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Old 03-12-10, 06:33 AM   #1
Piddyx
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Default My Review of SH5 - Hope You Like

On a positive note, this game does have updated graphics. The ships and the ocean look beautiful. Some details are rather questionable though. Yes, you can see sailors calmly walking the deck of a freighter or destroyer. And, when you sink one of these beautiful ships, and a cloud of fire hovers above the vessel you might notice them continue walking a submerged portion of the deck, calm as Hindu cows. You would think they would run to the lifeboats, however they probably know that they are non functional and that they sink fast as stones and exist mainly to be blown 50 feet in the air by your deck gun.

You do get to walk through your boat, which is novel. You might have to clip through your buggy crew members, and you won't be able to reach the UZO though because a crew member is blocking it. . Half of the crew just sit around and stare at you. Even durring a crash dive or when ordered to their battle stations, half of the sailors will by lounging in their beds oblivious to what is going on arround them. Your officers may have one or two lines of dialog. They might yell you about their kids, or maybe they will glitch 180 degrees and tell a pipe fitting about their kids. You never know. Their lack of enthusiasm on the part of 90% of your crew, the extras at the base, and the crews of British ships seems to imply the Battle of the Atlantic was fought by heroin junkies.

Instead of having abilities tied to hot-keys, you have to personally tell each one to work on repairs faster or whatever. It is hard to tell them what to do, as there are clipping problems and each action cost moral points. The game simulated the entire crew having seasonal disaffective disorder by always giving them no moral. You have to ask the cook to make a special meal or else the won't do anything. According to Ubisoft, it is a historical fact that uboat crews refused to work on empty stomaches. This led to the invention of submarine sandwiches. Your captain however, will have to run all over the ship to get certain things done. You think he could just yell into one of those tubes, but he would much rather climb up two and down one ladder in order

"Dynamic Missions" means you get to pick your mission instead of having it randomly assigned to you. Ubisoft is rightfully proud of being the first to develop such a ground breaking innovation. . Perhaps other games will copy their incredibly innovative idea.

A few things are conspicuously missing from the game. The most surprising thing that is missing is the second half of word war 2. The game just ends in the middle of the war. No doubt, we are expected to buy the second half of world war 2 in an expansion. Since most people would assume that the entire war would be included in the game, I feel this is a bit desceptive. To be fair, Ubisoft have had a large warning on the box that stated:

"WARNING: ONLY HALF OF WORLD WAR TWO IS INCLUDED IN THIS RELEASE. Wou will not be able to finish the war until we release the second half of the game that includes models and fuinctionality we intentionally left out of this version. We will release the expansion exactly one three months after you have lost interest in this verion and uninstalled it from your system"

Finally, everyone talks about the DRM system requires you to be able to connect to Ubisoft servers a few times a minute. It seems to be somewhat reliable, as you will only get kicked off occasionally. There have been reported instances where their servers are down and no one could play. Why don't they only check once a day or once a week, you ask? Wouldn't that still do the job? The current scheme is certainly inconvenient for some people who have less than perfect internet connection. For instance, anyone with a wireless router, laptop or the soldiers in Iraq. Maybe Ubisoft is in league with Al-Qaeda? Perhaps they helped them plan 9-11 because they both hate freedom.

In any case, it is a new DRM system that they spent a lot of money developing, so don't expect them to abandon the system just because everyone is bitching about how they dislike it. They will only do so if they see that it is making them loose more sails than the sails it gains from pirates. So, if you don't like not being able to own your game, play it whenever you want, and have the option to sell it in the future, then you really should not buy this game. If there are enough people like you then they will choose to abandon this type of copy-protection.

In all likely hood, this is just an reaction to pirates cracking Assassin's Creed 1 weeks before the official release date. That event did cause "irreparable harm" (in the words of Ubisoft) to an otherwise awesome game that would have been one of the big earners for the company. Such an event was no doubt very traumatic for the company and caused this draconian DRM.

Overall, I believe Eurogamer accurately described the game in it's review"

"As a game, Silent Hunter 5 fails because the bugs and UI render it a chore. As a simulation, it fails because the bugs and UI render it ridiculous and incomplete. As a product, it's just overwhelming disrespectful to this long running series' fans. And finally, as one of the first games to receive Ubisoft's new copy protection, it's an embarrassment."

