1914 - Shells of Fury - latest press release and screenies

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Oesten

Thanks very much for the review, Deamon!

I trust your judgement, so have just bought Shells of Fury.

Always wanted a WW1 U-boat sim. The more I learn about WW1, the more amazing it is - the sheer pace technological innovation in that era is incredible!

Much as I love SH3, I'm now a little bit uncomfortable about 'fighting for Hitler' even in a game.

But I genuinely believe the world would have been a better place if Germany had won the Great War (and my home country, Britain, should have stayed neutral!)

I've got no qualms whatsover about sinking Russian ships (I read that many of SOF's missions are in the Baltic against the Imperial Russian Navy.

This game is so crappy but it made me addictive to just see what the next missions will be like. The missions are all like i have studied the war, it was very delighting to play this scenarios that i have else just red about. The phantastic thing about WWI subwar gameplay wise is that at that time the u-boats still looked for the purpuose they are best suitable for - sink merchants. Till then they were mainly used to look for the Grant Fleet and sink it. So especialy at the beginning of the war you have alot of very exciting missions against enemy warships. This is a very welcomed relief from the always repeating merchant war in WWII sims.

The ships mostly bags to be sunk but still it have an immersion factor i must admit. Finaly SOF leaves you behind with the wish for more. With the wish for IUF

You feel how good this game could have become if it would be properly implemented. But you can see in the game everywhere that the devs had aimed for more but had to cut back just everything in order to meet the shedule.

[Oesten]

Well, just received 1914: Shells of Fury and got it running!

Struggling with the manual as it's all in German, though - Google Translations helps, but is not a perfect solution.

Only done the first training mission, so can't really tell how good the gameplay is yet, but I'm optimistic thanks to Deamon's review!

The graphics range between good and dreadful. The U-boat and ship models are good, very detailed and well-textured. They really look like WWI ships, not like SH3 at all. The sea is OK, but the movement of the waves is too rapid, not slow and rolling, so at times the sea looks a bit like it's starting to boil! The worst part is the sky - dreadful. Not only flat and a bit fake-looking, (like SH2), but you can see behind you the vertical join where the two ends of the sky image meet! Oops.

The conning tower view is very good, although there's no lookouts on the bridge so you're on you're own up there. But the external view is poor, can't figure out how to pan around, and from that view the movement of the boat through the water (the pitching) looks jerky and fake, not smooth.

The interior screens are all 2D, like SH2. No 3D interior in this game. But the 2D screens are very well drawn and look good.

[dean_acheson]

any new updates?

[Oesten]

Getting to grips with Shells of Fury now (done four training missions, lol!)

It's a bit tricky coping with the game text being all in German. Might have to do something about that!

The game is pretty limited compared to SH2 or SH3, obviously the developers had nowhere near the resources of Ubisoft, it's definitely a budget subsim. I miss having the ability to zoom all over the place with the external camera and look things over. In SOF there is an external camera, but it can't move - only rotate. So you only see a side view of your boat as the camera POV is alongside it. This is very unfortunate!

Also the external camera only works if you are surfaced, so you can't watch yourself firing torpedoes underwater. Pity.

Still enjoying the game though, it does make me feel as though I'm in WW1.

[Rhodes]

The game may be pretty limited compared to SH2 or SH3 but I can't run it I my pc,since It need's 2.0 on vertical shader and etc. So since I only have 1.3 on my card, to run it, only when I put a new video card on this piece of junk...or and one more ram chip of 512 mb....

[Wings_of_Wrath]

Well, I finally took a shot at playing this game, and it didn't dissapoint me.
I went in fully expecting it to be dreadful and it truly is.

There are too many problems with it than I can possibly count, so I'll just list the major ones:

The graphics: Really ugly pixely sky, with a gliceryn like sea that's boiling away around your boat, ugly textures, inanimated models (I watched the lone bridge sentry for 15 minutes, and all he did was shift his binoculars about 10-15 degrees to his right) The ship models are pretty good though, some of the merchantment are just as detailed as those in SH3. Pity that doesn't extend to your own sub!

