IGN's Silent Hunter 5 Review

scrapser · 03-30-10, 12:59 PM

Silent Hunter is a submarine simulation (or was). Up until SH5 this meant simulating a WW2 era submarine in either the Atlantic or Pacific. To create immersion...graphics, audio, random weather (environment), physics, and enemy AI were employed. It's important to realize that the AI for enemy craft (air and sea) can be summarized as a way to make each unit behave to a singular purpose...attack your submarine...almost as if each ship or airplane was a person just as "you" are your "submarine" despite the fact that you have a crew. This is not much different from how FPS games work.

In a FPS game you shoot the enemy and the enemy shoots you until one of you dies or is seriously wounded. It's that simple. The AI is getting better so the enemy can both prosecute you and retreat to survive in increasingly sophisticated ways. But it is still pretty simple in terms of the overall behavior.

With SH5, crew interaction has been introduced and tied to the overall performance of the submarine. In other words, the submarine's ability to do what it needs to do is tied to the crew moral and skill matrix which in turn is affected by how you interact with the crew. This is a big can of worms and nothing like the AI you see with the enemy ships and aircraft or even the AI of the enemy in a FPS game.

I sincerely believe crew interaction is a good idea but I think implementing it in the only submarine simulation on the market demands out of necessity that it be thought through and introduced in increments so it does not cripple the player's ability to enjoy the sim experience. Right now crew interaction is violating one of the principle rules of entertainment..."suspension of disbelief." It's no different than being fully immersed in watching a movie and unexpectedly seeing the microphone hanging over an actor's head or maybe seeing the camera crew and director in the reflection of a window on the set.

So in short, as it stands crew interaction is almost a good idea. It's essentially a work in progress. As far as SH5 is concerned, it is now a submarine captain simulation and the submarine is now part of the background environment...i.e., part of the captain's "world."

Rip · 03-30-10, 01:28 PM

Strange I don't have any eels in the torpedo room after I shoot them. Did he have unlimited ammo on maybe?

JU_88 · 03-30-10, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrapser

Silent Hunter is a submarine simulation (or was). Up until SH5 this meant simulating a WW2 era submarine in either the Atlantic or Pacific. To create immersion...graphics, audio, random weather (environment), physics, and enemy AI were employed. It's important to realize that the AI for enemy craft (air and sea) can be summarized as a way to make each unit behave to a singular purpose...attack your submarine...almost as if each ship or airplane was a person just as "you" are your "submarine" despite the fact that you have a crew. This is not much different from how FPS games work.

In a FPS game you shoot the enemy and the enemy shoots you until one of you dies or is seriously wounded. It's that simple. The AI is getting better so the enemy can both prosecute you and retreat to survive in increasingly sophisticated ways. But it is still pretty simple in terms of the overall behavior.

With SH5, crew interaction has been introduced and tied to the overall performance of the submarine. In other words, the submarine's ability to do what it needs to do is tied to the crew moral and skill matrix which in turn is affected by how you interact with the crew. This is a big can of worms and nothing like the AI you see with the enemy ships and aircraft or even the AI of the enemy in a FPS game.

I sincerely believe crew interaction is a good idea but I think implementing it in the only submarine simulation on the market demands out of necessity that it be thought through and introduced in increments so it does not cripple the player's ability to enjoy the sim experience. Right now crew interaction is violating one of the principle rules of entertainment..."suspension of disbelief." It's no different than being fully immersed in watching a movie and unexpectedly seeing the microphone hanging over an actor's head or maybe seeing the camera crew and director in the reflection of a window on the set.

So in short, as it stands crew interaction is almost a good idea. It's essentially a work in progress. As far as SH5 is concerned, it is now a submarine captain simulation and the submarine is now part of the background environment...i.e., part of the captain's "world."

Thats a pretty good anology there mate

Bilge_Rat · 03-30-10, 02:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrapser

So in short, as it stands crew interaction is almost a good idea. It's essentially a work in progress. As far as SH5 is concerned, it is now a submarine captain simulation and the submarine is now part of the background environment...i.e., part of the captain's "world."

whatever fine distinction you want to put on it, a sim is a sim. Sh5 is a sub sim.

Hitting a target on 100% realism in SH5 is as hard as in SH3 or SH4, which is the real test as far as I am concerned..

scrapser · 03-30-10, 03:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

whatever fine distinction you want to put on it, a sim is a sim. Sh5 is a sub sim.

Hitting a target on 100% realism in SH5 is as hard as in SH3 or SH4, which is the real test as far as I am concerned..

