A less than exuberant review from bit-tech.net - 2/10 ...

[Fischer]

"What you get with Silent Hunter 5 is a horrifically slow, buggy, unintuitive sub sim that's nowhere near accessible enough for beginners and breaks with so many traditions it can't be picked up and played by veterans either. Our advice? Silent Hunter 5 does such a good job of torpedoing itself you're far better off buying Silent Hunter 4 or a copy of Das Boot and reliving the glory days instead."

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2010/03/23/silent-hunter-5-review/1

[shmall]

I do agree with some of his points, re bugs, some unfinished bits and DRM, however has the guy even played the game? so many thing he says is not what I have in mine?

example:
"Firstly, there is no 'return to course' command. This means that if you use the rudder to manually steer the submarine - something you'll need to do frequently to avoid enemies and get into a better position to attack - you have to wipe all your navigation waypoints and set up them all over again afterwards. This will happen exactly five times before you start clawing for the auto-destruct button"


true there is no button, but all you have to do is add a waypoint at the end of your way point cousre and the sub starts to follow your way points again, no need to redo all the way points as he says?


also:
"What's more, the first-person mode is so badly coded it crawls along at an appallingly slow frame rate regardless of how much hardware you throw at it."

again wrong from my point of view, as I only have a amd6400, windows 7 and ati4870...so not top line and yet mine runs very smooth?

[Iron Budokan]

Ouch.

[Galanti]

"... nowhere near accessible enough for beginners and breaks with so many traditions it can't be picked up and played by veterans either..

That about sums it up for me. Ubi chose to compromise, and as I am fond of telling my wife, compromise means everyone loses.

I'm sure a year or two down the road it'll be quite fun and playable (if the supermods come out), but right now it represents too much of a departure in terms of scope and scale to really keep the interest of SH3/GWX and SH4/OM/RFB players.

The interactive crew thing has already gotten old, and I'm tired of sinking one of three ship types (Liberty, Hog Island and Cimarron tanker) over oand over again.

[SteamWake]

While performance on my machine is not butter smooth it does alright not a 'crawl' by any stretch of the imagination. He probably reviewed on a laptop or something.

BTW Darkwraiths mod returns the return to course button. :salute:

Then there is this


Nothing is more infuriating than being stuck in the conning tower and getting strafed by a passing RAF fighter all because the game has far too many steps between you and the steering wheel.


How in the heck did he manage to get strafed? I have yet to be strafed and I have many hours in the sim.

[GoldenRivet]

you know...

he's not wrong:shifty:

[Noren]

and as I am fond of telling my wife, compromise means everyone loses.

and I thought that was the key to a happy marriage....or a lasting one....or both? But every now and then one should do as one please.


On a serious note: the reviewer has played the game, why else would he be so frustrated with the controls? But he has not tried every single workaround or solutions to bugs/strange UI etc, he's not as hardcore and loving fan as Neal.

Ubisoft: take heed!

[Task Force]

I agree with this guy, the devs changed things that worked... and had been working, for something that is broken...

Performance, is my main issue, its horriable I dont know why performance is SO bad inside, but good outside...:hmmm:

[kylania]

Given that the inside of the submarine isn't particularly detailed...

Nope, he hasn't actually played the game. I think he just looked at screenshots he posted and read bug posts on forums (all his down points are UI bugs which are being fixed).

SH5 isn't a shiny bright happy place, but that's also a horribly done review, really nothing more than a troll post I'd say. If I were to read that here, I'd totally dismiss it. :)

[Faamecanic]

I agree with this guy, the devs changed things that worked... and had been working, for something that is broken...

Performance, is my main issue, its horriable I dont know why performance is SO bad inside, but good outside...:hmmm:

Same here....had to turn off all shadows and a bunch of other options due to performance inside the sub...but outside is smooth. Could be the poly-count inside that is the frame rate killer.

[Faamecanic]

I had to ROFLMAO over this....wonder if he intended this as it sounds:

"Quite why Ubisoft thought this was a good idea is beyond me - a submarine is a cold, wet, badly lit, poorly ventilated metal tube full of men who haven't washed properly for months and that all share one toilet. Even without going into that detail it’s still just a bunch of narrow grey corridors punctuated by ladders. Plus, there’s seamen everywhere. Actually having to move between stations was never going to be fun."

