SHIII is the most immersive sim I've ever played (I was up to 3am last night, sending Tommy a love note written on the side of a torpedo, while listening to German drinking music from the 40's on the gramophone). But I do find that graphics help with immersion, so that's the single biggest draw for SHIV for me. But I have my doubts.
The thing I love most about SHIII/GWX isn't the act of plotting on the nav table or lining up torpedo shots - it's that I am a U-Boat Kapitan-Lieutenant. I know the "happy days" of 1939/1940 are over. I know my side is going to lose the war. I know I'm almost certain to die. I know my country is led by madmen. But it's still my country, and it's still my duty. It's a hard life and a short one, but there's a beautiful, noble, doomed poetry about it.
I don't get any sense of that fighting on the US side, where I have every confidence we'll win, that our cause is just, our leaders are good folks, and that I have some hope I'll make it out alive. As a US Navy skipper, I'm merely trying to be excellent at what amounts to a job. It just seems kind of, well, ordinary.
We'll see. I'm going to give it a shot, because it looks so pretty.
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