My Review of SH5 - Hope You Like

[Piddyx]

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."

[Quinsen]

I second that in every written word.

[pythos]

Would you like some cheese with that wine?

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by pythos

Would you like some cheese with that wine?

I don't think it was a wine at all. The points raised were very legitimate.

[AVGWarhawk]

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.

[SteamWake]

"Calm as hindu cows"

[Piddyx]

Originally Posted by pythos

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.

[vonce1]

well written review

[seaniam81]

Originally Posted by Piddyx

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.

[Piddyx]

Originally Posted by seaniam81

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.

I started a new HOI3 game just a few days ago.

In hindsight, I would retract my comments on dynamic missions. It is an improvement over past games.

[EAGLE_01]

Originally Posted by Quinsen

I second that in every written word.

You're a NUB. No one really cares what you think. Got it there, skippy?

[CaptainHaplo]

Originally Posted by EAGLE_01

You're a NUB. No one really cares what you think. Got it there, skippy?

On the contrary there little mr machinists mate.... (see - don't feel that great does it? And wait till you hit Bancock!) - EVERY subsimmer has something to add when they put forth effort or act in a mature manner. This isn't like most boards where the number of posts make you special. What makes a subsimmer special is what they contribute to the community - even if it is simple encouragement or an "I agree". Its ok to disagree as well - but do so in a mature manner - giving specific reasons - instead of just posting to slam someone.

Hopefully you take this in the same vein - realizing that you also make the community better when you approach things with reason instead of just running someone down to no purpose.

[Sailor Steve]

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!?

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Hindu cows, bouncing boats, talking to pipes, heroin junkies, submarine sandwiches, athletic captains, writing your own orders - this one has it all!

[Safe-Keeper]

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!

Makes one wonder what the cook puts in his "special soup" that makes everyone so happy.

Methinks he may have found some sort of human equivalent of catnip that he's secreted for special occasions.