LOL

[Nisgeis]

Yes, he definately meant it, he even goes to the trouble of writing sailors and using a strikethrough font for it, to replace it with 'seamen'. He should have just written 'semen' as that's what he really wanted to say. It's not even an oiginal joke and not something I'd expect of a professional reviewer. I want a better class of inuendo.

[UnSalted]

His job is to review a game that's been released, not a game that's been modded. If you think he's not being fair because he didn't scour the planet for non-Ubisift attempts to fix a second-rate release, there's little hope of you ever wanting a non-partial review to begin with.

[Faamecanic]

Guess its hard to take the reviewer seriously then..... very immature. Funny at first if it was a mistake...but then I read the rest of the review and saw the strike-thru..... once funny...twice foolish.

[alexradu89]

Silent Hunter 5... because Ubisoft wanted to see what it's like to fire an acoustic torpedo sideway with all engines at Flank Speed! :up:

[robbo180265]

To be honest it read like a review from a gamer not a proper reviewer.

Is it a well known website?

[mookiemookie]

I like how he mentioned FPS level design and how there's too many ladders. :doh: :88)

[UnSalted]

Silent Hunter 5... because Ubisoft wanted to see what it's like to fire an acoustic torpedo sideway with all engines at Flank Speed! :up:


So you don't appreciate the Fuhrer's Top Secret Tumbling Torp???

OFF WITH HIS HEAD !!!!!!

[karamazovnew]

That guy got PAYED for that review? It's awful. Not that I don't agree with some of the points but what he described there were not game-breakers. The game has plenty of those but he pushed the "autodestruct" button before he got to them. :haha:

[Konovalov]

To be honest it read like a review from a gamer not a proper reviewer.

Is it a well known website?
Yes it is. They are the guys who make a PC hardware magzine here in the UK titled Custom PC. They aren't a bunch of hacks.

I haven't even bothered to read the review as it sounds too depressing. I still believe that this can be a very good sim but only time will tell.

Besides Flamming Cliffs 2 (addon for Lockon and Flamming Cliffs) will be out within the next month hopefully. :yeah: This is made by the same guys who made DCS Blackshark and who are working on DCS A10c. Blackshark despite all it's immense complexity didn't have even a tenth of the bugs and stuffups that Ubi delivered with SH5.

[Nisgeis]

Yes it is. They are the guys who make a PC hardware magzine here in the UK titled Custom PC. They aren't a bunch of hacks.

It's a shame the reviewer was semen obsessed, or perhaps he was trying to intimate that the game was wank? Either way, not a very good way of reviewing professionally, when there were lots of other things that could have been said about the game. I don't need jokes like the ones I used to hear at school.

Is 'PC hardware magazine' a published magazine, or online only?

[Konovalov]

Is 'PC hardware magazine' a published magazine, or online only?
I may not have been clear in my post. The magazine title is 'Custom PC', not 'PC Hardware'.

[Nisgeis]

Nah it was me not reading things properly. I've not seen it either way - is it a published paper Mag or an online one?

[Konovalov]

It is print mag. Not a bad one actually. Bit Tech website and Custom PC are part of the same group. Bit Tech does the web and Custom PC the print. Both are decent when it comes to hardware reviews and analysis.

[LiveGoat]

Nope, he hasn't actually played the game. I think he just looked at screenshots he posted and read bug posts on forums (all his down points are UI bugs which are being fixed).

SH5 isn't a shiny bright happy place, but that's also a horribly done review, really nothing more than a troll post I'd say. If I were to read that here, I'd totally dismiss it. :)

I have to agree. Yeah, the game has some problems design-wise but most of the complaints for me have been answered by mods. Everything else is either bugs or design decisions. As to slow gameplay, I'm averaging 2 missions a session. Granted I haven't moved onto manual targeting yet but I wanna wait and see what kind of UIs appear over the horizon after the next patch. The only thing I wholeheartedly agree with is the DRM. Cut the OSP tether and the game will be soaring in a year.

[The General]

Like Neal, these guys have to review the stock game. To be honest I've barely played the stock game, because it is flawed. However with MODS SH5 is phenomenal! Easily the best Subsim ever. With the imminent release of Patch 1.2 things should improve even further.

[Agustus]

bit-tech.net is a very reputable tech website. I've used them on many occasions for reference and have found their reviews to be quite accurate.

