SUBSIM: Silent Hunter 5 review (17/03/10)

[CybrSlydr]

That was a great review, Neal.

I kept waiting for Subsim to do the review because I knew it would more reflect the things I want to know than the typical sites like IGN or Gamespot - or even the aggregate Metacritic.

However...

I don't know if it was a case of "not biting the hand that feeds you" or something... But I was surprised and a little disappointed you didn't come off more strongly against their absurd DRM.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Again, great review - thanks for the read.

[Onkel Neal]

Thanks all for reading and commenting.

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

The review states several times that the game doesn't come with a printed manual. Now, I don't know anything about the US version, but the copy I bought from a Norwegian store features both the manual and a four-page Quick Start (you know, "put DVD in drive and do this and that if autorun is off", etc.) leaflet in Scandinavian and Finnish.

My US version did not have a printed manual, only a slip of paper with the product code and a note saying the manual was on the disk. BTW, I removed one of your images, it shows your product code, which you probably do not want the world to see.

Originally Posted by ReFaN

exelent review, liked the picture with the different campaigns the most, ahem.

Thanks for the campaign image, I did post your credit at the end of the review.

Originally Posted by Faamecanic

Good review Neil.... but you left a few things out (that Im sure others have already pointed out)

1. Morale system is broke. My crew's morale was at 1 dot the minute I left Keil Harbor on my first patrol.
2. TDC is broke. If you use any ability that increases your torp speed or warhead effectivness, the TDC does not take this into account and your torps MISS their targets.
3. Rudder control is 1 deg at a time or 35 deg with automtic Amazing/ludicrous/Insane/Holy S*&t speed (what ever ubi named it) ahead.
4. Rediculous mission requirements (sink 150,000 tons by June 1940...really? in 8 months?)
5. Germany had Sonar in 1939?
6. Germnay had Radar in 1939?
7. American Liberty Cargo ships in 1939?
8. Only half the war is available to play.

Dont get me wrong... I think the review is spot on. There is so much promise with this SH release. But at the same time this is the most incomplete release to date. As if Ubi fully expects modders to finish the sim for them. to Ubi and to the review.

Yes, I left out a lot of things. My first draft was almost twice as long, but like I said, it's a review, not a buglist But I did mention #1, 3, 4, and 8 in my review, check again.

Originally Posted by Letum

A well written review.
Generous, perhaps, but that is to be expected and it wasn't unfair.

Than manual was news to me.

ed: I am very surprised it got a better rating than AOTD!

Eh? Aces received a 90 from me on the original review. Check the curve, it takes 7 points away for age. I probably should restate that, I no longer think it's practical to curve old scores.

Originally Posted by CybrSlydr

That was a great review, Neal.

I kept waiting for Subsim to do the review because I knew it would more reflect the things I want to know than the typical sites like IGN or Gamespot - or even the aggregate Metacritic.

However...

I don't know if it was a case of "not biting the hand that feeds you" or something... But I was surprised and a little disappointed you didn't come off more strongly against their absurd DRM.

And that's all I'll say about that.

Again, great review - thanks for the read.

Thanks, appreciate your thoughts. I had more material about the DRM in my notes, but I decided that it did not add anything to the review of the game. And that's what this is, a review of the game. In my playing experience with SH5, there was only one instance where the Ubi servers were not responding. Other than that, the DRM did not make the sub dive deeper, make the crew smarter, did not affect the AI, etc. If you think I should write an editorial about the DRM, that's another thing. Thanks

PS: thanks for spotting that typo, flakmonkey

[slikster]

About popping out of time compression to instant death, you can fix that by editing a file in your documents folder, SH5/data/cfg/main.cfg

[TIME COMPRESSION]
; The first value is the default one, the second value is used when 'travel mode' is activated.
; The two values should be separated by a comma.
; If only one value is specified, that value is used for both default and travel mode.
LandProximity=1,8192
CriticalDamage=1,1024
AirEnemyDetected=1,8

I think that's what I changed. When in high time compression, it will drop me to 1x and I have enough time to do something before catastrophe strikes.

