Released! The first review please!?

[lesrae]

I'm with the majority of the reviews above, this is a great looking game (I'd say the needle swings over to game and away from simulation) which is engaging and great fun to play.

There are a few niggles that I'll report to the Dev's once I know the mechanism for doing so but nothing that make it unplayable.

Pros & Cons? I for one like the hands-on approach to driving the boat but would like to hear confirmation/information from the sonar station etc. rather than have to catch text pop up for a few seconds out of the corner of my eye.

One debug hint - I was having problems controlling the scope until I realised interference was coming from my joystick which was jammed over to one side (MS Force Feedback Pro with no power plugged in). After I centred that that everything was peachy.

[zachanscom]

game is great, but i wish the subs had more polygons, some edges are kind of sharp. especially charlie class when you look from the front. is it possible to extract the models and subdivide it and retopologize?

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by zachanscom

game is great, but i wish the subs had more polygons, some edges are kind of sharp. especially charlie class when you look from the front. is it possible to extract the models and subdivide it and retopologize?

I've noticed that too!

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by xXNightEagleXx

I'm sorry but i have to disagree. You do realize that a submarine has different crews each with its own role, right? For example, being a commander does not qualify you as an expert sonalyst. Silent Hunter does simulate at some degree each role, but fail to simulate a typical crew role. Instead you are forced to be a multitask crew member which is simply not realistic.

Cold Waters is neither a sonalyst sim, a radiomen sim nor fire control technician sim. Cold Waters is about being the Commander and his role is not to master the sonar nor master the machine room, his role is to give commands and take decisions, in order words decide the proper tactics that fits better to a given situation. So in this case, as you can see Cold Waters begin to get into sim category.

As a commander only what a sim must offer at this point is not manual control of multiple components of a submarine, but well done combat environment that force the commander to think twice and make them pay a high price when failing to do its homework (eg. failing to get enough awareness situation before proceeding with an attack).

What Cold Waters needs to really make it a good simulator is not to force you to manual control each aspect thus making it unrealistic but rather simulate systems failures and human error (for both AI and player crews) where applicable without adding artificial difficulties in order to avoid/reduce the 'gaming effect'.

Don't take me wrong, i really love having to plot everything by myself in Silent Hunter (although i don't like the tools that are given to you) but i would not bash Cold waters just because it doesn't offer that. It seems that some people failed to understand what Cold Waters was about!


Update: Obviously i ignored all bugs which MUST be fixed

I'm not bashing cold waters, just saying it's not really a subsim like everyone else says, but rather a sub strategy and action game.

Also just taking a look at the way everyone is playing it, like for instance, dodging torps with the help of the external view, just confirms my point of view!

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by Pirate

I'm not bashing cold waters, just saying it's not really a subsim like everyone else says, but rather a sub strategy and action game.

Also just taking a look at the way everyone is playing it, like for instance, dodging torps with the help of the external view, just confirms my point of view!

Well, probably that will be an issue for most if not all 3rd person subsim. Maybe even if they do provide you an inside sub camera, it might not provide you enough tools to have a correct situation awareness thus react in the proper way. However i do believe that there is a good solution to torpedoes issues, which is instead of showing they exactly position, they could give you a rough direction from where they are coming from (like the presence direction that old ghost recon games used) thus you have an idea from where they are coming from without being so precise.

Secondly but most important, a long time ago someone in this forum, Rockin Robbins, taught me a good lesson....just because a game has some flaws or tools that you can exploit, it doesn't mean you have to. You can just give you enough self discipline and ignore those things that you can exploit, especially when playing in solo or co-op against AI.

[cj95]

While overall I am very pleased with the game/sim/whatever, there is one thing that I note is lacking.


Tension.

I refer here to the hours and hours I have spent staring at DW or SC's waterfall sonar display imagining faint contacts in the static.

The tension came from....is there somebody out there? Or am I seeing things?

Cold Waters with its automated sonar functions provides easy answers ...yes there is someone out there...and they are generally thataway.

The mystery of faint contacts...real or not...seems absent.




That said overall a vey fun and worthy purchase.

[Skybird]

After all what I read I decided to wait a while and see what modders can do to the game mechanisms. While I played Red Storm Rising in and out back in those days, it were those days and not the present days - despite the graphics I wonder about the longevity of the game.

