SH5: The good, the bad, and the ugly

[Keelbuster]

Originally Posted by Ducimus

For ATO, your choice is limited, but the works are solid. If i was to play the ATO in SH4, these are the first two things id look into:
Operation Monsun
KiUB Kriegsmarine Interface for UBM

For the PTO you have two supermods:
Real fleet boat
Trigger Maru Overhauled

And one major campaign mod. Required for RFB, optional for TMO.
Run silent run deep


Now that all said, Im a fleet boat fan, and pefer the PTO, and have spent the last few years busting my balls to improve Sh4.. and yet here i sit wanting to play SH5. That must say something about it. Although, SH4 is just work to me, stopped being fun awhile ago. I recieve no joy playing it anymore because i ive spent too long modding it. *shrug* So take that last minute endorsement of SH5 with a grain of salt.

_word_ - will check this s.t out asap..after i have the religious ceremony of bringing a new and wonderful computer system to life

KB

[CCIP]

I will definitely vouch for SHIV being super-recommendable at this point for people who hadn't played it yet or have only played it a long time ago. Great thing IMO to occupy your time while SHV hopefully gets much-needed fixing-up.

I did a full-war playthrough of OM leading up to SHV's release and I couldn't be happier.

As for Ducimius' review,

Actually that was more generous towards it than I'd expected from you, but all in all, I can't emphasize enough that under the unfortunately-obvious layer of unfinished-ness and crap that attracts too much attention in the game, there is a goldmine of extremely good stuff.

[JScones]

Nice. Thanks Ducimus.

[THE_MASK]

I just bought SH5 . Cost me 90 bbbbbbbbbbbucks. Actually it seems to run better on my old laptop than SH4 . No shadows and no AA .

[EAF274 Johan]

I wasn't too worried about DRM before I got the game, but it soon became an annoyance: lost saved games, pop-up wiindows telling me that the saved games are being synchronized even when I turned this option off, and of course the dreaded "you are disconnected" even though my internet connection was working perfectly (strangely enough I could play on without problems after pressing Esc).

But even without DRM I would rate SH5 as poor. While some new features are nice (travel mode TC) or even good (minimap allowing you to check your solution without having to change to map view), there are so many things that are missing! I'm not talking about wishlist items, but basic stuff like Depth under keel, Follow sound contact, map coordinates. Then there are the things that were in SH3/SH4 but gone in SH5: animations for crew under stress or when repairing, flavour radio traffic, gramophone and radio, populated harbors and life boats, the list is endless. The new walk-around feature doesn't make up for that, IMO, and the RPG element is very linear (it doesn't seem that your choices have any impact on the storyline).

These things need to be fixed. I'm not too confident that it will happen through official patches, so it will be up to the modding community. SH V's saving grace is that it appears to be very moddable, but "of course there is a limit somewhere"' Let's hope that the important stuff isn't hard coded.

I haven't mentioned realism yet. Even without the special crew abilities, you'll find your sub dives very fast, runs very fast, your crew reloads very fast. AI usually seems to be deaf and blind, and so does your crew. But right now, since so much basic stuff is broken, I would call these things of secondary importance only. I would implore the devs to fix the game, and let the modders take care of the realism.

I don't know of the English version, but the German localisation is full of errors, such as typos in map labels, reversed terminology (heading - bearing) and broken speech messages. Knowing from my experience as a translator, this should never have passed quality control. While this doesn't break functionality, it does make one suspicious: "if they can't even get this right, who knows what else is broken?".

BTW I'm not sure if I like the new campaign system. Will I have to start in September 39 every time?

[FIREWALL]

This is another reason I don't purchase a game thru a download.

I took mine back to BestBuy where I bought it on the weekend before preorders were delivered.

I took it back today for full refund.

No questions asked.

[Rockin Robbins]

Originally Posted by vonce1

for a single reason I have a negative feeling about SH4 (in comparison to SH5); my few campaign(s) always ended with CO2 bug = crew being suffocated on the surface.

SH5 has good potential (I'm on 6th patrol and no co2 bug), just look what a few modders did to it within the first week, it's 1000% difference already from vanilla 1.0 release. Now UBI needs to get rid of DRM and fix thousand of bugs that are hard-coded, those that modders can't fix easily. But I think UBI doesn't give much crap what we want or not..so we'll see in upcomming weeks if thay care or not. I have a feeling that they don't care too much...

Nor should they care about what you think. You paid them not to. People always do exactly what they are paid to do. Smooth move there.

Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute.

[vonce1]

Originally Posted by Rockin Robbins

Nor should they care about what you think. You paid them not to. People always do exactly what they are paid to do. Smooth move there.

Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute.

you're most likely right; UBI may give us one more patch and then they'll be over with this masterpiece - they have our $$$ in their pocket already

[Rockin Robbins]

Yes, I'm tired of being played for a chump by Ubi. Now they've taken away my right to buy a used game. Fortunately since suicide is part of their central business plan I will be able to pick up discarded games for free in the garbage after their demise. Typically the most unflattering stereotype of what it is to be French! But in this case, the stereotype fits like a glove. Idiots....

[pythos]

Okay, enough of the BS.

Back to this even handed and well done review.

This review had most of the problems in it I have experienced.

In my opinion SH4 is a POS. Do people not understand that the watch crew should not have to be manually moved into the sub during a crash dive from a plane? I have lost so many crew that way. That to me is a game killer.

Something to OP left out is the screwy engine sounds. They increase and decrease in volume, not frequency. A bug Sh4 had, and was soon done away with.

The missing "follow sound contact" feature is one of many that Ubi did away with, for no apparent reason. But I think the patches may bring those back, or the modders will fix the problem.

I do like the crew interaction thing, I however would like the loafers in the quarters to actually move about the boat. But this may be a limitation in the way the rooms are laid out, can't be sure of that though. As far as the crew interaction and results, I am hoping this is stuff that can be made better by the modders, and myself, if I can get a hang of this Goblin thing.

I would like the navigator to get navigator abilities opposed to chief engineer duties.

and for the love of God....FLANK speed ahead or aft, NOT EXTREME, we are out of the 90s UBI!!!

The ship Id should be available whether using auto, or manual TDC, I like to know what I am shooting, even when being lazy with the auto.

This is the skeletal frame work of a submarine captain simulator, that I have faith is going to turn out to be a masterpiece.

DRM must die. It was wrong, and is ineffective. No one likes it in the community, and I wish Ubi would see this.

Alot of work went into this sim, A LOT. I am sick of seeing people dis the game and contribute not one bit of constructive criticism. Those who have returned the sim, are quitters. If you care about the franchise, get the damn thing back, and help.

[Méo]

Indeed, great review Ducimus.

It's refreshing to see, it differs a lot from subjective polarized opinions.

I particularly like this:

Originally Posted by Ducimus

Keeping ya guessing ain't i? What's this, Duci can put aside his own preferences and look at things objectively?! The hell you say!

Originally Posted by Ducimus

I never pretended to be a journalist, and i put review in quotations. My view comes from having dealt with this series for awhile, so im used to seeing a certain level of buggetry. Only the real crippeling issues, or things that can't be fixed by mod really grab my attention.