Review from a casual gamer...
 

Hi All,

Long time lurker, first time poster. So I picked up a copy of SHIV today, and I have to say that it follows the trends of most PC games being published today, great concepts that are not fully realized before the publisher forces them onto the market. Keep in mind I am not a sub geek, I played SHIII with GWX1.02 so I am pretty familiar with the franchise, but I don’t consider sub knowledge my hobby or anything. This is more from the casual gamer perspective then someone who gets a stiffy thinking about the silent service.

The Good,

Appearance wise it’s pretty good, yeah you have the forced resolution issue, tried it at everything up to 2048 X 1536 72hrz and it didn’t help the jags one bit. If Ubisoft didn’t make that clear then it’s a pretty big slap in the face for the “immersion” folk. I figure this is going to be something that is pretty easily modded or patched (hopefully).

The ship models look pretty accurate and the underwater view isn’t bland like in SHIII. Stones and plants and algae are a nice touch

The interior of the ship looks better than it did in SHIII, although the bug eyed crew still kind of freaks me out.

Torpedo action is pretty accurate for the time, it takes a lot of fish to take out a decent sized target and I got quite a few duds.


The Bad,

Ship contacts seem few and far between, and when you play with limited fuel it’s a queen you know what sometimes to find ships close by so you don’t run out of gas in the middle of no where.

The sounds are totally fubar, not sure what is going to be done there, you have looping, incorrect sounds, and the maddening sound of constant crew members saying numbers. It made me feel like the count from sesame street was a stowaway onboard my ship. The first patch/mod better focus a lot on the sounds cause they are lacking.

2d sailors when the cpu gets put under stress is pretty bush league IMO, they look really cheesy.

Some missions don’t seem to be able to be completed which is a bug I figure will patched out.

Escorts seem kind of indifferent to my actions, maybe I am used to GWX’s uber escorts and these are just vanilla, but they seem to let me get away with anything. Planes don’t seem to engage me at all, kind of like a shooting gallery with them (fun but not realistic at all)

I got several CTD while playing for a few hours, one is the stopwatch thingy for speeds, but I have seen that around the forum so I guess it’s well known.

All in all, the game seems like a diamond in the far rough, and I do mean far rough. This is going to need several patches and the help of a active modding community to make it comparable to the game play that people have come to expect from having played SHIII with the supermods. I just hope Ubisoft and the modding community are up to the task.

trust me..if there is one thing that is certain about this game

that there will be mod's galore to fix w/e is wrong with this game

the modding community for sub sims will not let us down..they didn't on sh3 imho..i seriously doubt that they will on sh4

Barbarus, thx for taking the time to give us your first impressions.

Unfortunately, they seem to fit my initial impressions about SH 4 all too well.

Thanks for the feedback. Where did you get the game? Maybe you got ahold of a bad copy or something. I still have not seen any 2D crew chanting numbers. Anyone else seen this?

Neal

Funny, sailing around Japan I see no lack of ship contacts :p

Maybe compared to SHIII stock, yes, but hey... there's a lot of ships!

The real problem is just the size of the theatre.

Lots have reported both problems.

Neal,

Numerous folks have mentioned about the number chanting, so I take it that it does happen. As far as 2D Crew.. there are screenshots of it. Take a look at Page #3 of 'The SH4 Bug Thread'. Screens posted by 'Seeadler'.

Regards

I am, it is very weird.

I'm sorry but I feel compelled to ask....


I am, ?

I am,........... what?

I picked up a copy at the super target near where i live, it's funny, they usually have games out before ANY of the strictly video game stores in the area. The sound issue is to the point that I have truly switched over to the silent service...as in...NO SOUND. I will note that the poster saying that there are plenty of ships around the core japanese island is correct. The only issue is that it takes FOREVER to get there unless I have Sulu crank it up to warp factor 9 and then I never get ANY contacts on the way, this takes away a bit from the game. It's a loooong haul from Pearl to Tokyo, I have read about those people that play at 1X, well, they better have a carton of cigs and a few cases of suds cause it's going to be a long time before they see anyone, if they don't already go mad from the "1...4...5...2...1...5...6...3...1...8...3..." that the crew chants. I tried fiddling with the sound settings to no avail. :damn:

You know I don't remember SH3 having this many annoying bugs. Certainly bugs but none that were so... creepy.

I thought it was obvious: he's replying to the question of anyone else seeing 2D crew members. Being from the USA he should have known to say "I have", but you take what you can get, I guess.

Ahhhhh, ok. Thank you Sailor Steve. I just couldn't get what it was he was referring to for some reason. Thank you!

Agreed. SH3 was not a perfect game in stock form. God knows how true that is. But a lot of these bugs and immersion-killers seem kind of...oh, I dunno, I guess "creepy" is a pretty good term after all.

I've got my fingers crossed a lot of this trouble will be addressed with the newly announced patch....?