[CaptainNemo12]

SH5 has broken new ground with the full boat access and amazing graphics, but it's not the best U-boat sim ever made. That title still belongs to Silent Hunter III.

[Safe-Keeper]

The time compression insta-death is pretty much my biggest gripe with the game at the moment. I like to plot a course, yank TC up to 1024, and then Alt+Tab to Firefox (I play in windowed mode) to post on forums, watch films, check on my Facebook profile, study or whatever.

I'd very much like it if the crew got better at calling out contacts, and the sound of SH5 was still audible even after you'd Alt-Tab'd out, so that I could get back in and take command.

As it is, I guess I can always tweak the game so that it pauses when an enemy contact is sighted.

[jdkbph]

Good review, but I really think we should dispense with the number rating system. I know what you're trying to show there, but I think the review itself, broken down along the same lines as the numbers categories and weighted by the print given to that game aspect, speaks for itself.

For instance, as I was reading the body of the review I was totally with you every step of the way. But then at the end I was left wondering how it managed anywhere near a 77/100 score. I interpret that as a rating of nearly 80% to the good on overall game play experience. However, keeping in mind that I agree with just about everything you wrote, I would rate the game play experience - out of the box, no mods - at somewhat less than 50% to the good.

Just goes to show how subjective, and potentially misleading, the interpretation of number scores can be.

JD

[Letum]

Ahh, thanks for clearing that up Neal.

Originally Posted by jdkbph

For instance, as I was reading the body of the review I was totally with you every step of the way. But then at the end I was left wondering how it managed anywhere near a 77/100 score. I interpret that as a rating of nearly 80% to the good on overall game play experience. However, keeping in mind that I agree with just about everything you wrote, I would rate the game play experience - out of the box, no mods - at somewhat less than 50% to the good.

Yes, I agree.
I'm not sure how you can not recommend purchase of the game until it is fixed, but still give it a score higher than a game you do recommend purchasing.

[The Enigma]

Thanx for the review Neal.

After reading it, I'm not sure if SH5 (besides the DRM) is my kinda game.
I'm not into chatting with the crew, before they will obey orders.
Also, the price is way to high for what you get (I don't wonna buy it only for the looks).

For the moment, I ill stick to SH3/Sh4 and see what the future will bring.

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Thanks all for reading and commenting.



My US version did not have a printed manual, only a slip of paper with the product code and a note saying the manual was on the disk. BTW, I removed one of your images, it shows your product code, which you probably do not want the world to see.




Thanks for the campaign image, I did post your credit at the end of the review.



Yes, I left out a lot of things. My first draft was almost twice as long, but like I said, it's a review, not a buglist But I did mention #1, 3, 4, and 8 in my review, check again.




Eh? Aces received a 90 from me on the original review. Check the curve, it takes 7 points away for age. I probably should restate that, I no longer think it's practical to curve old scores.



Thanks, appreciate your thoughts. I had more material about the DRM in my notes, but I decided that it did not add anything to the review of the game. And that's what this is, a review of the game. In my playing experience with SH5, there was only one instance where the Ubi servers were not responding. Other than that, the DRM did not make the sub dive deeper, make the crew smarter, did not affect the AI, etc. If you think I should write an editorial about the DRM, that's another thing. Thanks

PS: thanks for spotting that typo, flakmonkey

Neal.... I did see you mentioned these but felt it was only in passing. I do agree that is you would have listed all the MAJOR faults with the sim your review would have been 20 pages long...lol. This is actually a sad state of the game if this is the fact (and it is).

I also meant to say with those items PLUS yours ....I disagree with your 7/10 rating. IF UBI fixes these issues I would give SH5 a 8/10... but as the game stands now (espeically with 2 weekends that I couldnt play the game due to DRM) I give it a 3/10.

I do like your editorial Idea about the DRM....

