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Not Much Fun, Shipmate

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 8
Date: December 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The graphics are nice if you have a good machine and the sound is pretty good as well. I had few problems with buggyness and found the operation to be reasonably sound.

Unfortunately, the game is not very playable. The movement controls are VERY tempermental, the vessels speeds are 2; crawl and stop (which even for WWII era vessels was painfully unreal). There was no semblance of chart navagation and the tactical plot was very limited, thus making situational awareness limited. There really should have been a dedicated CIC/tactical command screen instead of a window with a crappy RADAR/SONAR slave repeater which you could only see on the flying bridge. Updates on enemy VSL/ACFT sightings or electronic/accoustic contacts were infrequent even when you happened to notice them yourself (and you wouldn't know you had reports if you were not on the right screen). As a naval simulator, there were no action command confirmation to orders, either voice or bells, and the general alarm sounds randomly.

Even in the easy mode, battle damage is heavily weighed against you (you can pound a U-boat for 20 minutes with a deck gun and dump every depth charge and hedge hog in your magazine on target and they kill you with a couple shells and a ramming). Enemy AI is ok, but dont count on your AI crew to be marksmen or coordinated. Exact win parameters for each mission are an "Enigma" and the sense that you have to single handedly defeat entire fleets (which you'll never have enough ammo to do) is absurd. The alternate history timeline is curious but an unnecessary distraction and the lackof an itermitant time elapse can make some portions of play increadibly boring.

Watching the detailed ships maneuvering while engaging the enemy in various weather conditions is pretty neat, but this game leaves much potential for making the genre even more realistic (full wakes, white caps, breaking spray, oil slicks, better water explosions/destuction of ships... maybe even a Damage Control option...). This game could have been much more than what was delivered had it gone a little farther in realism, controls, layout, AI, scenarios, and minor effects. I do not recommend this game for naval sim enthusiasts, and I think novices will be frustrated as well.

Buggy, CTD problems

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: September 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you want to buy this make double-sure you have the exact hardware needed to play this as I have a 'decent' machine to play this on and I continuously had problems. I did manage to finally start a patrol after several attempts and game crashes and all the graphics were just grey rectangles. The squared and seemingly huge pixel rain that seems to be constantly filling the screen was a bit annoying. There were other windows related problems after I installed the game. Cut scenes did look nice. The concept looks great but fails in execution.

This game is a major disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: April 11, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the worst games I have played recently. It is not as good as the 1986 'Silent Service' classic in anything except graphics.

The chief failings are:
- Speed of ship/sub. To turn 360 degrees in the submarine takes several minutes. Whatever the realism, this is no fun in a game.
- Lack of charts. It's just a big ocean out there. You can't force subs into shallow water etc.
- Damage / AI is against you even in easy mode. Surface near an enemy, switch to external view, and they'll start to land rounds on you in seconds.
- Lack of decent tactial map. Even though there's two sizes of the tactical map, neither it easy to use. What about the 'wake' which shows you which way a ship is headed?
- Display screens are not thought out that well. For instance, in the sub, you are constantly switching between the targeting scope and tactical map. The targeting scope doesn't show depth info. Also when switching back to the targeting scope you have to keep waiting for it to raise, even though you never lowered it.
- Missions are too hard. Typically you are sent to sink most of a convoy on your own. I knew I was in trouble when it took me 5 attempts to get past the first training mission (how many depth charges does it take to sink that sub?).
- Crew AI. The crew is stupid. Tell them to man the guns and sometimes they'll waste all the ammo in less than a minute.
- General 'completeness' of game. It doesn't seem finished - some effects are bogus (e.g. if you dive too deep in the sub).
- Lack of realism options.

In summary, not a good choice. I'd recommend 'Silent Hunter' as an alternative.

A Waste of Time / A Waste of Money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: June 13, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Oh My God did I waste $40 on this so called game. Go around blow up ships and shoot down planes and if your lucky you will blow up a submarine. Every map is the same, every mission is the same. Shoot ships, shoot plane, depth charge submarines you can't see. Only semi-cool thing is the voice activated commands, but that gets boring quickly becasue you say the same things over and over and over and they don't even have sound bytes to say "Aye, Aye Sir"; they use text. I bought it becasue I thought there would be more FPS and I would also get to be in the planes. Boats and subs thats all you command. ZZZZzzzz! Save your money. For $40 I expected sound bytes explaining the missions too. But why should they when they are all the same. No story line, what a sleeper. Obviously with 7 companies envolved making this 1 of them would have done something right. I never should have left CS and BHD.

Great graphics and ... not much else.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: June 18, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Do not waste your money on this game! The graphics are the only thing positive I have to say about it.

