I've always loved a good U-Boat sim, like the classic Aces of The Deep by Sierra and the original Silent Hunter, so I was waiting for this game with crazy anticipation. After receiving the game I playing it nonstop but like I said before, after about 2 weeks I just lost interest in playing because of the overly static and difficult save game feature. First off I will talk about how the gameplay feels. The interfaces and controls in the game are all pretty good, as is the enemy AI and the mission generator. These are all well done and don't bother me at all. The thing that is annoying is how the save game system works and how the campaign is set up. The save game system makes the game pretty hard, especially when playing on realistic settings (but who said captaining a U-Boat in WWII was ever easy), yes, but its a game and it should be reasonably easy to survive so that I may play the game to its conclusion. The save game system basically stores one saved game which sucks if things dont play out well before or after that saved game. There is a manual way to save more that one instance of your game, but I won't go into that here, all you need to know is that it is annoying. Ok, The other no so great thing about the game is how they have set up the campaign. Each mission is tightly scripted as the gamespot guys have said. This creates a situation where replayability goes way down and mistakes in timing can really mess up your mission. If the savegame system were better and the campaign wasnt so static the game would be pretty great. The graphics in this game are cool at times and not so great in others. Ships, water, most aircraft, the U-Boats, and the sky are all modeled pretty well in the game. The fire effects are kinda blaa for their time and sometimes ships and smoke disappear and reappear on the horizon for some unknown reasons. Overall the graphics are good but have some strange things that stand out over time. The sound in the game is pretty good, nothing that I can think of stood out as being really cool or really bad. In the end I would probably recommend this game to hardcore WWII simmers who are itching for a new WWII U-Boat sim until something new comes out. The historical and technical content and the ability to maneuver a U-Boat around and blow things up is always cool.
Submarine sims have been top of my list of games since Silent Service. Drooled over Silent Hunter then played it whenever I could. Sinking more than 3 Yamato class, etc. was a bit strange but otherwise THE best game of... Read Full Review
I've always been fascinated with the U-boats of WWII. I've read books, seen every film, I own "Das Boot" on DVD and I played just about every U-Boat sim there's ever been. However for some reason there've never been a lo... Read Full Review