[ichso]

Very good review, Neal. This is why I read subsim instead of Gamespot (or many others) when it comes to naval games

One could make a list of items that could be expected in a game with Silent Hunter in the title, and adding a few desired aspects myself it would turn out like this:

1. full boat access
2. RPG elements
3. dynamic campaign
4. remaining time periods of the era
5. remaining sub types
6. wolfpacks
7. believable boat handling
8. more complex/believable navigation

O.k., so far they focused on adding points 1-3. As you reviewed it, they don't seem to be finished at all. At least points 1 and 2 don't. The crew just standing around should be upgraded with the necessary animations and scripts to control those animations.
RPG elements need to be layed out in a satisfying way, I think it is very easy to just throw in some cheesy cliches - just as they did for now. But that is certainly not the end of the RPG-element, it's rather the beginning.

Points 4,5 I somewhat assume to be worked on in form of an addon. As the dynamic campaign seems to appear all nice any well designed (if I didn't miss anything here) it takes quite a lot of effort to not only introduce the '44-'45 era and more U-boat types, but to also bring it to the same level.

That is what I fear. The game seems to be very unfinished in many aspects. I don't believe we will see any of the last three points on the list any time soon because it takes so much effort to work on the aspects in 1-5.
Especially, now that they _introduced_ points 1 and 2, they now need to _make something out of it_. From all the descriptions it seems that those two aspects are mere stublets for new features and not really fully flegded features themselves.

Points 7 and 8 I added on my behalf. When I play a submarine simulation, I don't go that much for a 'Das Boot'-experience (which is nice), but I would more like to see the actual mechanics of a submarine in full effect, and that includes a more sophisticated approach to navigation - including a non-flat map, needed tools, scripts so that the navigator can deal with this partly. Everything would be better then just zipping around by waypoints with an realtime-100%-true position marker of your sub on the map (well, teleporting wouldn't, but still).

If UBI is really going for 1. an addon and 2. for a game called
'Silent Hunter VI'
then I even more effort would go into updated graphics and such.
So, maybe no wolfpacks again, just the highly needed improvements on the newest features to the series. Or _if_ they would go for wolfpacks, then maybe we would see even more halfbaked features in future versions of the game.

So far, thanks for the insights into the game @all.

Regards, i.

EDIT: One thing I might add is this: the drops-on-the-screen effect looks very nice, but seems often to be very misplaced. I mean if the captain is standing on the brigde (not wearing glasses) where are these drops supposed to be dropping onto ? This effect should really be limited to Binocular- UZO- and Peri-views.
Even inside the boat this effect takes place

[R1fl3M4n]

SH5 is a very nice game ! i enjoy every minute of it

i don`t think that UBISOFT deserves ` all the crap from kids that like to whine about the game....

[The Enigma]

Originally Posted by R1fl3M4n

i don`t think that UBISOFT deserves ` all the crap from kids that like to whine about the game....

Thank you for the name calling

[ichso]

Originally Posted by R1fl3M4n

i don`t think that UBISOFT deserves ` all the crap from kids that like to whine about the game....

It's not that big a deal.
Worse than the little kids whining about the game are the little kids whining about the little kids whining about the game, anyway

[Faamecanic]

Originally Posted by R1fl3M4n

SH5 is a very nice game ! i enjoy every minute of it

i don`t think that UBISOFT deserves ` all the crap from kids that like to whine about the game....

Considering Im turning 40 next month, and havent been able to play SH5 either weekend I have been off.... I consider you name calling to be childish

Also add the fact that the review was fairly negative and that even Neil suggested NOT BUYING until patched, and that A LOT of veteran subsim members (myself included I think) who have supported the devs from SH3 to present are voicing great disatisfaction this time around.

[Onkel Neal]

Where are you located? I'm in Houston, I have been playing SH5 3~6 hours a day for three weeks, with only one period of about 4 hours where the game could not connect. Maybe this is a localized problem?