Last edited by Piddyx; 03-12-10 at 06:58 AM. Reason: spelling and word choice
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Old 03-12-10, 07:10 AM   #2
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I second that in every written word.
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Old 03-12-10, 10:17 AM   #3
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Would you like some cheese with that wine?
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Old 03-12-10, 10:22 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by pythos View Post
Would you like some cheese with that wine?
I don't think it was a wine at all. The points raised were very legitimate.
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Old 03-12-10, 10:33 AM   #5
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I agree on the crew but as I get more patrols in the more they talk and the better they get at their post. I really do not talk with them other than say click "good job" after a sinking. The UZO...it can be used however. Just click the UZO! Other than that I like the game.
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Old 03-12-10, 10:35 AM   #6
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"Calm as hindu cows"
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Old 03-12-10, 10:49 AM   #7
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I liked it! Complaints are fine, especially whey they're as well-expressed as yours. Hindu cows, bouncing boats, talking to pipes, heroin junkies, submarine sandwiches, athletic captains, writing your own orders - this one has it all!

We did know in advance about the 1943 ending, so I disagree that it was deceptive, but overall you gave a good summation. I'm still swayed by the good things I'm reading, and patiently awaiting the day I can get it, but your points are good and the way you made them was great.

Fun review, Piddyx.

Oh, and did I say WELCOME ABOARD!?
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Old 03-12-10, 10:53 AM   #8
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Nice little review. Well written indeed, and quite funny -- sarcasm can be so useful.
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Old 03-12-10, 11:03 AM   #9
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Their lack of enthusiasm on the part of 90% of your crew, the extras at the base, and the crews of British ships seems to imply the Battle of the Atlantic was fought by heroin junkies.
Having volunteered at a street magazine publishing house for nearly a year, I'm deeply offended by this comparison.

The average drug addict is far more responsive than SH5 crewmen while high.


Quote:
In all likely hood, this is just an reaction to pirates cracking Assassin's Creed 1 weeks before the official release date. That event did cause "irreparable harm" (in the words of Ubisoft) to an otherwise awesome game that would have been one of the big earners for the company. Such an event was no doubt very traumatic for the company and caused this draconian DRM.
Yeah, 'cause game publishing houses by definition have an infinite amount of money and always brush it off when they don't get money for their products. Any other industry would reel if 50% of their customers didn't pay for their products, but publishers, why, they just take it like troopers and magick more money into existence.

I wish I had the Vault of Infinite Dollars that some people seem to think is installed in the basement of every game publisher headquarters building.

Quote:
In any case, it is a new DRM system that they spent a lot of money developing, so don't expect them to abandon the system just because everyone is bitching about how they dislike it. They will only do so if they see that it is making them loose more sails than the sails it gains from pirates. So, if you don't like not being able to own your game, play it whenever you want, and have the option to sell it in the future, then you really should not buy this game. If there are enough people like you then they will choose to abandon this type of copy-protection.
Oooooor you could help make it obsolete by, you know, getting your buddies to not pirate games in the first place.
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Old 03-12-10, 11:44 AM   #10
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Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper View Post
Having volunteered at a street magazine publishing house for nearly a year, I'm deeply offended by this comparison.

The average drug addict is far more responsive than SH5 crewmen while high.

Yeah, 'cause game publishing houses by definition have an infinite amount of money and always brush it off when they don't get money for their products. Any other industry would reel if 50% of their customers didn't pay for their products, but publishers, why, they just take it like troopers and magick more money into existence.

I wish I had the Vault of Infinite Dollars that some people seem to think is installed in the basement of every game publisher headquarters building.

Oooooor you could help make it obsolete by, you know, getting your buddies to not pirate games in the first place.
Ooh, he is an aggressive member of his species. Maybe he should consider point one of his argument, or valium...

BTW, without extending this discussion to SHV, generally limited funding is no excuse for putting out low quality products. Nor is developing products tangentially to the ideas and needs of customers. That is business model that hasn't worked in the past 2000 years.

