How did you get into Sub games?

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Pappy55

The chap in the middle is 'Cmdr. E.Grenfall' who was lucky to survive the war he was torpedoed TWICE, thrown into the icy Arctic waters and spent some time in a Russian hospital. He is fluent in German and Russian. He also thinks the Germans are the nicent people in Europe. (no hard feelings at all)

That man is a very good soldier.

The one on the left is J.Hobbs my dad's best friend who died a few years ago.

You have my condolences. It's a loss for everyone when a man with such experience dies.

Saddest part is my dad is now in a care home with Dementia and dosent really know me anymore.

Well, that's just about the most awful thing I've heard in along time. I used to work with elderly folks who had Alzheimer's, so I have some context. Never had to personally deal with a relative, or worse, an immediate family member who was affected, but I've seen how it hurts the families.....it's just terrible. Truly, my prayers are with you and your father.
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Okay, so now that I'm horribly depressed, what was this thread about again? How we all got into subsims?

I've been into military everything for pretty much my entire life. My family has a long tradition of military service in every branch and in several different nations. I was brought up with the expectation that I would one day become a US Air Force officer and a fighter pilot. To that end, I spent countless hours learning everything I could about every military that had ever existed on the planet.

Naturally, I spent a lot of time studying the World Wars, and in doing so I developed a great respect for the German military model. No matter where you're from or what you've been told, you have to respect German military achievements; especially those in the past century-and-a-half. The Germans are masters of efficiency and effectiveness on the battlefield, so I took my cues from them. In short, I have a fascination with military history, particularly German military history.

I got into subsims because I admire the strategy behind guerre de course. I've stuck with them because they're just about the only combat sim that has anything to do with reality. Spending the time to detect, track, and intercept a target using nothing but geometry and hydrophones is a lot more rewarding than capping some witless noob at his pre-determined spawn-point.

[STEED]

I came across Silent Hunter in the bargain basement and decided what the heck and give it ago. And from there to SH2 then SH3 & SH4.

[Platapus]

There were three aspects of submarine warfare that first attracted me to sub games.

1. Submarines stalk their targets and then they lay in wait. That aspect of gaming appeals to me. That is also why I like sniper games. The requirement to plan an attack instead of going in guns-a-blazin I like in games. The concept of being, from an armament standpoint the underdog appeals to me.

2. In the context of submarine games, the decisions are made by one person, in this case the player. In sub games the player has to do a lot of tactical and strategic planning.

3. Sub games are slow in nature. There is plenty of time to think things through. This help players like me who have very small brains. This may also explain why I suck at flight sims but do ok with Helo sims.


And lastly, I always had an interest in submarine history.

Oh I forgot the most important reason. Chicks.

I was told that chicks dig guys that play submarine games.

Perhaps I was misinformed.

[Lionclaw]

I don't know what really got me into it, I've been interested in military hardware since I was a child.

I guess my real dive into subsim games was Silent Hunter II and later Sub Command. It really took off with Silent Hunter III.


But earlier, in my childhood, I played Silent Service II on the Commodore Amiga.

I also played "688 Attack Sub" on the Sega Mega Drive.
Hehe, I thought the Russian audio sounded funny at the time. "Snål porslin"
In my head one phrase sounded like that.
Swedish words that sounded similar to the Russian phrase.

[Jimbuna]

Started off with the ZX Spectrum then went on to the Commodore 64 then Amiga with that huge 1/2 MB additional chip before acquiring my first PC (486).

Can't remember the first sub game because I've had most of them (never had AOD) so ended up with all of the SH series.

[Weiss Pinguin]

I started off playing Destroyer Command, but after I found Blind Man's Bluff in a closet in our house (along with The Hunt for Red October and a bunch of other Tom Clancy books), I decided I wanted to play from the other side of the sonar screen, so I bought SHIV. When I discovered my computer couldn't handle IV, I found SHIII, and decided I liked subs more than destroyers Still don't have a decent enough machine to run SHIV, but soon...

