SH5 player review thread - post your opinions about the game here

[TwistedFemur]

In my opinion its a steaming pile of horse hockey

seriously...health bars?

SH for IPhone could X-box and PS3 be far behind?

[Safe-Keeper]

Hav'nt purchased sh5 yet? Well don't!! I've read review after review at places like amazom and its pretty much the same... unfinished..DRM...Bugs
weather modders or ubi decide to fix and/or finish sh5 it is not worth..
47$ .. Maybe to some 50$ isn't a lot of cash.. To me I'ts not about how much it's about treating people FAIRLY instead of being GREEDY!!
This sim should not be purchased because of fairness and greed...We all know we would play 3 times as much for a GOOD subsim This is just a greedy play and should be avoided at all cost..Lining the pokets of these people just creates more unfinished products...I feel sorry for people who payed these people for this unfinished sim and now have to depend on others to fix it..........................sad just that ....sad

Originally Posted by TwistedFemur

In my opinion its a steaming pile of horse hockey

seriously...health bars?

SH for IPhone could X-box and PS3 be far behind?

Thank you for your feedback. We will now hear from someone who has actually played the game.

[codmander]

Conspiracy theory for you all: developers are moving to consoles because of piracy, right? Well, their big plot is to use these DRM schemes to make it so terrible for PC gamers that we move to consoles as well. Mua ha ha ha! :P........yawn yea not for 50-40-30-20-10 9$ umm ok

[tsotha]

I thought the DRM would annoy me, but it's really not *that* bad. You can turn off the autosaves if you want.

I was getting a little discouraged with the game out of the box (or, out of Steam, in my case). I found the tutorial kind of irritating and confusing - don't tell me to go off and sink ships without putting the entire interface there. You can go through everything an instrument at a time, but between the things that aren't there anymore and the things they hadn't enabled yet it was pretty frustrating.

Never played SH!V, but coming from a pretty up-to-date mod version of SHIII, these are my impressions:

The Good:

• The graphics, as everyone else notes, especially outside the sub. Water, snow, the lights at port... it all looks gorgeous.
• I like the campaign. While I think SHII is great as a sim, it suffers a bit as a game because every mission is "go to this grid, hang out for 24 hours, then wander around trying to sink whatever you find". The ports were done poorly, even after modding, so there really wasn't much to do outside aimlessly wandering around trying to find ships to attack. I like the idea of having my actions influence the campaign. Success opens up new possibilities, named ships stay sunk. Kudos. This is the feature that will make the game worth modding. Otherwise SHIII is just a better game, IMO.

The Bad:

• As everyone else noted, it's not finished. I completed my first mission and wasn't allowed to dock, no matter what I did. Reloaded, still no dice. Reloaded again. This time it takes me to the sub pen.. Huh? Exit your game and everyone's morale gets set to zero and they stop following orders. Dive and your deck crew will sometimes stay on deck - you can look out the periscope and see them scanning the ocean depths with their binoculars. That last one is kind of Twilight Zone-y.
• British aircraft are flown by tourists. I was all set to try out the flak gun, but pretty much no matter what happens the planes ignore me. I've gotten in the habit of tapping the time compression back up when aircraft are sighted. What would be the point of diving?
• Enemy destroyer captains give up easily. Even if you don't change your heading at all after a few minutes they'll go away. Get caught by a destroyer in shallow water in SHIII and you're in a lot of trouble. You can pretty much dive to periscope depth and ignore them in SHV.
• The first person thing was great for about ten minutes. After a few hours play it's just annoying. Why didn't they equip my boat with speaking tubes? I can tell I'm going to really, really hate going up and down those damn ladders if I play for any length of time. This really needs hotkeys. Really, really.
• Realism. I really got a thrill plotting my own solutions and using the TDC, with all its period knobs and dials and buttons. The new system pulls me back to the present every time I look at it. And there are other things like loading external reserves without surfacing. The bow doesn't go down when you dive or up when you surface.
• Bad UI design. It's annoying to use the mouse all the time to move the periscope - my arm is getting tired. No compass. The tactical map seems to come and go at it's own whim. Same with the clock, which should have been 24 hour (It's five o'clock and light out. Is the sun rising or setting?). Some controls, like the deck-gun sights, are non-intuitive and not explained anywhere. The periscopes always go up when you man them, so you have to be quick if you don't want your scope too high above the water line. Not sure if it matters. It should.
• The indicators in SHIII were distinctive - well rendered needle gauges and bubble gauges and dials for things like CO2 and fuel level. Here we have straight percentages, so it's like playing a spreadsheet. Doesn't really hurt playability, but the immersion suffers.
• The merchant ships are made out of adamantium. I mean, seriously, it takes three or four torpedoes to sink a freighter, no matter where you hit it or what pistol you use. A clean shot a meter under mid keel should break that sucker in half. As is, If you want to sink two ships you're going to be waiting around while the tubes are reloaded, and you'll do a lot of refitting. If you don't get quite enough damage for a sinking sometimes they're aflame from bow to stern but they don't slow down unless they actually sink.

