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Unseaworthy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 28 / 30
Date: March 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Ah...the WWII U-Boat; it instantly conjures up memories of classic movies such as Das Boot. Imagine the terror of a depth charge attack, the thrill of a successful torpedo attack, and the repugnant stench of forty-four sweating sailors stuck inside a steel cylinder no wider than a city bus...

Well there's none of that here. If Ultimation and Ubi Soft were aiming to create a highly realistic and enjoyable simulation of WWII submarine warfare, they missed. If they intended to create a poorly-coded, antiquated and historically inaccurate pile of unstable hacks, then congratulations. Without a doubt, this was one of the most disappointing games I have ever played, with glaring faults and bugs that should have easily caught by QA.

The graphics are mediocre at best, a fact made worse by SH2's maximum resolution of 800x600. Remember the famous storm scene in Das Boot? Well, in SH2, there are two types of weather: sunny and cloudy. There is no rain, no sleet, no spray in your face, nothing. To SH2's credit, the ship and aircraft models are nicely done, but the pyrotechnical effects are severely underwhelming. While the ship's control stations look decent, there is no control view room. Admitedly this is a quibbling point, but a control room would have made you feel as if you were inside a real U-boat, not just gazing at static displays.

Which wouldn't be so bad if those stations were actually USEFUL. Everything, navigation, rangefinding, attacking, it can all be done from the map view. This is rarely, if ever, any reason to visit the other stations. Particularly useless is the sound station, in which the game automatically marks down contacts, their bearing, and the type of vessel, so all you get to down is simply turn the dial and listen to the sounds of their engines. Speaking of sound, the game's audio is severely lacking. When I hit an oil tanker with a torpedo, I want it to sound as if I am bringing about the end of humanity itself, not a tinny, stock "boom" that I have heard in countless games before.

I have never captained a naval vessel in my life, but I am sure such a vocation includes concepts like "do not run into other ships" and "do not run into ground." Unfortunately, the AI of Silent Hunter 2 seems to have not taken notice of these basic martime rules. In one mission, I was tasked with sinking two British battlecruisers, so I quietly slid into their midst and unleased all my torpedoes against the lead battlecruiser. Shortly afterwards, the trailing battlecruisers gleefully rammed into the flaming hulk of the first battlecruiser, allowing me to pick it off with ease. The nearby destroyers would have been a threat to me had they NOT ALSO RAMMED EACH OTHER AND SUNK coming to attack me! Another time I avoided the H.M.S Ark Royal's destroyer escorts when they ran themselves aground on nearby islands. To add insult to injury, the beached vessels were sticking out of the ground at a 90 degree angle like giant lawn darts. While the AI can be monumentally stupid, it can also pinpoint your exact location 100 meters under the water WITHOUT THE AID OF SONAR and drop depth charges upon your hapless submarine with unerring accuracy.

With the possible exception of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, this has to be one of the most poorly coded simulations I have experienced. While I was successful in running the game under Windows XP, I could rarely complete a mission without a crash to desktop. Other bugs are numerous; sometimes I would lay one waypoint on the map, and the game would lay down 100 waypoints right on top of each other. The pitch of the engines would often remain unchanged, even when I increased speed to flank from a near crawl. It is impossible to play through SH2 without wondering if the developers flunked all their computer science classes. For example, for reasons beyond my explanation, Silent Hunter 2 and vehicle viewer are two seperate programs, so to keep the user from (heaven forbid!) seeing his desktop when switching between the programs, the game actually has a "SH2 Screen Blanker" to blank your screen! Such inexplicable programming practices points to a lack of experience on the developer's part.

Even if the game were eventually patched up, I still could not recommend this game. Don't let the current dearth of submarine simulations part you from your hard-earned money. Go play a real WWII submarine sim, like the original Silent Hunter or Aces of the Deep.

I couldn't buy it.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 41
Date: August 29, 2001
Author: Amazon User

The game may be great but, for what it's worth, although I was a fan of GATO, that old DOS sub game, I couldn't buy a game in which I torpedo American and British shipping. I just couldn't do it. There may be others like me who will wait for a realistic American based sub game, even against an imaginary enemy.

Bad Taste

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 64
Date: September 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

There is a limited market for this type of thing - and I do not want to be part of it. I enjoy submarine simulations, however I do not want to hunt down and destroy friendly forces. I will buy other products that at least try to conform to traditional values. It is hard enough these days to instill a sense of tradition and fair-play in our youth. Software games should try to reinforce good values, traditions and taste.

A Huge Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: December 12, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Like many of you subsim-lovers, I have also been anxiously waiting for this game for years. What a huge disappointment!!! Except the quality of the static graphics (which should be expected after so many years), nothing is new and nothing is above the old subsim of similar subject (i.e., Aces of the deep or Command: aces of the deep), but those are the games of 5 years ago. I returned my copy the same very day. Let's just be patient and wait for another 2 years for a better game of same subject to appear.

Too Many Bugs

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: December 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game has some real promise but currently seems to have more bugs than a bee hive. I purchased a copy through Amazon.com and, after waiting several months for the game to be completed, was really excited about playing it. I have been toying with it for about 2 weeks now and simply cannot get it to work. I even purchased a new video card to give the game a better chance, but it still hangs up and malfunctions at almost every sitting. I have a 64meg video card, 256 megs of system memory, and a 500 mhz CPU and am not able to get the game to function properly. Although what I have been able to see of the game makes me really want it to work, I am sorry I purchased it in the first place. My best advice would be to wait until UBI Soft works out all the many kinks in this game before you buy it.

Lots of fun until it crashes

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: February 22, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I like this game a lot, but I quit playing. The hardest part of completing a mission is making it through without it crashing. I finally hit my frustration point and put it away for good.

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs and ahistorical.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 13
Date: March 31, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have an open mind about naval simulations. This sim is one of the most disappointing sims I've ever played. If you like sims with lots of bugs and don't resemble the history they are supposed to portray than by all means waste your money...

a little buggy

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I have this "new" game sitting in the closet, hoping patches will some day appear to take care of the bugs. It does not run well with XP either. UBI tech support said this game isn't designed to run on XP. Now, I would think with all the delays it would be bug free and run on all the MS platforms.

If you want to be frustrated and start the game over and over again then buy it. The "new" Destroyer Command that just came out to go with SH2 is probably the same config. Check the UBI websight and read about the SH2 problems if you want more information.

Utter Disappointment

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I should have heeded the warnings of others that I had thought were too pickey in their judgements of SILENT HUNTER II. Boy, have I regretted my purchase. I really tried to get something out of this PC game and I really tried to enjoy it, but after about four weeks of trying to deceive myself and admit that it was a "stinker", I uninstalled this poorly-executed example of a WW II Submarine Simulation. Also, I am not a "hard-core" gamer, just wanted to play "submarine" and have some kind of enjoyable experience. Not the case! A complete waste of money! Not much talent or technology went into this one!

Too good to be true

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: March 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Yes, we all know that it doesn't work with XP, but I don't think it would be worth the [money] even if it did work. I can't believe the graphics........can you say "let's go back to 1997?" I played and thouroughly enjoyed "Jane's 688I Hunter/Killer" and I think that Jane's graphics are better! Not what I expect for paying [good money]......besides the fact that it doesn't even work on my machine...

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