Much too long review of SH5...

ParaB · 03-04-10, 09:50 AM

Yep, I have it. The missus (god bless her) surprised me yesterday with a pristine copy of Silent Hunter 5.

"Eh, something wrong, honey?"
"No, ah...that's totally sweet, my dear. It's just that..."
"Did I buy the wrong game?"
"No..uh... see, there's this personal boycott thing because of that online DRM and the need to stand up against what those greedy publishers throw at us honest gamers, the future of PC gaming and PC simming and..."

*cue weird look from she-who-must-be-obeyed*

"So, you don't want it?"
"Err...no! It's just that, ah... it's how those publishers treat us and it's wrong and..."
"I can take it back. Just wanted to be nice. With all your U-boat books and that ugly ship (the Revell VIIc modell isn't UGLY!), that looong boring movie we watched last week and those other U-boat games (they're SIMS!) you're playing and...
"No, no! It's fine, really, my dear, thank you!"

*cue deep sigh and yet another strange look from s.w.m.b.o.*

***********************

Ok. I couldn't give it back. Just couldn't. Not with that DVD smiling seductively at me...

So, might as well write how I feel about Silent Hunter 5.
Installation was hassle-free, as was setting up an account with UBISofts's Uplay online platform. I won't write much about UBI's DRM scheme, everything that needs to be said has already been said here. Just for the record: IMO tying an offline-game to an online account with the need to be connected to said account all the time while playing an offline! game is a slap in the face of honest consumers. Wrote an Email to UBI customer support on that issue. Won't help much, I know...

1st impressions are actually quite favourable. Grafics are absolutely stunning and provide for some scenes that rival the beauty of naval paintings. Especially the lighting/shadows and new water/foam effects are incredibly well done.

FPS on my system (Core2DuoE6750, GTX260, 2Gigs RAM, WinXP) range from low 20s in the sub to 60+ outside. Once I switched shadows to medium and set FSAA in the drivers software to 'application preference' (set to 2x) FPS improved quite a bit and 'lags' disappeard.

The sub interior is beautifully rendered too, although quite some details are missing. Still, the ability to finally walk through the whole boat is something this old skipper has been dreaming of since Silent Service.

The initial favourable impressions fade rather quickly though once you step deeper into the game. The crew is a mixed bag. Models and textures are OK, but animations are FAR too few and quite often when interacting with a crew member it will 'beam' to a new position, sometimes directly behind you.

There's a concept called the "uncanny valley", which basically means the more "real" a model becomes the more the subtle differences to the "real world" become glaringly apparent and distracting. This is very much true for SH5. When in Aces of the Deep I ordered a crash dive, I heard the alarm bell, followed by shouting and the sound of trampling feet while staring at a 2d-screen. But in your head you saw the scene from Das Boot, so it worked. In SH5 now you have this awesome interior and a real 3d-crew, but when you order a crash dive nothing happens. Same in other situations, including being under attack oder performing repairs where the visual feedback just isn't enough to convey the atmosphere. Add to that the problem that especially the forward torpedo room feels terribly empty (in reality this was the 'home' for most crewmen), the general lack of crew moving around the boat and soon you get the feeling that while surely nice to look at there's simply quite a bit missing here.

Crew interaction:

Well... after 3 patrols I have to say this is a mixed bag, too. The general idea with a morale system, "upgrades" and special abilities isn't bad per se, the problem is that at the moment the whole system seems totally borked and bugged. Some things just don't work, some vital orders simply are missing and when your officers in the middle of combat reply to you with a smug "Sorry, can't do, Herr Kaleun." you want to go for your Luger right there...
You can talk to your crew (at least some of them) to boost morale, which is again a nice idea, but when on the 3rd patrol you still see the same "talk options" like on the 1st, this feature quickly falls into the ever-increasing category of things that are basically nice but don't work in SH5.

Still with me?

Great. Next stop, the simulation:

I play with manual targetting, and for once I have to say that getting a firing solution and sinking ships in SH5 is fun. Yep, I said it: fun. And SH5 in the same sentence. I actually prefer the manual targetting in SH5 to that in SH3. The 'targetting dialogue' works well, and most importantly, efficient. Of course, not everything's fine (who would've thought it?), since the stadimeter works kind of erratically (sometimes you have to measure up to the smokestacks, sometimes to the top of the masts to get the correct distance to a target) and the new recognition manual, while providing a nice 'filter' option really lacks in detail and, at least at 1680x1050 resolution, is too small.