Questionable:

1. The game only goes to 1943 and only sub you can play is the type VII. I'm actually okay with the time frame. By 1944 any realistic simulation just isn't that much fun - anything worth shooting is in a convoy, and attacking convoys solo has by then become suicidal. Have to admit I miss the type II a bit, but really only because I miss the ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh when I get into the type VII.

[Safe-Keeper]

Thank you very much for your review, keep 'em coming!

[TwistedFemur]

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

Thank you for your feedback. We will now hear from someone who has actually played the game.

I have played the "GAME" and it's been un-installed and am now using the disc to clean out my cat's litterbox

Or is this a fan-boi thread?

[Bubblehead1980]

so health bars can not be disabled? wtf were they thinking?

[Parkera]

What makes you think this?????? They can be disabled in the options menu!

[edjcox]

No I don't own it yet ....

Noticed with dismay that all but a few of the old timers are not here reviewing SH5.

That speaks volumes to me. Been playing the SH series from the start but this version had me put the brakes on...

Guess I'll wait a bit...

Thanks to those of you who are opinining on the game and I am reading what's being said.

So far its for the most part...

[Maltro]

SH4 was, until yesterday, my favorite game. But it takes time to be playable cause there were lots of bugs at start.

SH5 seems to be less buggy and Ubisoft seems to be unappy... So they decided to make a super-DRM-protection to make the game unplayable.
But we have already speak about this dark part of the game so here is my opinion about Dev's job.

SH5 is the most immersive, beautiful and fun game I have ever play before. I buy 2 games by month in average since 14 years on multi supports in my quest of the perfect game and this time, I am really near of what I was looking for.

+ dynamic campaign give me an aim to play more than I have not in SH4.
+ graphic unbelievable (see my screen down)
+ first person is a real good idea to increase realism and immersion

- DRM kill the game

bye!

[marcel1980]

My first impression was very very mixed -its like your mother-in-law crashed in your new car- . Ok the visuals are great, big thanks to the devs but the game itself is totaly dumbed down . I dont want to see any health bars nor seeing a fireworks explosions (by the way where's the water splash from torpedoes??} The whole game has gone a big step for the casual player which is sad. I couldnt believe my eyes seeing all the info near my scope which - my sub sensors, enemy sensors etc. i guess german kaleuns would have won the war having these? .

However after finished the crappy first mission which showed all the arcadish elements, it got a bit better. My second impressions were actualy good and i enjoyed the game but then again discovered so many errors like my hydrophone guy picking sounds {surfaced boot} on 20 km distanced etc. Im looking forward for some patches and mainly mods!

[Safe-Keeper]

I bought the game today and have a feeling it will feel like Mirror's Edge to me - a mixed bag that I'll do my utmost to like, despite being disappointed by some facets.

Will try to post screenshots of Norwegian ports and fjords soon-ish!