And I happen to agree with this review too. You guys can zero in on the "seamen" comment all you want to turn it into a "this isn't a good review." But he provided two pages worth of accurate commentary on the game as is, without mods and with the lousy DRM issues. He also gave it props for trying to do expand the game with the RPG flavor. It just turned out to be a lousy mechanic for this type of game.

I know everyone is trying really, really hard to like this game despite the drawbacks. But sometimes the truth just plain hurts and this review is a lot more truthful than the "it's not so bad" comments I'm reading.

[Bish0p]

Getting really tired of hearing "yea but that's been fixed by mods"
That has no bearing on the vanilla install of the game.
There are tons of people who do not and will not use mods ever.

You can't release a crap game then say "oh but it's better with mods"

Think about it.
Don't you realize how bad that sounds?
I'm sorry if that offends you, that i feel your outlook is faulty, but it is..

Saying things like that is like putting a big red sticker on ubisofts door, that says "we don't care that you give us garbage, we will fix it for you."

I'm sorry but they got paid to make this game.
We did not.
We need to emphasize that this can not become the standard.
Because we all know it's getting worse.
And if you keep saying things like that, it will never get better.

I will not give my hard earned money to someone for something they sat on their butt being lazy for, then released, fully knowing how bad it was.

P.S. Regardless the reviewer is a child and his entire review is invalid due to his immaturity.
Sounds like he's 12..
He says "traced all the way back to 1996"
Like as if he was going back in a time machine to 1940..lol..
What a child.
But my point still stands..

[goldorak]

His job is to review a game that's been released, not a game that's been modded. If you think he's not being fair because he didn't scour the planet for non-Ubisift attempts to fix a second-rate release, there's little hope of you ever wanting a non-partial review to begin with.

Spot on. The game doesn't stand on its feet. Its a failure, only limited by a potential modding scene. But the gamer (except for true hardcore players that will cross Heaven and Hell to please Ubisoft) expects the product he buys to just work. And SH5 doesn't just work. Its an Epic fail with nice graphics.
2/10 is too much, 1/10 is the right grade.

[Lanzfeld]

Shove it Fan Boyz. The game is a fail. Eat it and enjoy.:yeah:

[mookiemookie]

I will not give my hard earned money to someone for something they sat on their butt being lazy for, then released, fully knowing how bad it was.

Then why do you waste your time in a forum for a game you don't own and don't intend to own? Go away.

[Lanzfeld]

Then why do you waste your time in a forum for a game you don't own and don't intend to own? Go away.

He has EVERY right to be here as you.

[mookiemookie]

He has EVERY right to be here as you so STFU.:stare:

Nice. Reporting this post, too.

[Lanzfeld]

gone

[Bish0p]

Nice. Reporting this post, too.

Wow, you sound like a real keeper.
Do yourself and the rest of the world a favor.
Learn how to be a lemming.

Funny how people have selective sight when their partially retarded.
Learn to read genius..
The game is in my shopping cart.
I fully intend on owning it.
"IF" it gets fixed.
That's a big if..
Kind of like "IF" you learn to shut up..

Save your retorts for the 4th graders.
Not here to talk to you, nor do I ....

[Takeda Shingen]

Let's all calm down.

The Management

[mookiemookie]

EDIT: Nah. :)

[Lanzfeld]

Okay...

Been drinking and mad at SH-5 even though I dont own it. (wanted to have high hopes).

Sorry Mookie. Even if you dont accept it.

Resetting now.

[mookiemookie]

Okay...

Been drinking and mad at SH-5 even though I dont own it. (wanted to have high hopes).

Sorry Mookie. Even if you dont accept it.

Resetting now.

Apology accepted. Remember, it's just a computer game. We ain't curing world hunger here. :D

[Méo]

Shove it Fan Boyz. The game is a fail. Eat it and enjoy.:yeah:

OK, the game is a fail, WE GOT IT!!!

Hey! I'm sure there's a subsim that you really like (or you like more than SH5), and I'm sure there's a forum about it and where you can spend your time in...

[Takeda Shingen]

Lanzfeld has apologized. Let's not pile on, alright?

The management

[Méo]

Lanzfield has apologized. Let's not pile on, alright?

The management

Sorry, I saw his post once I posted mine.

[Lanzfeld]

OK, the game is a fail, WE GOT IT!!!

