I did the unthinkable and bought it.

[gutted]

Yeah yeah, i said i wasn't going to buy it because of the DRM crap, but i now have my copy.

Was at best buy this morning for something else, and decided to walk through games section and saw it. Note: Anyone in the New Orleans area, Best Buy in Metairie has 3 copies left. I mulled over it for a bit, and decided what the hell.. i had nothing important planned today anyway, so i decided to get it now.. and "fix" the always online thing on a later date.


So.. my first impressions? Un-impressed. I was hoping for a more immersive experience.. but i'm actually less immersed. So, instead of posting all the things i like.. i'll just stick to the things i dislike.


1. The novelty of walking around the ship and talking to the asshats onboard wore off in the first few minutes. Going up and down ladders will aggrevate you at times, because sometimes he wont go up them. I also wish it would remember that i was in look mode when entering/exiting stations.

2. The orange glow around people and objects like the hydrophone, UZO, persiscope is a massive immersion killer, and is a huge eye-sore.

3. Deck Gun:
There's no scope view (atleast i couldn't find it). The controls say to use the mouse wheel to zoom, but while sitting at the station you can only zoom out to see your entire ship. Zooming in does nothing. In easy targetting you get a green projectile path, while In realistic targetting you get nothing. Brilliant

[EDIT]
Figured it out, there's a button next to the ammo selector at the top left corner of the screen to switch to the gun scope. The manual actually says to use the TAB key to switch to the scope, but that's a actually hotkey for something else. Go figure.



4. Flack Gun:
You can actually zoom in and use it. But... the ammo left indicator is near the middle of the screen. Which means when you look up.. the ammo bar will cover up your sight. Yeah i know, its pretty stupid.

5. Periscope View:
Sucks. Too much dead space. The recognition pages are too small. There's a ridiculous Lock, Unlock button hovering around inside the periscope view underneath ships. And when the recognition manual pages are shown, that button moves up and obscures the target you are trying to match in the pictures.

The Bearing indicator, is hard to read, and is missing tick marks for accurate scope positioning.

There's no Sub Heading indicator anywhere in UI HUD from what i can tell either.

The popup map is cool idea i guess (still not sold on it). I found it rather annoying to be honest. I dont like the fact that if i have the popup map closed, and i switch to the normal map via the 'm' key.. when i come back by hitting M again, the popup map is open now.


5. Manual Targetting:
Sucks. There's no TDC controls, no Dials, no nothing. Just a menu driven interface. Complete immersion killer for me. Instead of rotating a knob to set speed, i have to keep ticking a standard windows left right arrow control over and over again.... but, only AFTER navigating through the conversation options to reach it. Idiocy!

Salvo controls seem to be 1 torpedo, or all torpedos. The torpedo man talking every time you change tubes is annoying as hell. I tried to open and flood Tubes 1-3 and was bombarded by a wall of voice respsonses. I almost pounded my headphones when i heard that. You get the same crap when plotting out a course on the map.. every waypoint you add you hear a response from the nav officer calling out bearings. After the 5th waypoint you want to strangle him.

6. Hydrophone:
Can't use the mouse to move the pointer around like in SH3 (and somtimes SH4 depending on Sub). Have to use the Home/End keys. Couldn't figure out how to use the volume knob, despite clicking on it.

7. Stability
So far it's managed to freeze my machine on the 3 launches i tried. Everything is fine, and then sooner or later the screen freezes and i get screeching out of the speakers.

I'm trying to stay positive, but im having a hard time. Will keep plugging away at it, but i'm left feeling that it's going to take alot of modding to make this a worthy successor in my eyes.

Will post more things as i find them.

[ddrgn]

Use the mouse wheel to change the volume on the hydrophone. I think before people post this kind of "personal take, impressions" they should play at least 15 mins, and than post.


I only had one crash in over 15 hours of game play and not one freeze while loading....

[gutted]

I've been playing it for about 6 hours now.

[jlederer]

Any chance there is an INI file setting to remove the glow?

[gutted]

Use the mouse wheel to change the volume on the hydrophone.

Yes, i know about the mouse wheel.. and that is not for the volume. Thats a fine tune for the hydrophone position.

When i said no mouse control for the 'phone... i meant moving the needle around with the left mouse button and dragging. That was my favorite way to sweep it around.

[Bubblehead1980]

Thanks for the review gutted, reminds of why I will not purchase this.Mainly because of the DRM but the preview videos i've seen and features i've read about, its not a subsim anymore

The thing that caught my eye the most was no manual TDC controls I hate using this but WTF!! Good thing SH 4 community is strong and not going anywhere.Maybe UBI will learn a lesson.

[ReFaN]

Indeed, its not a subsim.

its a subcaptsim!

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by gutted

Yeah yeah, i said i wasn't going to buy it because of the DRM crap, but i now have my copy.

Turncoat!

Traitor!

Weak-kneed wishy-washy whippersnapper!


Sorry, couldn't resist. Actually I hope you'll come to like it more. Remember (if you can) how many bad things were said about the "awful" SH3 at the start. People are already discussing how to mod this stuff, and I think it will get a lot better.

[gutted]

Actually, i rather enjoyed the release of SH3. But then again, SH3 was my first subsim.

[ddrgn]

i find the TDC to be weak in appearance, but its forcing me to go back to basics, i am charting course, aob, speed and range manually, there are also new ways to get speed and accurate distance, even in 100% realism your getting new info from your crew the attack map especially... ill leave you guys to find the new info.. dont want to spoil all the eggs

also i was able to add the PK lock via a command in the cfg so I hit a key and it locks my solution, hit it again and its changable again

i have a few keys modded already - i will make a list of changes and drop a copy of my commands.cfg later,

set keys works too as long as you rename your commands.cfg to commands_en.cfg and just copy and paste the changed commands into your new SH5 commands, very simple stuff

[Sailor Steve]

So did I. But there were a lot of complaints.

A lot.

[Bubblehead1980]

You know thing is should not have to rely on the mods.UBI should give the devs more time so they can do the damn game how it should be done.

[gutted]

Ohh, one other negative point:

It doesn't come with a printed manual. Only a .PDF on the CD. As for it's content.. it's what we come to expect from manuals these days. Pretty slim on details

No mention of how to use manual targetting. In fact this is the only thing it contains with targetting:

In order to hit your target with your torpedoes, you have to “lead“ it with
your periscope. The bearing from the periscope is automatically translated
to the Torpedo Data Computer and translated into a firing solution. How
much to lead the target is a question of experience, but the TAI diagram will help out as explained below.

By analysing the torpedo’s path and the enemy ship’s position, you can evaluate the location of both after a certain amount of time, and direct your shot so that the two points coincide.

[DMB3428]

. Periscope View:
Sucks. Too much dead space. The recognition pages are too small. There's a ridiculous Lock, Unlock button hovering around inside the periscope view underneath ships. And when the recognition manual pages are shown, that button moves up and obscures the target you are trying to match in the pictures


I agree with this, the unlock-lock indicator gets in the way! I like walking around the sub myself, to me this is more realistic than insta hotkey appear to whatever station...

[ddrgn]

i dont agree with that, want i do think is we shoudl get the SDK and go to town on this thing....

devs are not like us, harrdened subsimmers, we are the ones that bring these barebone games to light

its like saying "man, i wish my car came custom right from the manufacturer?" lol