[REL] Alternate Campaign Ending Screens

[Scurvy Dog]

These posts show we are aware of what happened in the past and how relevent this issue is currently. If the game had been completely politically correct nothing of this sort of discussion would have occured so soon. Remembering the horrors of WWI and WWII is important in understanding our most recent histories that many of our parents and grandparents lived, fought and perhaps died through. Understanding these crucial times; "What happened?" in the Twentieth Century, is a major quest for me and occupies much of my free time. And there's not much left of it; I'm sixty years old for gosh sakes!
I'm one of those sub-simmers who believes the Silent Hunter series offers a lot of insight into those times. During the Pacific War my father was in the New Guinea Campaign, the Battle of Leyte and Luzon and the occupation of Japan. I always wanted to feel something of the experiences he felt while hopping from island to island like he hopped freight trains durring the Great Deppression. You can appreciate why I love Wolves of the Pacific.

The modders at these forums have been making this sim a thing of beauty! I add everything from big band jazz and patriotic girlie pinups to Bob Hope and Tokyo Rose; just adding more spice to the flavor of the expeience. We can't thank enough these guys like Sober, w_Clear, kriller2, Ducimus, TDW, fred8615 and the rest!
So that's where I'm coming from. I want "immersion"; not the religious kind, just baptism under fire; the simmulated kind. Which brings me to the argument and my two bit apology for the use of controversial content.
For players who care about these issues it is a matter of the kind and the degree of historical accuracy simmulated in the game. Some want a simmulator that recreates the machines of war (submarines) as well as the strategic and opperational structures of command during WWII. Immersion (not a bad discription for the experiance) for them depends on how well objects in the game work and how they work together to create that feeling of real input and real results. These objects include the physics of the game, sensors, controls and instuments of all varieties. It includes the boyancey of ships, waves of the ocean, winds, clouds and sunsets. It includes the precise logistic characteristics and explosive powers of various weapons of mass destruction used in wartimes. The game is mastery of the techniques to hunt, sink and survive the war.The appearance of an Imperial Japanese flag over the horizon; the Rising Sun, brings their senses to alert and calls them to take appropriate battle action stations, etc.
For another group of sub-simmers the technical/physical aspects of the game are important but for a slightly differant kind and degree of "immersion". These players want to recreate an experiance of "the times", to feel like the real "actors" on the stage of history's great struggles. Any object or thing to broaden the historical context and make one comprehend the particular "Zeitgeist" (Time/Thought) of that era would seem fair to reproduce. These would include audio and visual referances to the time and place such as recordings of radio entertainment and news broadcasts, political speeches, and the popular music of the times. It would also include realistic representations of clothing, uniforms, badges, medals, letters, messages,newspapers, identification logos of businesses, tattoos, photographs, motion picture films, posters, pennants and flags. And unfortunately or not; the symbols of the regime.
Playing Silent Hunter 4 and Silent Hunter 5 is a novel experiance. It gives you leave to pretend to be a captain of a submarine during wartime. Controversial imagery and sound make their appearances less in SH4 because players don't want to be reminded of "yellow peril" racist propoganda on the part of the allies before and after the Japanese attacks on mainland China (ex.Nanking) and Pearl Harbor. I personally would like to see some anti-Japonese posters hanging in the U.S. subs simply because these were the things being propogated at this time. I would pretend to ask myself the question; "Are (Were) these people really like this?" And then; "Do (Did) we really think about people in this way?" Would I torpedo that next Japanese Passenger Liner in good conscience? Either way you sink the ships.
In a slightly different approach SH5 can bring the same spicey meal to our galley of hungry German sailors. Which kind of captain would you choose to play; a patriotic defender of the beloved fatherland, respected by crew whether they're Nazis or not and constantly reminded by posters on the wall and harraunging of Hitler on the radio that you're doing the bidding of Fascist pigs who control the destiny of your country? Or you are pretending to be the perfect instrument of the Third Reich in it's quest for world hegemony and to hell with those rumours about the death camps; it's not my department.
Either way you sink ships.
I would prefer to play with the added moral tensions and ambiguities these thought experiments afford the player. It feels more real to me and "immersive". And I want more of it.
To finish an already too long post; I hope everyone enjoys whatever he or she gets by playing these wonderful sub sims. I see nothing but fair skies ahead!