As nice as manual targetting works so utterly rubbish is the actual interaction with the boat. Course changes, depth changes, due to the inane GUI this all is much more a nuissance than prodecures that are easily performed.

Torpedoes suffer almost no duds so far, out of 50+ fired eels I've yet to see one not work perfectly...

Diving times seem FAR to quick and overall the boat seems a tad too maneuverable, same with (de-)acceleration.

The world:

Here Sh5 has clearly improved. Harbours and coastlines are far more detailed than before, very nice. Lots of traffic, too. Big improvement compared to, for example, stock SH3. Some things are a bit weird though, like constant air patrols by pairs of Hurricanes off the coast of England. In the middle of the night.

The AI:

Mixed bag, like so much in SH5. While your boat is on the surface the AI seems pretty decent, and gunfire will seriously damage your boat in short time. No deck-gunning destroyers anymore. Surface night attacks so far work rather well. I've also seen much less "confused herd of cows"-behaviour with convoys. And so far (knock on wood) none of the total-AI-shutdowns I've seen in stock SHIV. As far as ASuW is concerned, the AI is (so far) not exactly deadly, but I have seen them depth-charge me with fair accuracy. Could be better though, but so far it's not a serious issue for me. I wonder how the AI 'scales' with the boat/crew improvements like more silent engine etc...

The GUI:

*takes a deep breath*

I hate it.

Simple as that. Whoever devised that interface should be hang, drawn and quartered. Then forced to watch a "best of"video of 40 years of Eurovision Song Contest. Then beat with a wet towel.

No compass. In a UBoat-sim. This best describes all what's wrong with it.

And no, I don't think having the interface of my WW2-sub looking like an Iphone-app is a great idea, no matter what your market analysis says, dear UBI.

Saving grace is the manual targetting dialogue as mentioned earlier, which at least works.

The campaign:

Well, so far it's been fun. Really. I was sceptical when I heard about the new campaign system but so far I like it. A lot, actually. The "missions" provide a decent 'background' to your ship-hunting adventures and actually improve the "WW2 feel". You're still free to go roaming around but now your actions have a more defined goal.

The manual:

It's one of the worst, most useless manuals I've ever seen for a complex game in 25 years of gaming. Every word wasted on this...thing... is one too much. Shame on you, UBI!

******

Conclusion:

Terrible, eh?

Actually, not. Despite all the problems, bugs and questionable design choices I still enjoy Silent Hunter 5. Kind of. It certainly isn't the subsim turd some people are claiming it to be. It's not an arcade shooter-thingie. It's not the end of the world.

But is it a great game? No. Not in its current state. If I'd have to rate the game (V1.1) I'd give it a 7/10. Silent Hunter 5 needs some serious work by the developers. Some is simply bug-fixing (deck gun crew bug, morale loss bug, etc...), some is implementing missing basic game elements (depth under keel, compass, etc...).

And: this game needs modding. It needs it more than SH3 and SH4. Fortunately, SH5 seems very open to modding, including even scripting this time. This means that over time Sh5 might indeed become a great sim.

Cheers, and sorry for the long read...

Onkel Neal · 03-04-10, 09:54 AM

Well done, enjoyed the review.

Sonarman · 03-04-10, 09:55 AM

Me too, and it was just the right length or depth!

mookiemookie · 03-04-10, 10:01 AM

It appears that you and I are of the exact same mind on this. I agree with most every point you made - except for the stadimeter. It's necessary to be confident in the readings you get from it in order to set up a reliable torpedo attack. I had to mod the old "Watch officer estimates range" command into the game in order to get around having a wrong stadimeter.

ReFaN · 03-04-10, 10:01 AM

Agree on most points, a good review

BlackSpot · 03-04-10, 10:01 AM

Nice. Good balanced review

Immacolata · 03-04-10, 10:06 AM

I am glad this review is up. It gives me enough of an impression on how the game plays that I have decided to buy it once the next patch has hit and they fix the most game breaking problems.

SodyM · 03-04-10, 10:14 AM

Thank you for your review..I'm sure, I'll buy SH5 later

Will-Rommel · 03-04-10, 10:18 AM

This is the review i would have written myself, so good job !

wetwarev7 · 03-04-10, 10:19 AM

Thanks for the review!

Bilge_Rat · 03-04-10, 10:28 AM

very nice and balanced.

funny coincidence though that so many people who were boycotting the game have been receiving it as a gift from their wives....

Darkreaver1980 · 03-04-10, 10:37 AM

Realy nice review, readed every line of it and i agree to 100%.

