Well I was 11 or 12 and saw Das Boot on TV. So approx 16 year back. I still remember myself crying when the when the Captain died at the end. And I have been hooked on U-boats and WW2 ever since. Than I come across Leo Kesslers Submarine series book, and AOD which was a joyous day indeed for me. But I must say SH2 nearly turned me off u-boat games due to its set missions which after playing AOD were totally crap for me.

well for me, it was Aces of the Deep! However I stopped playing that years ago and got heavily into flight sims and FPSs (mainly AA, DoD and BF/BF2). The thing that got me was the graphics and then the gameplay of SHIII. So you can say I was actually lured by the game! (way to go Ubisoft!).

However I'm still an avid WW2 gamer. One of my most important games installed is IL2+FB+AEP+PF and I'm in an online squad (Wedge Tailed Eagles) where we fly every tues and thurs nights. We have an internal 'World At War' campaign where we re-fly all the major air battles of WW2, and man is it exciting.

Last night we recreated the Cologne 1000 raid ie. 1,000 brit bombers bombed the german city of Cologne into the stoneage and we recreated that. Its awesome trying to bomb whilst engaging night fighters and searchlights, etc.

Anyway, I digress.

I grew up going with my brother to visit the U505 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Later my brother joined the Navy and was on various nuclear subs, which we discussed when he would come home.

Even later yet, a friend had joined WPL, and i watched and read the forums regularly with much interest. Wasnt until the first wallpaper contest that I joined tho, and we all just waited "patiently" for SH2 to arrive.

The rest is history.

One birthday I got a U-boat model from a friend. Been hooked on subs ever since! :rock:

I think maybe watching run silent run deep did it for me...... back in elementary school I think I checked out like 12 different books on submarines. After that starting trying to design my own... Then I played Silent Service II which I was addicted to..... Then I saw Das Boat which was awesome. Later Silent hunter II and sub command...


Then came the best sub game ever.


SH3

I was just a kid, and I had the AMIGA 500 game console... a friend gave me "silent service" and I spent a lot of time with it. Then I tried "wolfpack"... and then I think that I tried almost every sub simulation (I remember one named "das boot"). When I bought a PC, I continued with subsims: 688, Jane's 688(I) Hunter/Killer, silent hunter2 (yes, I missed silent hunter 1 :( ) , sub command, and now silent hunter 3. I also tried enigma "rising tide" but I don't like it (I think it's too "arcade") and I want to try "dangerous waters": I tried it 3 months ago but I think that it needs a lot of time to master all the game's feature... and now all my time is dedicated to sh3!

I loved Jules Verne's books when I was a kid, and 20,000 Leagues made a deep impression. Then again I love sci-fi in general... :P

But I've always liked simulations and strategy games, and I've been 'playing' flight sims and sub sims for as long as I can remember. My first sub sim was Silent Service, then I've played most ever since. And I also loved SH2, btw. I'm surprised to see so many saying it was so bad.

Sometimes I feel a bit 'guilty' when I play German sub sims, since my father was torpedoed twice by u-boats during WWII. He hardly ever talked about this, but he told me when I was quite young that both u-boats surfaced after the attacks and gave them food, clothes, medicines and directions to the closest harbour while they were in the lifeboats. I guess seamen are honorable to each other no matter the relationship between their countries/leaders.

This makes it a bit easier to play SH, but it still feels a bit strange sometimes. And I never sink a Norwegian ship on my patrols, strange as it may sound... :ping:

In my past life I was a U-Boat crewman and the affinity carried forward to this present one.

For me it most likely started when I went to Bavaria Film Studios in Munich as a kid. The prop of "Das Boot" was displayed there (and still is) and it was an eerie feeling to walk through it, and I somehow found this experience both frightening and fascinating. Although I never forgot that experience my main focus remained on aircraft, probably since real aircraft are easier to come by in Munich than real uboats and real ships :) I also played a lot of FS4-FS2000 and always dreamt of making a pilots licence. Nevertheless I only saw the movie "Das Boot" several years after seeing the prop and then went immediately to playing Aces of the Deep (AOD) which I played more or less frequently over years. I had secretly hoped for a great SH2 and was pretty disappointed, but now I love SH3.

That's all :)

Atari 800 xl, Silent Service! :rock: :rock: :rock:

Can you believe I sometimes still play it on an Atari emulator :88)

In '91, I was a Marine stationed in Capetown, SA and one of my mates had a sim - don't recall the title - and the graphics were just terrible. Yet the skill and tactics that it required intrigued me and I played on.

Literally just four days ago I was in Best Buy looking around and noticed Call of Duty 2 is coming out in a few months - which is fantastic.

Off to the side, and ironically, on the bottom was a copy of SHIII. I didn't buy it, but instead read review after review and immediately floored the pedal to the nearest BB.

I'm utterly speechless and my wife is about to lose it. A few very minor issues, but overall SHIII is absolutely up-all-night-no-sleep amazing. I am blown away.


p.s.
It's disappointing that there are no other ships and subs in my own harbor and docked at Wilhemshaven. Where's the traffic? I appreciate the upgraded buildings, but the port should be busy, at least have some ships stationed and tied up. Just my $0.02. Or am I missing something?

Welcome, Teufelschiff! Yes, you are missing something... ;) There is a wonderful mod out there that will bring a lot of friendly traffic to the ports. Read about and get it here:

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=41646

I got into U-Boats when i saw an old film when i was about 8, it showed this big merchant ship and there were two streaks of white in the water and this huge explosions, i thought to myself, well , that looks fun. everytime i watch Das Boot it makes me want to play even more.

I got interested after seeing Das Boot, and my friend from school serves on a sub. I actually ended up buying SHIII because of the beautiful sound and graphics (I'm really into sims as well) and now because of seeing what the naval battles were like (instead of watching hours and hours of depth charges being deployed without seeing a single Uboat) and I now have alot of respect for the Uboat crews and commanders.

I got my interest in Subs/the sea from my grandfather being a naval diver in WW2 and (whilst at college) working a summer job as a ferryman across the local inland tidal seariver (near my mum's house) and a winter job as a fisherman out in the Solent, seeing the RN coming and going out of Portsmouth.

Kaleun