As a kid, I used to sit and watch The Silent Service with my dad. Have read all the first-person accounts. Loved Silent Hunter (That's SH One. Ace. Uno. The Original.) and longed for the day when someone would release a 21st century version.
I was thrilled when I got SH4. Then I tried to play it, threw it in a drawer, and didn't come back until I stumbled onto SubSIm and learned about all the great modding work that had been done. Tried again, and enjoyed SH4 with RFB and RSRDC. (Tried TMO, too. That's another story....)
I found modded SH4 to be good, but not the immersive, I'm-back-in-'42 experience I remembered from old original SH. Overcame my anti-Nazi sentiment enough to try SH5. It's just freakin' beautiful, but even modded to the eyeballs (100+) I found it too constrained.
Out of boredom and dissatisfaction, I tried that old SH3. State-of-the-art-a-decade-ago graphics, but with modding by folks who care deeply about Getting It Right. And now, that sense of immersion, of playing a game where the atmosphere feels right down to the little details, is back for me. It's all subjective, and I couldn't explain it, but SH3 (with NYGM) just has it for me.
I still wish SH4 could give me that feeling. I'd rather be in a Gato. But no one seems to be working on advancing SH4, and SH3 just keeps getting better and better. YMMV, but for now, it's Kaleun Fischer prowling the lonely wastes of the Atlantic and trying to survive the war.
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