Hey! I'm sure there's a subsim that you really like (or you like more than SH5), and I'm sure there's a forum about it and where you can spend your time in...

I know I know....

Trying to clean up my mess here. You should see the glares I am getting from my wife.
:shifty:

[AngusJS]

Wow, I didn't know the Type VII could only do 7 knots on the surface. :doh:

Seriously, that would have taken about 5 seconds of research to get right.

[Safe-Keeper]

Okay, 6/10, I get. Even 5/10 I can definitely sympathize with.

But 20%? Now, that's just downright silly:nope:.

[Nemesis43]

again wrong from my point of view, as I only have a amd6400, windows 7 and ati4870...so not top line and yet mine runs very smooth?

The engine seems to prefer ATI. I, being an Nvidia user, actually had to disable SLI to get smooth performance; with SLI it was more like smoothness interrupted by a great many stutters. I'm guessing the review was done on a machine equipped with Nvidia card(s).
On that note, has anyone had positive results from using SLI vs. not using it in SH5?

[Uber Gruber]

Silent Hunter 5 does such a good job of torpedoing itself you're far better off buying Silent Hunter 4 or a copy of Das Boot and reliving the glory days instead."

Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Thank gawd for sane people who tell it like it is. None of that "oh dear, we better be nice or we'll lose the only subsim maker in existence..." for that reviewer. Just the bottom line, plane and simple. :rock:

Repeat after me people: "SH5 is a load of bolox."

Now, doesn't that feel better ? Good to get it out of yer system huh ?
:arrgh!:

[Faamecanic]

Getting really tired of hearing "yea but that's been fixed by mods"
That has no bearing on the vanilla install of the game.
There are tons of people who do not and will not use mods ever.

You can't release a crap game then say "oh but it's better with mods"

Think about it.
Don't you realize how bad that sounds?
I'm sorry if that offends you, that i feel your outlook is faulty, but it is..

Saying things like that is like putting a big red sticker on ubisofts door, that says "we don't care that you give us garbage, we will fix it for you."

I'm sorry but they got paid to make this game.
We did not.
We need to emphasize that this can not become the standard.
Because we all know it's getting worse.
And if you keep saying things like that, it will never get better.

I will not give my hard earned money to someone for something they sat on their butt being lazy for, then released, fully knowing how bad it was.

P.S. Regardless the reviewer is a child and his entire review is invalid due to his immaturity.
Sounds like he's 12..
He says "traced all the way back to 1996"
Like as if he was going back in a time machine to 1940..lol..
What a child.
But my point still stands..

This review was as full of FAIL as Ubisoft and this release of SH5.

The Seamen part just demonstrates unprofessionalism.

The pointing out of "too many ladders" "problems going up and down them" "Type VII only doing 7 kts" and several other errors show the reviewer really didnt spend time with the sim.

If he has trouble going up and down the ladders....then he should stick with Mario Kart or some other side-scrolling console game.

His comments on how slow the sim is "no matter what hardware you throw at it" is bollocks. You can see my rig specs below...its no screamer anymore and runs the sim just fine (I cant have everything turned up to max...but its still better looking than SH4 at max). And this is at 1920X1080.

The CURRENT state of SH5 has me ticked as much as the next HONEST guy. Its unexcusable to release something in such a horrid state...and the DRM alone would make me give this sim a 4/10 (the first two weekends I owned it I couldnt play it!).

I also agree with you that Im SICK of game publishers releasing half finished products.... and I find it insulting that UBI is relying on MODS to FREELY fix thier broken garbage.

At the same time inaccurate comments and immaturity makes people question this reviews credibility. And if I paid him to do this review....I would want my money back.

[Stormin Norman]

This review was as full of FAIL as Ubisoft and this release of SH5.

The Seamen part just demonstrates unprofessionalism.

The pointing out of "too many ladders" "problems going up and down them" "Type VII only doing 7 kts" and several other errors show the reviewer really didnt spend time with the sim.

If he has trouble going up and down the ladders....then he should stick with Mario Kart or some other side-scrolling console game.

That review was pathetic, it's not even journalism. This hack focused on his gay sense of humor too much, and on the sub sim too little. Wtf can this be called a "REVIEW".? Did he discuss the campaign? How about the TDC? He mentioned getting his crew to select parts of the ship to attack, that's all. Two many ladders?? What all 2 of them? And he cannot get over that he has to move from place to place him his uboat :o:o:o

The whole thing is a joke.:down:

[EAF274 Johan]

I'm no native English speaker so puns about seamen are totally lost on me, and I'm willing to concede that the "7 knots" reference could have been a typo.

