PC Gamerzone SH5 review

[Onkel Neal]

http://pc.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r39018.htm

I like:

Silent Hunter V: Battle of the Atlantic is a deep and complex simulation, giving you near complete control of a submarine and its assets. You’ll play through a variety of missions that will have you performing a variety of tasks as a German U-Boat captain, doling out orders to your crew and defeating enemy ships. At best, the game is a suspenseful and compelling experience for hardcore sim fans. Unfortunately, the game misses the mark more than often, has a ton of bugs and performance issues bog this one down a lot, not to mention an extremely steep learning curve that all but guarantees that newcomers will be left in the cold.

I don't like:

Silent Hunter V is a different breed of sub-sim, putting you directly into the shoes of your U-Boat captain. The game unfolds through a first person perspective, requiring you to walk around the sub and talk to your crew in order to give them orders. This is an interesting gimmick, but one that wears thin before too long, and making it take a bit too long to perform actions. Walking around your U-Boat is not very fun, and grows very tedious.

For god's sake, since when is actually being able to move about in a virtual U-boat "tedious"? I wish they would stop saying that. Sure, being forced to dash down to the engine room to order "overcharge" the diesels is unnecessary, but the complaint would be better characterized as the game does not allow the captain to give orders by "shouting them out", only by going directly to the officer in charge. The game should include alternatives to actual face-to-face interaction like there was in real life.

Anyway, a fairly good, although very short, review.

[Commie]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

I don't like:


For god's sake, since when is actually being able to move about in a virtual U-boat "tedious"? I wish they would stop saying that. Sure, being forced to dash down to the engine room to order "overcharge" the diesels is unnecessary, but the complaint would be better characterized as the game does not allow the captain to give orders by "shouting them out", only by going directly to the officer in charge. The game should include alternatives to actual face-to-face interaction like there was in real life.

Anyway, a fairly good, although very short, review.

Don't be naive Neal, it DOES get tedious as there are no demons that leap out at you from the shadows requiring you to blast them with your shotgun.

[mcarlsonus]

WELL...it ain't the WORST review for SH5 I've seen! I'll give it that!

[Sonarman]

Had the devs been allowed the time to do their job properly I'm sure it would not have been as "tedious". Looking at the code discovered by the modders along with the voicepipe animation stills, heading tape graphic. It is clear that the devs intended there to be both a bridge to crew comms system in place and also sufficient controls in place to do the job.

I do however think that taking the shortcut station keys out was an unneccesary step. They could have left that there for the people who preffered it and those who wanted to walk could just of ignored the keys.

At the end of the day, ironically Ubisoft in its primary business mission of making the game more approachable have actually made the game much more unfathomable for newbies than either SH3 or 4, even veteran SH players were left head scratching at the "line up the dots" system initially. It was a huge mistake to make the tutorial part of the campign as nebws now have nowhere to practice their skills. Whilst the tiny manual does nothing to explain the intracies of the game.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

For god's sake, since when is actually being able to move about in a virtual U-boat "tedious"? I wish they would stop saying that. Sure, being forced to dash down to the engine room to order "overcharge" the diesels is unnecessary, but the complaint would be better characterized as the game does not allow the captain to give orders by "shouting them out", only by going directly to the officer in charge. The game should include alternatives to actual face-to-face interaction like there was in real life.

Anyway, a fairly good, although very short, review.

The term "tedious" as in tiresome, boring perfectly describes the situation.
Its it boring to go up and down the uboat to give orders. 1 or 2 times its ok because its a novelty, but after you do it tens of times you sure wish there were "hot keys" to give the commands.

[janh]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

For god's sake, since when is actually being able to move about in a virtual U-boat "tedious"? I wish they would stop saying that. Sure, being forced to dash down to the engine room to order "overcharge" the diesels is unnecessary, but the complaint would be better characterized as the game does not allow the captain to give orders by "shouting them out", only by going directly to the officer in charge. The game should include alternatives to actual face-to-face interaction like there was in real life.

Anyway, a fairly good, although very short, review.

Depends on what your "gaming" goals are: If you want to perform submarine warfare a la AOTD or SHIII, everything going on inside the submarine becomes "micromanaging" and distracts from the simulation part. It should take care of itself, or maybe be managed by the good old "torpedo load, damage control and crew management" interfaces we knew before.

