Neal you seem to have a problem now!

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Hitman

You gave in your review a 10/10 to SH3 in its time. Well deserved, but now that SH4 looks and feels so great, what are you going to do to be fair, uh? I would suggest, give Sh4 a "10 with Oak leaves", but better spare the swords and diamonds for Sh5 and Sh6...just in case.

Well, good point, but SH3 received a 100% from me in part because it was miles ahead of any subsim that came before it, in graphics, new features (animated crew), ambiance (leaving port), and it had sound AI and a good dynamic campaign.

Now, SH4 will have to advance the state of the game by at least as much to stay up with SH3.

SH4 is a sequel to SHIII and should be reviewed as one. SHIII was a huge leap from SHII and deserved the 10/10.

I see it the same way. SH4 would have to break some serious new ground to ride the bull a full 8 seconds.

The fact that the modders have managed to make great strides in improving the game indicates that a 10/10 rating for vanilla is nonsense. After all, if you give 10/10 you're saying it can't be improved!! I can think of things that could still be improved (as a simple example, think of the crew fatigue as it operated as per initial design), and I'm sure the master modders could list plenty.

I disagree. SH3 was not given a 10/10 because it was perfect or flawless, but because it was a lot more than 15% better than Aces, Jane's 688(I), or SH2. Mods improved and changed SH4, but that was like adding an extra layer of frosting to a magnificient 7 layer cake.

As time goes by and games get better, our expectations seem to always stay ahead of the game. SH3 was a great game; it was missing good radio traffic and wolfpacks, with limited MP, and a few bugs, but overall... wow!

When writing a review they want to get the review up quickly and dont always get the time to see these things.

Well, in my case I was able to play several betas and the gold for months before the game was released, so I had a lot of time to evaluate it Also, I followed up with specific questions to the dev team during the review process, to make sure I didn't miss anything or misunderstand a feature or part of the game. That's how Subsim was the only website or magazine to include details and images from the dev team outlining the mechanics of the dynamic campaign.

SH4 has been a different experience for me. I have followed it some and was lucky enough to be invited to San Francisco by Ubisoft to demo the game, but I have had very little exposure to the latest version of the game itself. In contrast, with SH3 I was allowed to demo the game at home with a meeting full of Subsim guys and write several test reports on betas. Plus I received (from the producer) two release candidates during the gold process. So, I knew it a lot better than I know SH4.

What rating will I give SH4? No idea! I will have to have the gold or retail copy for a few weeks before I can even guess. SH4 will have to be as good as SH3 in every way and better in many ways to beat it.