Here it is - U-89 Battle Picture Library Part 2 [Archive]

Chock

05-25-07, 10:16 PM

I've taken a few liberties with the Type of WW1 boat U-89 was, but we won't let that get in the way of a good story...

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/891.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/892.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/893.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/894.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/895.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/896.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/897.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/898.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/899.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/8910-1.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/8911.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/8912.jpg

To be continued...

Chock

Chock

05-26-07, 02:26 PM

Brag, the World War One screenshots are from the WW1 sub sim: 1914 The Shells of Fury (or 1914 Die Schalen Des Zorns if you prefer its German title)

If you don't know the game it's hardly surprising, as it is a budget release from the German software company, Rondomedia (which is part of UBISOFT apparently). It's not had a lot of distribution outside Germany, in fact, I had to buy it from the German amazon website, as I've never seen it available in the UK, again hardly surprising since WW1 is not exactly a hot favourite with PC gamers.

The game/sim has received mixed reviews, some parts of it are great, while others less so. You might be able to tell from the screenshots that it has a bit of a crappy external view camera. And some of the graphics in the game are really amazing, whereas others look like a sim from 5 years ago.

On the plus side in 1914 DSDZ: It does feature a quite historically accurate camapign, as well as single missions and a mission generator, the four WW1 subs in the sim are fun to drive around and reasonably accurate as far as their capabilities go. It's nice to be able to launch mines from your submarine as well as torpedoes too. The deck gun is cool and is more of a primary weapon in this than in other sub sims, so if you like blowing stuff up and seeing it, this is a plus. The WW1 ships and the subs are very well modelled and look pretty convincing (shame you can't zoom the camera closer to them). You get three different selectable speeds on the torpedoes as well as depth selection, making attacking stuff quite varied, but working out solutions can be a bit of a headache if you are used to having a TDC do all the calculations for you, as the only TDC in this sim is the one in your head and a pen and paper! Still, I worked out a system for it and made a chart to help make this aspect easier, which is probably what a lot of real WW1 sub drivers did too. Lastly the sim is very 'moddable' as you can get at most of the stuff such as sound and graphic files quite easily, and in fact this is one of the things I am in the process of doing, to improve things a bit. In general, you can pretty much do everything you can in SH3/4 though.

On the down side in 1914 DSDZ: The graphics engine in the sim looks a bit 'dated', the surface of the sea is nowhere near as well done as in SH3 or 4 (although it's not desperately bad). The performance of the submarines is probably a bit too good in terms of diving times, and the subs are quite possibly too reliable in comparison to the real thing based on what I have read. The 'world' is somewhat spartan, so if you like seeing decently modelled ports and harbours, you're in for a disappointment, cos there are none. The sounds in the sim are okay, but there are no sounds of your crew talking or responding to orders, although the fact that the sounds are easily 'moddable' makes this less of a downer. What is a real downer however, is that the camera was 'nerfed' terribly in between the beta and the release of the game, meaning that it is impossible to view your submarine underwater, as it had originally been possible to do in the beta version. There is a 'torpedo camera' which is underwater, but seeing that and noticing the detail of the sea bed is ultimately annoying and frustrating, as it makes you wish your sub's external camera would go underwater too, because the underwater appearance is extremely convincing (more so than any other submarine sim in my opinion). Lastly, 1914 DSDZ is a little bit 'arcadish' in feel (probably because of the graphics, as the sim aspects are quite well done), and you get the impression that for a sim developed in 2006 it is probably that way with the intention of being put on a console rather than a PC.

Oh, and the manual (yes, it has a paper manual!) is in German, so if you don't speak German, you'd have to 'Babel Fish' the pdf version to understand things (not a big deal). Since you can buy the game for less than a tenner on amazon however, it's not bad and makes a change from WW2 all the time.

Incidentally, if anyone has 1914 DSDZ, and has any idea how to reconfigure the external camera's parameters, I'd love to hear from them, as I've not been able to find the file, to mess around with it! Maybe it's hard-coded.

:D Chock