[siber]

I find that 1st person shoot'em up games just don't work for me, as blasé aggression will often achieve the same results as sound strategy.

However, in realistic simulations such as SH3 (with all automatic assistance provided by the software - ship recognition, AOB calcs etc. - disabled) success depends upon good planning, preparation and execution. Steaming in, all guns blazing, will more often than not result in failure.

Being a scientist, I enjoy seeing my calculations of speed, range, AOB etc, and tactical preparation working as planned, and feel great satisfaction at success.

Also, the dynamic campaign means that, although the situations are often similar and the task the same, the actual happenings are never the same twice, giving the game longevity and enduring interest. This is prolonged by the gradual improvement of your opponents, and the ability to upgrade your equipment (submarines, torpedo types, sonar etc.) as time progresses.

Finally, the simulation acts as a practical history lesson, teaching me what crews of u-boats went through better than any documentary or film on tv (which tends to miss out the boredom, the cramped space, the feeling of uncertainty/fear when being depth charged etc).

Basically, with the simulation (and mods - great work all you modders/dev teams.) as realistic as possible, I enjoy and learn from the experience, both doing tasks that were required in real life and feeling the emotions that come with it.

To be honest, I think that this sort of game should be played/demonstrated in schools as joint lessons in history, maths, physics and socialogy. Perhaps that's a new market that game dev teams could look into?