cat and mouse game with a destroyer for about 30 minutes. I went deep and ran in silent mode and went dead still and then I would move at flank speed when his propellers were facing me as he could not pick me up on sonar then. It was quite thrilling. He was dropping depth charges - but in the wrong places! He was guarding a cripple destroyer which I wanted to finish off. I had one forward fish and one aft torpedo. I had no chance to surface and sink him with this determined destroyer so close - he was too fast for me and looking for me in a mean way! In the Sub School (which I love and one can replay over and over) during the torpedo practice I was able to take out two smaller type Jap gun boats with my deck gun - but this destroyer was too big and fast for that! I kept moving away at flank speed every time his sonar couldn't detect me and it worked. Eventually he left, and with one aft fish I finished off the crippled destroyer and moved on.
I have a 37" TV screen, Nividia XFX 7600GT 256 Graphics Card, 1 Gig Memory, AMD Athlon 64 3100+ with a DVD-ROM drive. I have the graphics set for low and it looks great to me. I downloaded the patch v1.1 before I played the game and so far I've avoided a number of problems that others have encountered.
The manual could have explained much, much more! And yes, it does freeze up from time to time but it has always gotten out of it by itself after a few seconds or so or after I push the ESCAPE key and then click RESUME, yet within 14 days I have had only 4 crashes. The game has some glitches for sure but it is still fun to play, and patch #2 is on the way which should address most of the problems. There are also many dedicated players who will be putting out trainers, mods, and cheats to make this game even better in the near future.
The number of Jap planes attacking me when surfaced was getting annoying; however, a cheat/mod available now lets you reduce the number of enemy planes and their range. I also make it a point to save the mission just before action takes place and also after I make a great kill. That way if the game crashes or I make a BIG mistake and get sunk - I have it saved at the pre-disaster or post-killing point.
This game is really like an underwater chess game. You have to carefully weigh many pros and cons while engaging a really wily enemy, choosing when to fight and when to run! The dynamic mission generator makes sure that no two missions are the same which gives it such lasting appeal for replaying. It takes hours to play but the excitement is great. You can see the ships sink under the water in a movie-like appearance. I recommend this wonderful this game even to newbies like me. You will be sinking Jap ships in no time!
Date: 2007-03-25
Best Game of the Year (hands down)
Run (don't walk) out and buy it right now. The graphics look so real you won't believe your eyes. The ocean, the ships, the explosions, the fires. The enemy destroyers are smarter than SH3 and I have a hard time popping up to shoot 1 or 2 torpedoes before they get me. They have a Patch out that fixes all the issues that some poeple may be having but mine works great right out of the box. Maybe cause I have a good machine with NVidia SLI Video Cards. Well I am off to sink the Yamamoto (or at least try to). Dam Torpedoes!
Date: 2007-03-23
Some in-game moments seem straight out of an action film...
This game was extremely buggy out of the box. Stretched textures, strange inconsistencies (metric system used in manual/imperial system in game), and other horror stories you may have heard of.
Yesterday (2 days post release) a 116mb patch was released which fixed and offered workarounds to these and many other issues.
While I understand the reality of modern software development, and that most publishers offer release day patches to finish the game after it has gone gold and shipped - I still find it in poor form.
That being said - I played for a few hours last night and had a blast.
First of all - this is a simulation. However it is not as hardcore as say Falcon 4.0 - but it can be. The best thing the developers did in my opinion was offer a sliding realism factor, whether you want to actually use the in-game ruler/protractor/compass to plot your course or develop firing solutions for your torpedoes manually - or let the AI do all the math - you can do it however you like. Don't want to worry about CO2 levels, Oxygen, Fuel, Battery Life? You can make it a bit easier. Thankfully there is a time dilation feature. You can play in REAL-TIME days of game time on a single patrol - or you can speed up to 2x, 4x, 8x, all the way up to 5000+x depending on how much you want to miss. Spending hours of staring at the water might suit some - but not most I would wager.
There is nothing arcade about the game. Plotting your approach, sending crew to battle stations, etc. - all of this is relevant to your attack. You can't just aim/target/fire like in some games. You have to line up and give the AI (or yourself) time to calculate the firing solution. Nothing is quite so satisfying after such hassle than the beauty of an explosion and a burning ship gradually going tail up in the water as it sinks below the depths - sailors crying out and flapping around in the water.
There are lots of small details like that paid attention to. Last night - I had my AA gun firing on a Japanese plane that was coming in on a bombing run to hit my Sub. A lucky shot blew the plane's engine and the entire thing burst into flames, I watched as crew bailed out the back of the plane in parachutes and the plane spun out of control - crashing not very far from the starboard side of my sub. I had to remind myself to exhale.
Visuals in this game are beautiful. The character models are average by today's standards - but ship/water/explosions/etc. are top of the line from what I've seen in games.
Dynamic mission generation is another plus:
I carried out a short patrol from Pearl Harbor to the mainland of Japan on a spying mission to take photographs of the harbor there. I encountered Japanese recon planes as I got closer to the mainland - and the closer I got the more determined the patrols became until I had to dive in order to avoid the bombs being dropped. Sonar detected a Destroyer which I stalked and sank - then continued into the sea of Japan. Ultimately the shallow waters led to my downfall as Destroyers started circling my position and I ended up running into one maneuvering.
My career ended on the bottom of the ocean along with an unlucky Japanese ship.
Sea birds circle your conning tower when on the surface, and sea weed floats around the ship in the water as well. All the little details seem to be noticed by the developer.
If you played SH3 - I can recommend this as a follow up that feels very similar albeit in a different setting. New features and updated graphics are only a good thing from the already beautiful Silent Hunter 3. The immersion of the Radio traffic is a big plus also to remind you of the setting. You are notified in real-time of convoy locations, war news (Germany and Italy declaring war), and invasions of islands.
Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific Reviews Page: 6 of 6 Prev<< 1 2 3 4 5 6
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