You may have missed my overall point but no worries mate. We all have our standards. Nice picture you included by the way.

janh · 03-30-10, 03:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

whatever fine distinction you want to put on it, a sim is a sim. Sh5 is a sub sim.

Hitting a target on 100% realism in SH5 is as hard as in SH3 or SH4, which is the real test as far as I am concerned..

And what is it about those pictures...? Did you want to point at something important???

I guess the review is a bit negative, but not too bad. Using the word "scripted" was surely an unhappy choice, but to be honest, when I saw the first preview video of the new campaign system and explanation, I also was suspecting each one to be set of scripted missions. I haven't seen the developers really explaining what dynamics there is (or showing source examples), and what part of each campaign/force setup, patrol areas etc may be scripted. And how far scripts are designed to dynamically deviate from their plan.

There has not been a good, detailed explanation of so many features in SHV, and whether and how they changed from SHIII->IV->V.

SteamWake · 03-30-10, 03:28 PM

Go here... sink x of y before such a date, return to base. Then and only then can you 'advance' the campaign.

Sounds scripted to me.

mookiemookie · 03-30-10, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Go here... sink x of y before such a date, return to base. Then and only then can you 'advance' the campaign.

Sounds scripted to me.

No, you don't have to do any of that. History will still happen no matter what. You can completely ignore all of those goals, and still move on to the next phase.

Bilge_Rat · 03-30-10, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by janh

And what is it about those pictures...? Did you want to point at something important???

No, I let others discuss the "deeper" meaning of SH5. I just enjoy playing the game and posting screenshots.

Now that a proper historical periscope mod has been released, I can finally play this sim 100% manual TDC/map updates "off" and having a blast toying with convoys. I am finishing my advanced manual targeting tutorial.

We all know SH5 has issues, that it was pushed out too early. This review points out the good and the bad. I keep saying I should go back to SH4 and finish my campaign, but SH5 is so addictive.

mcarlsonus · 03-30-10, 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Or we can make the best of what we've got and be happy that we have a modding community that fixes things. I'd much rather have a platform that people can build on than nothing at all.

As mentioned (exhaustively!) in my previous post:
" STOP encouraging Ubi, and other similar firms with similar attitudes, by posting comments like, 'Oh, the modders'll make this thing playable in a year,' or, 'that stuff can be fixed by modders,' and/or posting stuff that obviously refers to a mod work-around, such as this from a post above, '...Using the old SH interface mod helps a lot...,' ad infinitum."

And, of course, thanks from ALL of us for toeing the line and proving, yet again, that no matter how ghastly the final product, we're (or, "YOU'RE") more than happy to part with our/your cash for a product that is totally wretched !!

(guess you missed the point of the rant, didn't you!)

Heretic · 03-30-10, 05:08 PM

Yeah mookiemookie, it's all your fault. I hope you're satisfied. You ruined it for everyone.

mookiemookie · 03-30-10, 05:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heretic

Yeah mookiemookie, it's all your fault. I hope you're satisfied. You ruined it for everyone.

I hear this so often it's like water off a duck's back.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

As mentioned (exhaustively!) in my previous post:
" STOP encouraging Ubi, and other similar firms with similar attitudes, by posting comments like, 'Oh, the modders'll make this thing playable in a year,' or, 'that stuff can be fixed by modders,' and/or posting stuff that obviously refers to a mod work-around, such as this from a post above, '...Using the old SH interface mod helps a lot...,' ad infinitum."

And, of course, thanks from ALL of us for toeing the line and proving, yet again, that no matter how ghastly the final product, we're (or, "YOU'RE") more than happy to part with our/your cash for a product that is totally wretched !!

(guess you missed the point of the rant, didn't you!)

I didn't miss the point of your rant. I just don't agree with it. You can protest all you want, but you'll soon find no subsims to be protesting to Ubi about.

drtechno · 03-30-10, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

As mentioned (exhaustively!) in my previous post:
" STOP encouraging Ubi, and other similar firms with similar attitudes, by posting comments like, 'Oh, the modders'll make this thing playable in a year,' or, 'that stuff can be fixed by modders,' and/or posting stuff that obviously refers to a mod work-around, such as this from a post above, '...Using the old SH interface mod helps a lot...,' ad infinitum."

And, of course, thanks from ALL of us for toeing the line and proving, yet again, that no matter how ghastly the final product, we're (or, "YOU'RE") more than happy to part with our/your cash for a product that is totally wretched !!

Amen, brother. I love how many are trying to justify a sh|tty product.