The sim: WHAT simulation?!

Ok, so I wasn't expecting this game to be a hardcore sim, but something I could play on my cofee break. You know, drop in the conning tower, sink a couple of merchants, run from the destroyers, feel refreshed afterwards!
But no. This game is so bad control-wise, that it takes away even this simple pleasure.

For starters, the periscople. Your main tool, right?
Wrong!
For some reason, the dev team decided crosshairs would be too modern for a WW1 peri and that the image should be really blurry, too, to simulate those old optics....

Well, I say Bull**** to that!

So, ok, I never looked trough an actual WW1 periscope. Well, big deal, I'm sure nobody on this forum has. But I do own a couple of WW1 rifle scopes (built by Dr Walter Gerard, aus Charlotttenburg, Berlin) and a MG scope for the Maxim Machinegewehr 08, and, save for a bit of distorsion around the edges of the riflescope image, the optics are as clear as a bell! More than that, the machine gun sight (actually there's a simmilar one pictured on the machinegun in the game, sadly not functional) has glass etched crosshairs that can be illuminated...

But enough about that.

The control is really choppy and jerky. If you try to point the MG or binoculars at a target, it scrolls unevenly, and you can never make small corrections. Similarly, the periscope will sometimes freeze or become really sluggish. And let me tell you, when you are desperately trying to lower it so you don't get spotted by those pesky DDs, it's not a pleasant surprise.
The same extends to the diving gauge, that you really have to fiddle with in order to attain a stable PD, because the dial in the conning tower is just too small, and that in the control room too imprecise.

Manual control. Well, some degree of manual operation is provided. You can set the angle, speed and depth of the torps manually (it even asks you if you are sure about those settings when you press the fire key!) but I don't see anybody bothering with that, since you can't make visual observations on a traget's speed, bearing and range.

That's right, because you have no crosshairs on your peri!

Instead, the target info is generously displayed on your screen the moment you point your gaze at the enemy ship, all, including the captain's birthday and wherever or not he likes seafood. And this feature can't be turned off, because all there is in the famed "realism" directory of the game options are buttons asking you wherever you would like unlimmited ammo/fuel/air/whatever, and some dubious question about realistic handling characteristics that changes nothing whatsoever (the boats, even the old "Petrolboot", dive amazingly quick, in less than a minute, and there isn't a single difference between "Petrol" [read kerosene] and "Diesel" subs, save a different 3d model).

The sounds. Well, I think that either my crew are really shy, or they really hate me, because I haven't heard a single word adressed to me in this entire game. That's right, no "Javohl, Herr Kaleun", or even "Was fahl ihnen denn ein, Herr Kaleun, auftauchen in des mittels die Englishe Kriegsflotte?! Das ist Wahnsinn!"

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a peep. Apparently my crew are about as inarticulate as they are imobile...
Other than that, the sounds are generally ok, even likable when you change from diesel to electric engines or you want to send a radio message, but sadly they are very, very limited.

Of course, by now you've probably realised this game is not going to have such things as Dynamic Campaign, crew management, torpedo management, or even ports for that matter.
For some time I suspected the land isn't even modeled...

Enemy AI. Well, it's surprisingly good, but buggy. Sometimes it spots your periscope from 3-4 kilometers and others times it misses you when you are on the surface 500 meters away... Especially for the merchants, if you give chase on the surface, are spotted then you imediatly submerge, not only are they going to not see you anymore, but they forget you were even there, and stop their engines waiting for you to sink them. The warships are a lot more intelligent, and I had the nasty surprise of seeing Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy gang up in me before they got into torpedo range, then shell the spot I was last seen in without ever going too close, all because I was a little careless and left my peri up for too long... In the end I manged to sink two of the ships, but the third escaped unscaved, and even tried to ram me on a couple of ocasions!

