Silent Service vs Silent Hunter

[Ducimus]

Looking at screenshots from a review on SH1 here on subsim, i find myself feeling nostalgic:

[ChristopherT]

The last versions of SS I ran were SS1 for the Commodore 64 and SS2 for the IBM PC (CGA graphics, later SVGA.) I think you'd like Silent Hunter for the atmosphere, I think it's a excellent simulation, better than it's younger brothers.

Christopher

[snwcrsh]

I'd like to play Silent Hunter again, unfortunately it crashes at random times in my dosbox (DOS4GW Protection Fault)

As for Silent Service, I originally played it on the c64 but I really enjoyed the Amiga version later. Both are freely available and run perfectly in CCS and WinUAE.

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by snwcrsh

I'd like to play Silent Hunter again, unfortunately it crashes at random times in my dosbox (DOS4GW Protection Fault)

As for Silent Service, I originally played it on the c64 but I really enjoyed the Amiga version later. Both are freely available and run perfectly in CCS and WinUAE.

I too played Silent Service on the C64 and Silent Service II on the Amiga. I enjoyed both very much. Never got the opportunity to play Silent Hunter much as I was an ardent Amiga fan at the time so I have voted for Silent Service.

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Silent Hunter is far better. In Silent Service you command only a Gato, and you drag it all around the Pacific from your base at Pearl Harbor. In Silent Hunter you can start at any historical base at any time during the war, and command any historical submarine, including S-boats and the big V-boats. Also, Silent Hunter included task forces with battleships (SS had no big ships, and SSII only added aircraft carriers).

SS was great when it was all there was, but SH wins by a mile.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Silent Hunter is far better. In Silent Service you command only a Gato, and you drag it all around the Pacific from your base at Pearl Harbor. In Silent Hunter you can start at any historical base at any time during the war, and command any historical submarine, including S-boats and the big V-boats. Also, Silent Hunter included task forces with battleships (SS had no big ships, and SSII only added aircraft carriers).

SS was great when it was all there was, but SH wins by a mile.

Direct hit!

[snwcrsh]

True in all respects. However, Silent Service was released 11 years earlier. That's an eternity for computer games at that time. (I might as well argue that SH3 is better than SH1!). Silent Service was extremely original at that time and the first submarine simulation in this kind that I know of. Actually Silent Hunter very much copies the Interface (Different stations on function keys).


I may be biased, but thus my vote goes to Silent Service, too

[Captain Nemo]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Silent Hunter is far better. In Silent Service you command only a Gato, and you drag it all around the Pacific from your base at Pearl Harbor. In Silent Hunter you can start at any historical base at any time during the war, and command any historical submarine, including S-boats and the big V-boats. Also, Silent Hunter included task forces with battleships (SS had no big ships, and SSII only added aircraft carriers).

SS was great when it was all there was, but SH wins by a mile.

Although I don't disagree with your final analysis (even though I was a Silent Service fan), in Silent Service II I think you will find you did have the option of different subs and bases to start from. SSII also added battleships as well as carriers to the mix. In fact I think there was a single mission called "Sink the Yamato".

Nemo

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Captain Nemo

Although I don't disagree with your final analysis (even though I was a Silent Service fan), in Silent Service II I think you will find you did have the option of different subs and bases to start from. SSII also added battleships as well as carriers to the mix. In fact I think there was a single mission called "Sink the Yamato".

Nemo

Really? I don't remember that at all. Someday I'll have to dig out my old Atari and see if my memory's really that far gone. What I do seem to remember is the absence of shoaling: In SS if it dropped you into a shallow area you could run for deeper waters, but in SS2 it stayed the same depth until the action was over. If the water was shallow you could be in big trouble. At least in my memory.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Looking at screenshots from a review on SH1 here on subsim, i find myself feeling nostalgic:

oh, how I miss it. My friend had SS on the commodore 64, which had way better sound than the PC version. We used to play it all night.

Those were the days.

[M. Sarsfield]

I played all of the above and I still like SH1/CE the best. I still miss the SD A-Scope in SH4. I'm hoping that someone figures out how to mod one into the con.

[Col7777]

I think they were all good, some things in SH1 like raiding harbours and recon missions were good, in SH2 if there were ships in a harbour they had to be scripted there by the mission author.
For its time SS and SH1 were very good, as mentioned above there weren't many subsims if any then, when I got SH2 I thought, "Wow this is mega," then SH3 was released with even better graphics, but I wish there were some things from SH2 in it.
I stopped playing SH3 as I changed my PC for a notebook and it didn't run too good.
I have SH4 but I'm hoping to get a decent desktop PC again soon, I recently installed SH2 and DC again on my notebook and I'm enjoying them again, but after the long break from them I'm very rusty.

Col.

[nikimcbee]

I loved coming across the Japanese subs. They were sure hard to hit though.

[Col7777]

Hi Niki,

Yeh those Jap subs in SH1 were hard to hit but they never seemed to be aggressive, they just dived if you didn't manage to hit them in time if I remember right.

Col

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Col7777

Hi Niki,

Yeh those Jap subs in SH1 were hard to hit but they never seemed to be aggressive, they just dived if you didn't manage to hit them in time if I remember right.

Col

I think I hit one submerged once?:hmm: I set the torpedo to run at periscope depth, fired... and wham! but that was along time ago.