Heretic · 03-30-10, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

As mentioned (exhaustively!) in my previous post:
" STOP encouraging Ubi, and other similar firms with similar attitudes, by posting comments like, 'Oh, the modders'll make this thing playable in a year,' or, 'that stuff can be fixed by modders,' and/or posting stuff that obviously refers to a mod work-around, such as this from a post above, '...Using the old SH interface mod helps a lot...,' ad infinitum."

And, of course, thanks from ALL of us for toeing the line and proving, yet again, that no matter how ghastly the final product, we're (or, "YOU'RE") more than happy to part with our/your cash for a product that is totally wretched !!

(guess you missed the point of the rant, didn't you!)

And I'm sure you're backing up your words by refusing to use mods that fix things so as not to encourage UBI, correct?

Méo · 03-30-10, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcarlsonus

" STOP encouraging Ubi, and other similar firms with similar attitudes, by posting comments like, 'Oh, the modders'll make this thing playable in a year,' or, 'that stuff can be fixed by modders,'

Ok how many times have we see comments like this???

A lot of people here seems to think that we're encouraging Ubi to produce crap and blablabla...

It's not the few subsimers like us who bought SH5 (and hope it will become a great sim once heavily modded) that will make a damn difference.

Ubisoft has nothing to gain from making an unfinished game, they just have a lot of new potential customers to lose. (i.e. it's really bad for business in the long term) (Just think about how the game was received by IGN, Gamspot, etc.)

03-30-10, 12:59 PM	#1
scrapser Captain Join Date: Apr 2002 Posts: 530 Downloads: 12 Uploads: 0	Silent Hunter is a submarine simulation (or was). Up until SH5 this meant simulating a WW2 era submarine in either the Atlantic or Pacific. To create immersion...graphics, audio, random weather (environment), physics, and enemy AI were employed. It's important to realize that the AI for enemy craft (air and sea) can be summarized as a way to make each unit behave to a singular purpose...attack your submarine...almost as if each ship or airplane was a person just as "you" are your "submarine" despite the fact that you have a crew. This is not much different from how FPS games work. In a FPS game you shoot the enemy and the enemy shoots you until one of you dies or is seriously wounded. It's that simple. The AI is getting better so the enemy can both prosecute you and retreat to survive in increasingly sophisticated ways. But it is still pretty simple in terms of the overall behavior. With SH5, crew interaction has been introduced and tied to the overall performance of the submarine. In other words, the submarine's ability to do what it needs to do is tied to the crew moral and skill matrix which in turn is affected by how you interact with the crew. This is a big can of worms and nothing like the AI you see with the enemy ships and aircraft or even the AI of the enemy in a FPS game. I sincerely believe crew interaction is a good idea but I think implementing it in the only submarine simulation on the market demands out of necessity that it be thought through and introduced in increments so it does not cripple the player's ability to enjoy the sim experience. Right now crew interaction is violating one of the principle rules of entertainment..."suspension of disbelief." It's no different than being fully immersed in watching a movie and unexpectedly seeing the microphone hanging over an actor's head or maybe seeing the camera crew and director in the reflection of a window on the set. So in short, as it stands crew interaction is almost a good idea. It's essentially a work in progress. As far as SH5 is concerned, it is now a submarine captain simulation and the submarine is now part of the background environment...i.e., part of the captain's "world." __________________ Gaming Computer Specs: CM Stacker 930 DFI LP UT X58-T3eH8 i7 920 CPU TR 120 Extreme HS (lapped) 6 GB OCZ Platinum 1600 (8x175 = 1400) BFG GTX 295 Silverstone DA1000W PSU Sony GDM-FW900 24" Wide Screen CRT WinXP Pro 32-bit

03-30-10, 03:28 PM	#7
SteamWake Rear Admiral Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 13,224 Downloads: 5 Uploads: 0	Go here... sink x of y before such a date, return to base. Then and only then can you 'advance' the campaign. Sounds scripted to me. __________________ Follow the progress of Mr. Mulligan : http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=147648

03-30-10, 05:08 PM	#11
Heretic Commodore Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Nebraska Posts: 617 Downloads: 240 Uploads: 2	Yeah mookiemookie, it's all your fault. I hope you're satisfied. You ruined it for everyone. __________________ - heretic I enjoy drinking beer. MightyFine Crew Mod 1.2.1 - Updated 22 March MightyFine Less Annoying Footsteps Crew AI Scripting Information

03-30-10, 01:28 PM	#2
Rip Commodore Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Right behind you! Posts: 643 Downloads: 39 Uploads: 0	Strange I don't have any eels in the torpedo room after I shoot them. Did he have unlimited ammo on maybe?