If the simulation elements get increased, I might get aboard. But it needs to become more simulation-style before I consider that.

[ikalugin]

When compared to the DW this is the "planesman sim" vs "sonar and TMA sim", as unlike in DW you do not work the sonar and TMA as much but instead of setting desired heading/speed/depth you have to manually play with the rudder, etc.

Cold Waters is neither a sonalyst sim, a radiomen sim nor fire control technician sim.

Correct, it is a planesman sim.

[StandingCow]

Cold Waters really seemed to find a happy median between a hardcore nuclear sub simulation and an arcade sub game. The controls are pretty simplistic but the gameplay is anything but. If you make a mistake and are detected you better be ready for what's coming for you.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by lesrae

Pros & Cons? I for one like the hands-on approach to driving the boat but would like to hear confirmation/information from the sonar station etc. rather than have to catch text pop up for a few seconds out of the corner of my eye.

Agreed. Crew voice notifs will make this a lot better. Stay tuned for further details.

[StandingCow]

I really hope this sells well, not just for the future of the franchise but for Multiplayer in this version, as well as the ability to play the Russian side. Be nice to have some PvP.

[Hitman]

It seems a promising start with lots of potential. I don't blame the devs/producer for releasing a half-sim or a half-tactical game (depends on what you look at) but think instead it was a clever way to get started. We know the devs follow subsim, so I guess feedback here can see the game expanding in the future to those areas of pure simulation many people (Myself included) miss, like direct control of some stations. If it keeps getting support and sales, this could be further developed into satisfying all kind of public -or even the same person depending on his mood to play dirctly or from tactical POV.

[Foxendown]

I've spent about 2 hours or so with this sim now and overall am very pleased with it. Some random points, including things I'd like to see fixed:

• I really don't like not knowing how much water is under my keel, have I missed something, can't see a keystroke?
• I would like to be able to set an exact speed in knots (but can't complain really because Atlantic fleet was the same).
• Graphics are good but for some reason on my system they look duller and flatter than in Atlantic Fleet (but I haven't tried tweaking settings yet).
• Minimum requirements are wonderfully low, which means I ought to be able to play this on my Lynx 10 tablet.
• I wish there was a Navigation tab as I find it easy to get confused with all the keystrokes. I've already broached by accident trying to go the other way and turned in the wrong direction. I've solved the problem by programming a gamepad now which works fine.
• Being really petty now I know-but the briefings and other text needs proof reading again for typos and in the campaign screen the land force icon looks like a BMP-3 not in service till 1987 and even more wrong for NATO. Armour experts please correct me if I'm wrong!
• Where is the level editor that was mentioned on the Steam Store page (reference now removed)?
• I liked the tutorials and the help screen is a good feature but IMHO tutorials should always include some relatively easy scenarios in which you are under fire. As it is all you have are sitting ducks. Otherwise the single missions and campaigns can seem like a cliff wall to less experienced players.

So far, based on early impressions, I think Killerfish are to be congratulated on a great product, I do hope that now they will focus on enhancing this rather then heading off to something new. I would certainly go for a "Blue Storm Rising" add-on (one Soviet sub versus the might of NATO)

[Stardog765]

Thank you all for all of the great reviews on this.
I am still deciding myself but will likely go ahead and pick it up as I REALLY want to support these guys and the future of what this game could be.

I was not looking for DW out of the gate but my hopes are that this might be a mod friendly starting platform for an eventual DW level game.

Knowing that his community is so supportive of it out of the gate and positive about what could be really helps me make my decision.


Thanks

[xXNightEagleXx]

Originally Posted by Stardog765

Thank you all for all of the great reviews on this.
I am still deciding myself but will likely go ahead and pick it up as I REALLY want to support these guys and the future of what this game could be.

I was not looking for DW out of the gate but my hopes are that this might be a mod friendly starting platform for an eventual DW level game.

Knowing that his community is so supportive of it out of the gate and positive about what could be really helps me make my decision.


Thanks

One of the reason that i bought it and did not filed for a refund is because i want to support this guys. I mean the game has some flaws and some concept design that does not reflects 100% what i'm looking for but .... sub games itself is a niche product, either arcade or sim, so to attract others devs or even a high profile publisher (talking to you Ubisoft) the only thing that we can do is to show that there is a market here, tiny, but there is. Only by attracting others dev we might aspire to have a real Silent Hunter successor someday.