SH 5 has huge potential, im so glad that i buyed it. SH will be like the best Sim ever with some mods+patches

himlaviz · 03-04-10, 10:42 AM

Good review

While I don't mind the look of the GUI it sure lacks many features, like rudder controls, compass and things like that (maybe half of it is because one is used to many of them from SH3/GWX3). UBI has some work to do here, not as much change the look but to add stuff, more WW2 era lookish UI can be modded if need be I guess.

The Manual, where to begin... I lack words, just like the manual.

I think what made older games feel realistic was the package deal with manuals that had some history, "real world tactics" and good description of the game/sim features. Thinking back at games like Red Storm Rising, Falcon 4.0, Longbow 2 and such.

The "uncanny valley" might have more impact on future gaming/simulations. Read something like if a robot is 50% human we find it charming as it try to be human and forget that its not while a robot that is 98% human we will focus on the missing 2% instead and find faults with it.

Thanks for sharing and god bless your missus who bailed you out this time...

Galanti · 03-04-10, 10:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ParaB

Simple as that. Whoever devised that interface should be hang, drawn and quartered. Then forced to watch a "best of"video of 40 years of Eurovision Song Contest. Then beat with a wet towel.

I would disagree just a little. The interface design is actually quite slick and elegant from a graphic design standpoint. The artist who designed it should be commended. It's whoever decided that it belonged in a WW2 subsim that needs to be hang, drawn and quartered. Absolutely unforgivable IMO.

Work is being done as we speak on retrofitting the HUD GUI elements in the Mods Workshop, but the whole rotten mess from main menu to ship recognition manual as got to go. Has anyone seen the radio message popup yet and compared that to SH4's?