I wouldn't know about those realistic missions Deamon observed though, because I got sofar as the 4th one (where they ordered me to find and sink the british warships blockading the coasts of the Vaterland, in accordance to what happened in real life) then got really frustrated with the game altogether and decided to play SHIII instead.

To make this long story short, it's totally unadvisable, for anybody, be they casual gamers or hardcore simmers, to buy this game.

Why? Because it's bad and it looks like the dev team got bored in the middle of it then decided to launch it anyway, just so they would be over with.
It may be the only WW1 sub-sim existing right now, but, although some of the problems are due to insuficient funding, others are just there because of neglect from the part of the development crew.

And what were they doing instead of fixing obvious game issues?
This:



Holy Smokes! Is that a dead fish in my conning tower?

Yep, sure looks like it!
Well, or at least a suffocating fish, because, in a flurry of movement far exceeding that of the wooden look-out it shares the deck with, it wags its tail every 5 minutes or so.
Truly essential accessory, isn't it?

[odinfish]

IMHO, this doesn't look too great to me. I'm not impressed in the least. This game looks too arcade-like as it concerns graphic design and how it's played...pretty much like the awful Enigma: Rising Tide series. Great concept tho'. WW1 needs more attention and has little coverage in the market. Striving for "realism" should be the basis for ALL warsims...if not, then we've lost touch with why we have them. I think we've come far enough in our technological development that we can skip the Atari 2600 and Intellivision playmanship found in many self-proclaimed warsims.

Just my 2 cents worth...not intending to insult as there's no way that I could design a game period.

[Deamon]

Amen!

But some of the people who are VERY desparate after a WWI sim might like it. But you will realy have to get used to it. I can only repeat myself now the historicaly correct mission goals is the only thing i appreciate about this game.

I have also experianced the same issues you described here.

Originally Posted by Wings_of_Wrath

Holy Smokes! Is that a dead fish in my conning tower?

:rotfl:

Man you have a sharp eye, never noticed a fish on the bridge

But this was maybe only becose i don't like to watch such a horrobly bridge

Is it there all the time ?

[odinfish]

Well stop playing this game and get back to work on IMPERIAL U-FLOTILLA 1914-1918!!!

[Wings_of_Wrath]

Originally Posted by Deamon

Is it there all the time ?

Yes, but only in Flotten-Petrolboot. (U9)

[Lancelot66]

How and where can we buy it ? Download version available ?

[Wings_of_Wrath]

No, there isn't any legal download of this game you can make. (I'f you're into piracy, be my guest, but don't expect any help!)

But seriously, It's not worth the money.
I'm sure you are curious to see for yourself, but don't tell us we didn't warn you!
If you really want to experience what it's like, you'd better just get the demo first. (I don't know, does this game even HAVE a demo?)

[Rhodes]

Finally I was able to run the game. Yes its pretty simple and easy, but for me it's a "new air", finally somthing in WW1. Its simple, it's oki' its basic, yes but it's WW1.

For me vietcong fps its was good because it's was a luft of fresh air. WW2 francise is good but I am already tired. WW1 fine, fps in the trenches, air our naval.

Corea our Vietmnan, yes, even if WW2 continous to get better in sims and fps and strategy and 3rd person action.

Besides I want a game of fps that I'm able to play the axis side form 39 til 45. I know this is very difficul in very's aspects, but is fresh air.

[Deamon]

Originally Posted by Rhodes

Yes its pretty simple and easy, but for me it's a "new air", finally somthing in WW1. Its simple, it's oki' its basic, yes but it's WW1.

That would be the main argument for it.

[Rhodes]

Originally Posted by Deamon

That would be the main argument for it.

I rest my case!!!

PS: when I posted here I had the "wild night in bangkok" avatar, I thought that it lasted 10 post, but only one, buahhhhhhhh....