SimHQ Reviews SH5

[SimHq Tom Cofield]

Thanks for the kind words, even with some of the disagreements. I know some of you were worried that this would be a 'fluff' piece based upon my preview. As I said during that little discussion my reviews are a lot stricter than any preview because I don't tolerate bugs nearly as much as I do with previews. I have had several developers not talk to me any more but I call it as I see it.


I agree about the tonnage requirements and the 'rules' for sinking capital ships but I expected that from this game. Unfortunately this is a game, not realism and I knew that to make it interesting it would be a little more target rich than in reality.

I think the campaign structure is outstanding, even with the above stuff. Remember I am a flight sim guy, not a dedicated submariner (although I have been doing this and SHIV a lot more than flying lately) so I compare the game campaign to ones like IL2 or Lock ON and this campaign is damned good. It blows PT boats out of the water (talk about stupid rules of engagement). I haven't met a campaign that couldn't be better but overall this one is very above average.

As for the rest, the game is about as frustrating as it can be for a reviewer. Neil, sorry I forgot to send the copy to you to look over. I thought Doug was going to run it on Monday and was going to have you check it out for major stupid errors but he ran it early and I forgot to send it to you Friday.

If they patch it, and if they do something about the DRM, and once the game is heavily modded then I might just do a re-review of the title. This is a game that could be absolutely outstanding, actually fantastic because the base is there for an outstanding game. Just like SHIII and IV, this is a game that shipped incomplete but unlike SHIII or IV this game has some serious detractions that hurt the game significantly. Luckily a lot of it can be fixed.