But I give you that the piracy and the alledged DDOS attacks (the latter: if true) have done more harm than good in this case. This time, they should have left Ubisofts products completely alone. Then we would have had the test and the answer that we are all arguing about so much. Then any success would have been despite OSP DRM, product state and novelty, or any failure due to the latter. No one could have blamed pirates anymore. And now it is again all mingled.
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Old 03-12-10, 06:52 PM   #11
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Originally Posted by pythos View Post
Would you like some cheese with that wine?
HA!!! That is what I told people who complained about Hearts of Iron 3 before the patch! Guess I should take my own medicine.

I really do believe it though, and I've raised a few points that I have not seen elsewhere.
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Old 03-12-10, 07:11 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Sailor Steve View Post
We did know in advance about the 1943 ending, so I disagree that it was deceptive, but overall you gave a good summation. I'm still swayed by the good things I'm reading, and patiently awaiting the day I can get it, but your points are good and the way you made them was great.

Fun review, Piddyx.

Oh, and did I say WELCOME ABOARD!?
Perhaps you did. I was very surprised by it. I should have read some reviews but I thought it would be a safe buy based on my experience with SH3 and SH4.

I'm a little offended by it too, because I know it is going to come out in an expansion (probibly with a Type XXI Uboat.) They have all but openly stated that there will be future expansion in their statements to stockholders and hints in interviews. Expansions should be for new content, not stuff that a reasonable person might expect to be in the game in the first place. No one sells half of world war two! It is just not complete, IMHO.

Thanks for the welcome. I've been lurking for a while, but I have never had much to add.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper View Post
Yeah, 'cause game publishing houses by definition have an infinite amount of money and always brush it off when they don't get money for their products. Any other industry would reel if 50% of their customers didn't pay for their products, but publishers, why, they just take it like troopers and magick more money into existence.

I wish I had the Vault of Infinite Dollars that some people seem to think is installed in the basement of every game publisher headquarters building.

Oooooor you could help make it obsolete by, you know, getting your buddies to not pirate games in the first place.
Look, I understand their situation. I think taking piracy seriously is a predictable response for the Assassin's Creed 1 debacle. I mean, they spent so much on tv spots and advertisements for months before the release date to build up demand for a good opening week, and then someone leaks a copy online so everyone who just couldn't wait to get their hands on a copy download the pirated version and Ubisoft looses maybe 20,000 sales. It sucks.

But really, we need to be connected ALL THE TIME??? What about once a day and when the game needs to download missions? Less people would be pissed off at Ubisoft. I'm not arguing for week copy protection, just a reasonable approach to it.

And to all my buddies pirating games. Please stop, OK? Thanks. If anyone who makes software would like to thank me for saving the industry; I drink White Russians. You should still expect weak 4Q growth due to the weak economy.

Last edited by Piddyx; 03-12-10 at 07:28 PM.
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Old 03-12-10, 07:15 PM   #13
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well written review
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Old 03-12-10, 07:28 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by Piddyx View Post
HA!!! That is what I told people who complained about Hearts of Iron 3 before the patch! Guess I should take my own medicine.

I really do believe it though, and I've raised a few points that I have not seen elsewhere.
HA HA HOI3 did suck before the patch. But now with 1.3 it rocks and 1.4 is going to be better.

Also UBI is not the first to come up with Dynamic Missions. It was in Falcon4AF long before. The campaign generates a whack missions based on user settings, (or you can create your own). You pick the mission you want to fly. And the result of said mission affects the campaign. I actually botched a CAS mission and then watched my lines fall apart and then North Koreans came steam rolling in all the way south. Oops lost that campaign three days later.
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Old 03-12-10, 07:48 PM   #15
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"Dynamic Missions" means you get to pick your mission instead of having it randomly assigned to you. Ubisoft is rightfully proud of being the first to develop such a ground breaking innovation. . Perhaps other games will copy their incredibly innovative idea.

Do you really know how this dynamic campaing works?

You have the overall goals for a campaign to accomplish and each time you go to harbour you will get a new mission. Call this a micro goal, But thos are the same as we faced in sh3 and 4.

Now you have severly goals to accomplish. cant se any bad whit that.

Also if you are not succesful in your campaing you cant unlock other missions. Some missions are dependant of each other.
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