They should call this game Mission Impossible. No matter what difficulty setting you have it's impossible to finish a non-training mission. If you use a ship the planes will quickly get you. If you are able to get a hit on an enemy ship the planes will finish you off before you can sink it. It happens ever time - no matter the settings, the ship, or the mission your on. If your a sub it's impossible to torpedo anything with out getting blown out of the water by destroyers. Forget about surfacing to fight, the planes and destroyer deck guns will finish you off faster than you can say I want my money back.

Couldnt Play the Game

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: February 04, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Needing a patch to install the game infuriated me. Finally installed , I found that the CD key was invalid. Great- Garbage!
What ever happened to quality control?
Try again Dreamcatcher.

Not enough to it

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 10
Date: September 10, 2003
Author: Amazon User

The sea looks nice, but there is just not enough depth to the game play to justify the purchase, I feel. There is a promise of multiplayer "on the horizon", but the fact that each player is on a separate ship and the action occurs at such close range would seem to indicate that involved teamwork will be difficult.

While simple is good, there is no mechanism to aim torpedos other than to guess. Accurate fire is not so important anyhow, as when a torpedo is fired at you the game itself betrays the threat by a klaxon sound. This means only a spread of torpedos is likely to produce results as your target is always alert and maneuvering violently.

Likewise, gunnery is fun but too challenging to be something you'd want to take care of -- so the answer will be to leave it to the AI. This would be okay, perhaps if the game permitted more than one player per ship so that some could fire the guns while others kept their heads up to keep the overall situation in mind.

Enigma is a fun diversion, and might get more interesting over time if they add more ships to it, but after 2 hours of play I feel I've exhausted the fun.

Great graphics, but needs a lot of improvement

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: March 01, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I really really tried to like this game. I really did. I played it steadily for two weeks. I have played all the major subsims. This one, to its credit, has the best graphics of any to date. Enigma has loads of potential, but unfortunately, this game lacks a coherent well planned out "gaming" mode. This lack of coherence and high difficulty level left me feeling more frustrated than happy. I was eventually turned off because I continuously lost the campaign missions, no matter what I tried or what I accomplished. Although it is advertised as the "most realistic naval combat simulator ever created", it is clearly not. It is more like a very difficult arcade game where one must frantically bob, weave, dive, and shoot at scads of enemies. Often, one is outnumbered by dozens of enemy ships and 95% of the time, my ship was destroyed by unrelenting powerful swarms of enemy ships. The campaign missions are very difficult and often illogical. Often when I won campaign missions, I was at a loss to understand why. The goals of the individual missions are not spelled out clearly. Perhaps this is due to the "fog of war", but on the other hand, consider the following, as one example among many: On sub mission 9, playing a US sub, my orders were to sink oilers. The sub is confronted by a whole fleet of destroyers. I played this mission over and over again, invariably sinking oilers but then getting killed by one of of the enemy destroyers. Finally, after more than three dozen attempts, the game informed me of "victory", yet in this run, I had not sunk a single oiler...I just don't understand what the game wants from me. Again, the graphics are great, it can be a lot of fun to play, but someone needs to sit down and seriously tailor the game so that it presents a sensible challenge to the gamer, with clearly defined objectives and a reasonable chance of success with the missions. As it now stands, Enigma is more frustrating than fun. There's some good stuff here... I do enjoy it to a certain extent, but the overall game needs work.

A detailed arcade game, and worth the 50 cents

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: July 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is an arcade simulation of small ships (destroyer variations and submarines) shooting at airplanes, ships and submarines. The graphics and animation are the only things up to date, the rest of the game is unfinished.
The airplanes attack like swarms of flies. The ocean is endless, there is no land. There is no time compression. There are no other sailors talking in your ear, conveying information and excitment.
There are no strategic goals other than killing, survival and an annoying timer.
I can't get the microphone thing working on XPHome. Why is it my problem to find out the reason?
The weather is sunny or cloudy. The waves are small with no swells. There is no game map, only radar.

When will we get a navy simulation that is finished?

I Recommend: Aces High from HighTechCreations.com

Nice blend of Action and Realism

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: December 18, 2003
Author: Amazon User

If you are a hardcore simulation fan, this may not be the title for you. If you like the idea of commanding your own ship with a resonably competent crew, then you will enjoy this. It can be difficult at times to understand the tactics necessary to win a mission, and this can be frustrating, but the action is truly stressful.

Controls are easy to understand and you don't have to understand naval navigation or the nuances of running a ship, you give your commands to the crew via a well laid out hud - the same basic hud for all ships - and if you like you can man the guns yourself.

It does require a well configured machine. I run it on a PIII 800 with 256mb Ram and an ATI Radeon 7500. It was finicky at first, but once all the video and audio drivers were updated I haven't had a single problem. Serious gamers already understand the importance of keeping the drivers updated.

The voice recognition works (with the right settings) and the game is really a unique blend of realism and action. If you aren't sure you'll like it, download a demo first.

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