If you want to stay in the smaller frame and play a single, indiviual submarine exprience with that kind of immersion, then the new RPG elements are a good addition. But I like your suggestion that would essentially combine both the big and the small frame.

[Dutch]

I would imagine that "walking" around your sub get just as tedious and annoying as having to tell your crew to go to sleep in SH3. But I'm sure Neal loved that part of SH3.

Everything I've heard about the Campaign has pretty much told me that I'm not buying SHV.

[Bilge_Rat]

Hey Neal, got to agree with you. The full 3d walkable interior is the most significant improvement in subsim realism since the partial 3d interior was brought in in sh3. It cranks up the immersiveness by a significant degree.

"Tedious" is a strange adjective to use in the context of a subsim where the whole object of the game is to search the oceans for weeks to get a shot at sinking something, only to start over and over again.

I suppose it could get tedious to have to "walk" all over the sub, like a real captain instead of being able to teleport from station to station, like in Star Trek.

I also find it tedious to have to commute to work everyday. It would be nice to be able to teleport to the office and back like they do in "real" subsims.

[horsa]

It was always going to be a feature loved by some but hated by others. As a generalisation, simmers would love it and gamers would find it tedious.

It's just screaming for a "realism select" button to toggle between FP and teleport.

[Yak]

The problem seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of chain of command and how a boat or ship actually runs in the Real World.

I think if they sat down with some real officers and NCO's, sailors and submariners, to nut out how command is articulated and co-ordinated across the a boat/ship, it would've made the process much smoother.

My biggest complaint with subsims (modern day ones especially) has always been I feel like i'm in a two man mini-sub, and the other bloke is the work-experience kid who doesn't know what he's doing.

It is great to see them trying to actually make is a Submarine Captain simulator, but I think it is pretty clear they did not achieve that.

[goldorak]

Originally Posted by horsa

It was always going to be a feature loved by some but hated by others. As a generalisation, simmers would love it and gamers would find it tedious.

It's just screaming for a "realism select" button to toggle between FP and teleport.

How do you reconcile this with all the whinning in the SH 5 forums about the lack of "hot keys" and quick access to stations (periscope, etc...) ?
These are simmers whinning not console gamers.

[janh]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

...
"Tedious" is a strange adjective to use in the context of a subsim where the whole object of the game is to search the oceans for weeks to get a shot at sinking something, only to start over and over again.

Hmmh, look at it from a different perspective then:
You get home in the evening and have an hour to play, or maybe find an hour or two on the weekends. You are a hardcore subsimmer, hate making compromises on anything easily.
But with little time to play, what are you going to focus on, which aspect will you want to maximize, while reducing the rest to a nonetheless realistic "automated" treatment that you don't have to worry about?

I clearly would focus on the submarine warfare part, and would happily let the program schedule the watches, treat the delay between being on the bridge, and reaching the command room, or the delay in getting my orders to someone outside the latter. As you said, skimming the oceans takes long enough, and it is not that a "career" in SH games is too short in game time and needs to be stretched...

Don't get me wrong, if find the idea of RPG elements nice, but I would appreciate it more if they also can be bypassed as in previous games of the franchise. Maybe the RPG element could even be extended by asking "skippers" to type up "log books" and "reports" ingame -- maybe that would even further the realims and immersion for some players?

[skwasjer]

Originally Posted by goldorak

How do you reconcile this with all the whinning in the SH 5 forums about the lack of "hot keys" and quick access to stations (periscope, etc...) ?
These are simmers whinning not console gamers.

The problem is people do not want to let go...

sssssh... (of SH3)

I personally don't miss any of the shortcut keys, especially with voice control...

[Bilge_Rat]

Janh, I have trouble understanding your point. The so called "RPG" elements you decry take less time to manage than crew management in SH3.


Why don't you buy the game and make up your own mind instead of posting these inaccurate guesses. I am sure you can afford it.

[Seeadler]

Originally Posted by Yak

It is great to see them trying to actually make is a Submarine Captain simulator, but I think it is pretty clear they did not achieve that.

Right, it is an attempt to a sub commanders simulation with social elements, but it is half finished implemented in its present form and therefore not really work as designed.