bert8for3 · 03-04-10, 10:46 AM

Real nice summary of it

03-04-10, 09:50 AM	#1
ParaB Chief Join Date: May 2005 Location: Germany Posts: 327 Downloads: 16 Uploads: 0	Much too long review of SH5... Yep, I have it. The missus (god bless her) surprised me yesterday with a pristine copy of Silent Hunter 5. "Eh, something wrong, honey?" "No, ah...that's totally sweet, my dear. It's just that..." "Did I buy the wrong game?" "No..uh... see, there's this personal boycott thing because of that online DRM and the need to stand up against what those greedy publishers throw at us honest gamers, the future of PC gaming and PC simming and..." cue weird look from she-who-must-be-obeyed "So, you don't want it?" "Err...no! It's just that, ah... it's how those publishers treat us and it's wrong and..." "I can take it back. Just wanted to be nice. With all your U-boat books and that ugly ship (the Revell VIIc modell isn't UGLY!), that looong boring movie we watched last week and those other U-boat games (they're SIMS!) you're playing and... "No, no! It's fine, really, my dear, thank you!" cue deep sigh and yet another strange look from s.w.m.b.o. ********************* Ok. I couldn't give it back. Just couldn't. Not with that DVD smiling seductively at me... So, might as well write how I feel about Silent Hunter 5. Installation was hassle-free, as was setting up an account with UBISofts's Uplay online platform. I won't write much about UBI's DRM scheme, everything that needs to be said has already been said here. Just for the record: IMO tying an offline-game to an online account with the need to be connected to said account all the time while playing an offline! game is a slap in the face of honest consumers. Wrote an Email to UBI customer support on that issue. Won't help much, I know... 1st impressions** are actually quite favourable. Grafics are absolutely stunning and provide for some scenes that rival the beauty of naval paintings. Especially the lighting/shadows and new water/foam effects are incredibly well done. FPS on my system (Core2DuoE6750, GTX260, 2Gigs RAM, WinXP) range from low 20s in the sub to 60+ outside. Once I switched shadows to medium and set FSAA in the drivers software to 'application preference' (set to 2x) FPS improved quite a bit and 'lags' disappeard. The sub interior is beautifully rendered too, although quite some details are missing. Still, the ability to finally walk through the whole boat is something this old skipper has been dreaming of since Silent Service. The initial favourable impressions fade rather quickly though once you step deeper into the game. The crew is a mixed bag. Models and textures are OK, but animations are FAR too few and quite often when interacting with a crew member it will 'beam' to a new position, sometimes directly behind you. There's a concept called the "uncanny valley", which basically means the more "real" a model becomes the more the subtle differences to the "real world" become glaringly apparent and distracting. This is very much true for SH5. When in Aces of the Deep I ordered a crash dive, I heard the alarm bell, followed by shouting and the sound of trampling feet while staring at a 2d-screen. But in your head you saw the scene from Das Boot, so it worked. In SH5 now you have this awesome interior and a real 3d-crew, but when you order a crash dive nothing happens. Same in other situations, including being under attack oder performing repairs where the visual feedback just isn't enough to convey the atmosphere. Add to that the problem that especially the forward torpedo room feels terribly empty (in reality this was the 'home' for most crewmen), the general lack of crew moving around the boat and soon you get the feeling that while surely nice to look at there's simply quite a bit missing here. Crew interaction: Well... after 3 patrols I have to say this is a mixed bag, too. The general idea with a morale system, "upgrades" and special abilities isn't bad per se, the problem is that at the moment the whole system seems totally borked and bugged. Some things just don't work, some vital orders simply are missing and when your officers in the middle of combat reply to you with a smug "Sorry, can't do, Herr Kaleun." you want to go for your Luger right there... You can talk to your crew (at least some of them) to boost morale, which is again a nice idea, but when on the 3rd patrol you still see the same "talk options" like on the 1st, this feature quickly falls into the ever-increasing category of *things that are basically nice but don't work* in SH5. Still with me? Great. Next stop, the simulation: I play with manual targetting, and for once I have to say that getting a firing solution and sinking ships in SH5 is fun. Yep, I said it: fun. And SH5 in the same sentence. I actually prefer the manual targetting in SH5 to that in SH3. The 'targetting dialogue' works well, and most importantly, efficient. Of course, not everything's fine (who would've thought it?), since the stadimeter works kind of erratically (sometimes you have to measure up to the smokestacks, sometimes to the top of the masts to get the correct distance to a target) and the new recognition manual, while providing a nice 'filter' option really lacks in detail and, at least at 1680x1050 resolution, is too small. As nice as manual targetting works so utterly rubbish is the actual interaction with the boat. Course changes, depth changes, due to the inane GUI this all is much more a nuissance than prodecures that are easily performed. Torpedoes suffer almost no duds so far, out of 50+ fired eels I've yet to see one not work perfectly... Diving times seem FAR to quick and overall the boat seems a tad too maneuverable, same with (de-)acceleration. The world: Here Sh5 has clearly improved. Harbours and coastlines are far more detailed than before, very nice. Lots of traffic, too. Big improvement compared to, for example, stock SH3. Some things are a bit weird though, like constant air patrols by pairs of Hurricanes off the coast of England. In the middle of the night. The AI: Mixed bag, like so much in SH5. While your boat is on the surface the AI seems pretty decent, and gunfire will seriously damage your boat in short time. No deck-gunning destroyers anymore. Surface night attacks so far work rather well. I've also seen much less "confused herd of cows"-behaviour with convoys. And so far (knock on wood) none of the total-AI-shutdowns I've seen in stock SHIV. As far as ASuW is concerned, the AI is (so far) not exactly deadly, but I have seen them depth-charge me with fair accuracy. Could be better though, but so far it's not a serious issue for me. I wonder how the AI 'scales' with the boat/crew improvements like more silent engine etc... The GUI: takes a deep breath I hate it. Simple as that. Whoever devised that interface should be hang, drawn and quartered. Then forced to watch a "best of"video of 40 years of Eurovision Song Contest. Then beat with a wet towel. No compass. In a UBoat-sim. This best describes all what's wrong with it. And no, I don't think having the interface of my WW2-sub looking like an Iphone-app is a great idea, no matter what your market analysis says, dear UBI. Saving grace is the manual targetting dialogue as mentioned earlier, which at least works. The campaign: Well, so far it's been fun. Really. I was sceptical when I heard about the new campaign system but so far I like it. A lot, actually. The "missions" provide a decent 'background' to your ship-hunting adventures and actually improve the "WW2 feel". You're still free to go roaming around but now your actions have a more defined goal. The manual: It's one of the worst, most useless manuals I've ever seen for a complex game in 25 years of gaming. Every word wasted on this...thing... is one too much. Shame on you, UBI! **** Conclusion: Terrible, eh? Actually, not. Despite all the problems, bugs and questionable design choices I still enjoy Silent Hunter 5. Kind of. It certainly isn't the subsim turd some people are claiming it to be. It's not an arcade shooter-thingie. It's not the end of the world. But is it a great game? No. Not in its current state. If I'd have to rate the game (V1.1) I'd give it a 7/10. Silent Hunter 5 needs some serious work by the developers. Some is simply bug-fixing (deck gun crew bug, morale loss bug, etc...), some is implementing missing basic game elements (depth under keel, compass, etc...). And: this game needs modding**. It needs it more than SH3 and SH4. Fortunately, SH5 seems very open to modding, including even scripting this time. This means that over time Sh5 might indeed become a great sim. Cheers, and sorry for the long read...