I've also always been fascinated by subs (well machines of any kind, but subs are a lot cooler than most), especially early ones, and my grandfather was a submariner, so maybe it runs in the family

[CCIP]

Thanks to your dad for his service! It's sad that he has dementia now, I know how devastating it can be to have relatives not recognize you anymore - but he's also lived a long and honourable life and we're all thankful for his service

I'm of a different generation, and my dad's military service was mostly watching radios and radars near that same stretch of Arctic ocean where your dad served convoys (he was a Soviet radio operator on the Kola Peninsula while in conscripted service during the cold war). Years later, around '92, my dad got us our first foreign-built PC, a great little Atari machine with 1.5mb of RAM. One of the games on it that he got was Silent Service II, and it was a favourite of ours to play together, back when I was around 8 years old. He was the captain, I was the watch officer. I got very good at ship recognition in that game

Years passed, my dad stopped liking video games at all much to my dismay, but I never forgot the good times. I mostly got into flight sims in the late 90s, which became my favourite genre, and hadn't played any navy-related games in a long time, until late 2004 when previews of Silent Hunter III caught my imagination - precisely because looking at them, I got this strong nostalgia for SSII and was suddenly really fascinated by the gorgeous detail of submarines that the game seemed to promise. When SHIII came out, it almost immediately became my favourite game. For all its flaws, it delivered exactly what I missed about Silent Service II - with the exception of having my dad play it with me. But on the social side, I did find this amazing community to share the joy with, so it's even made up for that somewhat

[Spyguy101]

I always loved History and WWII.
Tried to learn everything I could on it and played every game I could get my hands on.
This resulted in few friends and spending all my nights playing said games and watching History channel to the point where I was correcting my teachers and writing reports on WWII(favorite subject was commanders like Rommel) in Elementary school and just kept growing from there.
But i do remember hearing about my Grandfather who served on a sub through the entire war and that peaked my interest in subs.
I never got to hear his stories as he died before I could really appreciate him. But heard about SHIV when it was released and that it was good so one day while going through game store i saw it and decided to pick it up and got hooked

[Penguin]

I am part of the lucky generation which was allowed to play with plastic soldiers and to build war models. This and many other factors fueled my general interest in WWII history.
When I was 11, I watched the Das Boot series on TV, although my mom wasn't too fond of it, if you remember the scene when the guy tells about how he peed on the back of a whore you'll know what she meant - though she got me also the book.
Later, I had Silent Service on the C64, which I loved for its immersion factor. When I got Silent Hunter 3, just on release day, the game really got me. It was not before then that I wanted to learn more about submarine warfare and got myself tons of literature. However I got my mods from the german ubi forum, so I didn't land here. When Sh5 was to be released, I finally discovered this great community, and so here I am!

Originally Posted by 4Para

The Great Escape

That was an unbelievable great game, thanks for reminding me of it. I will have to look for an emulator and play it again.

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by krashkart

I got into sub games because I like sneaking around and blowing things up. Submarine games are perfect for that... until I get caught.

I thought you were here for the "Frau". Somesort of groupy thing.

[nikimcbee]

1985 Gato, spectrum Holobyte. And around that time my dad bought me the Revell U-47 kit.

[antikristuseke]

Saw a firend play SH3, thought it was pretty cool so bought it and was addicted.

[Weiss Pinguin]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

I thought you were here for the "Frau". Somesort of groupy thing.

Who isn't here for the Frau?

[Matador.es]

Originally Posted by Platapus

1. Submarines stalk their targets and then they lay in wait. That aspect of gaming appeals to me. That is also why I like sniper games. The requirement to plan an attack instead of going in guns-a-blazin I like in games. The concept of being, from an armament standpoint the underdog appeals to me.

Also explained as: have the initiative! Initiative can be given away only ones, better think twice before doing so!

[Armistead]

I started by playing, think it was called Silent Service, by Micropose or something like that.
It's still on an old Tandy PC, bout 1990 I think.