With those two things out of the way, I find I have to agree with most of the review :shifty: It does a good job at pointing out that the whole "making it accessible for the casual player" business is complete nonsense when basic game functions are unexplained or unintuitive. And yes, I too find myself stuck at a ladder more than once (I get the trick for going up, eventually, but going down always takes several tries). Really, if I had to write a review the score I gave wouldn't be much higher.

And still I find myself playing SH5 :hmmm:

[Zedi]

I wonder how much game experience this guy can have by writing "Ubisoft also seems to have forgotten one of the ten commandments of FPS game design; don't put too many ladders in your levels..." :doh:

If he can't climb 2 short ladders in SH5, he is dead meat in any serious rush style FPS where u have to climb up/down very fast many ladders on buildings and so. And this guy gets paid to make reviews... doh :dead:

[janh]

I'd say the review doesn't stand up to the standards that subsim members as insiders and well-versed players of such simulations would hope for. And it doesn't come anywhere near a review like Neals, but he of course exactly knows what to look for.

But I think the message of both reviews are pretty much the same. If something, then this review shows a bit what a casual gamer with no subsim experience and just a game in mind would think.

[Nordmann]

Which is exactly why sims should never be made with the casual gamer in mind; they cannot grasp even the simplest of tasks, such as climbing a couple of ladders. Silly Ubi, thinking they could find a middle ground, when there isn't one!

[subsimlee]

bit-tech.net is a very reputable tech website. I've used them on many occasions for reference and have found their reviews to be quite accurate.

And I happen to agree with this review too. You guys can zero in on the "seamen" comment all you want to turn it into a "this isn't a good review." But he provided two pages worth of accurate commentary on the game as is, without mods and with the lousy DRM issues. He also gave it props for trying to do expand the game with the RPG flavor. It just turned out to be a lousy mechanic for this type of game.

I know everyone is trying really, really hard to like this game despite the drawbacks. But sometimes the truth just plain hurts and this review is a lot more truthful than the "it's not so bad" comments I'm reading.

Amen!

[Zedi]

Which is exactly why sims should never be made with the casual gamer in mind; they cannot grasp even the simplest of tasks, such as climbing a couple of ladders. Silly Ubi, thinking they could find a middle ground, when there isn't one!

I agree with that, SH should not exist for casual players and it should be a very hardcore game. Actually, beside the bugs, this bothers me most.. this game is so simple and easy.

Just looking to the players logs on ubi anybody can see how casual this game is now. Over 3 million tonnage sunk in just few weeks is ridiculous for a serious sim. Sinking one ship should be a serious business, not to mention escaping from Scapa alive. Even with 100% realism SH5 is very easy and to get killed you actually need to commit suicide or to ram a heavy escorted battleship on full speed :(

[pythos]

I read only the first part of this review and realized that the reviewer is a know nothing, dumb a**

"why would any one want to have a first person perspective of a submarine" or other such drivel met my eyes, along with many references to seamen (homo erotic fascination or something?)

I usually give reviews a fair chance, and full read, but this one, may take a while for me to get the will to plow my way through it.

I am sorry, beginning a review on a sim by complaining about aspects that bring it closer to reality is no way to make me think you know Sh*t about sh&t when it comes to reviewing sims.

Almost like the whiny ba*&ards going on about how the virtual cockpits of flight simulator and combat flight sim Obstructed your view. Geeze.

[daemonofdecay]

I also agree with you that Im SICK of game publishers releasing half finished products.... and I find it insulting that UBI is relying on MODS to FREELY fix thier broken garbage.

At the same time inaccurate comments and immaturity makes people question this reviews credibility. And if I paid him to do this review....I would want my money back.

Seconded. SHV does not deserve anything more than a 6 / 10 at the very highest. I am one of those who has never had a problem with the DRM in the least, but the fact that it is there is still reason enough to lower their score a few points

But this review is ridiculous and full of inaccuracies. It's one thing to dislike a game, but this review seemed like he played for 10 to 15 minutes and then wrote down his already preconceived notions on how "bad" the game was.