03-04-10, 09:54 AM	#2
Onkel Neal Born to Run Silent Join Date: Jan 1997 Location: Cougar Trap, Texas Posts: 21,385 Downloads: 541 Uploads: 224	Well done, enjoyed the review. __________________ SUBSIM - 26 Years on the Web

03-04-10, 09:55 AM	#3
Sonarman The Old Man Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Ayr,Scotland,UK Posts: 1,392 Downloads: 79 Uploads: 0	Me too, and it was just the right length or depth! __________________ "The action is simulated...the excitement is real!" Microprose Simulation Software.

03-04-10, 10:01 AM	#4
mookiemookie Navy Seal Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 9,404 Downloads: 105 Uploads: 1	It appears that you and I are of the exact same mind on this. I agree with most every point you made - except for the stadimeter. It's necessary to be confident in the readings you get from it in order to set up a reliable torpedo attack. I had to mod the old "Watch officer estimates range" command into the game in order to get around having a wrong stadimeter. __________________ They don’t think it be like it is, but it do. Want more U-boat Kaleun portraits for your SH3 Commander Profiles? Download the SH3 Commander Portrait Pack here.

03-04-10, 10:01 AM	#5
ReFaN Grey Wolf Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Sweden Posts: 831 Downloads: 101 Uploads: 0	Agree on most points, a good review __________________ Liverpool is my relegion, Anfield is my church. True believers never walk alone.

03-04-10, 10:01 AM	#6
BlackSpot Lieutenant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Shropshire UK Posts: 266 Downloads: 21 Uploads: 0	Nice. Good balanced review

03-04-10, 10:06 AM	#7
Immacolata Grey Wolf Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 798 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	I am glad this review is up. It gives me enough of an impression on how the game plays that I have decided to buy it once the next patch has hit and they fix the most game breaking problems. __________________ "The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." - W. Churchill

03-04-10, 10:14 AM	#8
SodyM Watch Join Date: Jan 2002 Posts: 17 Downloads: 3 Uploads: 0	Thank you for your review..I'm sure, I'll buy SH5 later

03-04-10, 10:18 AM	#9
Will-Rommel Chief Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 320 Downloads: 81 Uploads: 0	This is the review i would have written myself, so good job ! __________________ -Fighting is a lifestyle-

03-04-10, 10:19 AM	#10
wetwarev7 Grey Wolf Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Deep Waters Posts: 871 Downloads: 31 Uploads: 0	Thanks for the review! __________________ Guess I should change my sig since SH5 has an offline mode now

03-04-10, 10:28 AM	#11
Bilge_Rat Silent Hunter Join Date: Apr 2002 Location: standing watch... Posts: 3,856 Downloads: 344 Uploads: 0	very nice and balanced. funny coincidence though that so many people who were boycotting the game have been receiving it as a gift from their wives.... __________________

03-04-10, 10:37 AM	#12
Darkreaver1980 Loader Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Germany Posts: 83 Downloads: 11 Uploads: 0	Realy nice review, readed every line of it and i agree to 100%. SH 5 has huge potential, im so glad that i buyed it. SH will be like the best Sim ever with some mods+patches __________________ SH 5 mods: Critical hits for torpedos Critical hits for deckgun

03-04-10, 10:42 AM	#13
himlaviz Mate Join Date: May 2005 Location: Sweden Posts: 55 Downloads: 28 Uploads: 0	Good review While I don't mind the look of the GUI it sure lacks many features, like rudder controls, compass and things like that (maybe half of it is because one is used to many of them from SH3/GWX3). UBI has some work to do here, not as much change the look but to add stuff, more WW2 era lookish UI can be modded if need be I guess. The Manual, where to begin... I lack words, just like the manual. I think what made older games feel realistic was the package deal with manuals that had some history, "real world tactics" and good description of the game/sim features. Thinking back at games like Red Storm Rising, Falcon 4.0, Longbow 2 and such. The "uncanny valley" might have more impact on future gaming/simulations. Read something like if a robot is 50% human we find it charming as it try to be human and forget that its not while a robot that is 98% human we will focus on the missing 2% instead and find faults with it. Thanks for sharing and god bless your missus who bailed you out this time... __________________ This is my computer. There are many like it but this one is mine. My computer is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my computer is useless. Without my computer I am useless.

03-04-10, 10:46 AM	#15
bert8for3 Ace of the Deep Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Canada Posts: 1,124 Downloads: 110 Uploads: 0	Real nice summary of it __________________