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Back to the Pacific

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 28 / 30
Date: April 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Silent Hunter 4 is the latest incarnation of the World War 2 submarine simulation series. The first two took place in the Pacific Theather and the following two in the Atlantic. The devlopers decided in 4 to return to the PTO.

To in unitiated, this is a simulation. It is not Call of Duty. There are no power-ups, but there are huge explosions at times. Very very good explosions. The level of simulation is scalable, with the largest difficulty being either the use, or non-use, of the TDC, or torpedo data computer. With this feature turned on, the player must input data concerning targets such as speed, angle on the bow, and bearing into the TDC before launching a torpedo, with it off, the weapons officer will do this for you.

The game can be a bit processor hungry, however, the graphics are scaleable for different setups. I run a 3.4 P4 and a 7800 GTX with all settings to max, and the game is stable and runs well. The need is because of the stunning graphics of this simulator, not only the explosions, but the level of detail from your ship's crew and Japanese targets. The water detail is very good, as are the wakes from any vessel.

Different boats are simulated in this game, from the S Class to the Balao boats. They are modeled very well, with all their different characteristics controlling your approach and attack tactics.

The game over the last few weeks has had a few CTDs, but only a few, probably around five. These are annoying, but not a terribly larger number than I have had with any number of new games.

Patch 1.1 cleared up some of these bugs. Others remain, such as a stopwatch feature that is supposed to help figure the speed of targets out. What is reassuring to a potential gamer is that UBI and the development team has shown itself committed to fixing these problems and being engaged with the community.

Finally, to fit different gamers, a large modding community exists for this simulation already. Largely built around individuals who created a whole raft of Mods for the venerable Silent Hunter 3 and located in the forums at www.subsim.com, tweaks are already being created to help Silent Hunter 4 meet the desires of the subsim community.

Pick up this title if you have not already. That and read Richard O'Kane's books for the immersion factor.

A Great Game! And I am not a Sim Person!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: March 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Silent Hunter 4 Review

Great Game! And I'm not a sim-type person!

I just got my SH4 two weeks ago - and I have been playing every minute I can since then. I am not a Sim type person. However, I am totally hooked on SH4. I always wavered on SH3 because it seemed just too sim for me - mainly, the crew management!

In SH4 the crew manages themselves for the most part, which I really like. I still have to move them off the deck guns when I compress time or else they get injured or even die. I have to remember to reclick the BATTLESTATIONS button when a crisis is over or the crew will become seriously fatigued. And I have to remember to reclick the SILENT RUNNING button for the crew to return to repair work and/or loading torpedoes or else things stay broken and the fish don't get reloaded.

The compression time is now much faster so I travel great distances within minutes instead of hours. I have to make sure that my speed is set to standard or less when I compress time - otherwise my sub gets damaged somehow. I can choose to switch off many of the sim features which would bore someone like me, who is not interested in all the nuts and bolts of the ship. Most of the control buttons are easy to locate: S for surface, C for crash dive, D for dive, etc.

I can choose unlimited fuel, Batteries, compressed air, and 11 other more sub-friendly choices which make the game less taxing for one like me. However, with oxygen, even if the realism box is unclicked still needs to be monitor - the clock helps a lot as I can stay underwater only 3 hours before I MUST resurface - otherwise the crew dies! I was also hoping for unlimited torpedoes and gun ammo or at least the ability to reload & refit my sub from friendly sub tenders located in my mission area (so I don't have to travel all the way back to the base) - but no go for now.

I have learned how to aim the torpedoes. The red, yellow and green indicator arrows over the targets indicate the chances of hitting your target: Green =best; yellow = maybe; red = no good. The closer you are to 0 degrees for a forward shot the better and the closer you are to 180 degrees for an aft shot the better.

I had a lot of fun and excitement playing the Sub School. I'm on my first career game (off the coast of Japan) and I played the Midway Quick Mission twice. The first time I learned the hard way how not to attack a Jap Task Force - both periscopes were damaged and I wasted a number of my LIMITED precious torpedoes. The second game was great. I sunk three military ships and played a cat and mouse game with a destroyer for about 30 minutes. I went deep and ran in silent mode and went dead still and then I would move at flank speed when his propellers were facing me as he could not pick me up on sonar then. It was quite thrilling. He was dropping depth charges - but in the wrong places! He was guarding a cripple destroyer which I wanted to finish off. I had one forward fish and one aft torpedo. I had no chance to surface and sink him with this determined destroyer so close - he was too fast for me and looking for me in a mean way! In the Sub School (which I love and one can replay over and over) during the torpedo practice I was able to take out two smaller type Jap gun boats with my deck gun - but this destroyer was too big and fast for that! I kept moving away at flank speed every time his sonar couldn't detect me and it worked. Eventually he left, and with one aft fish I finished off the crippled destroyer and moved on.

I have a 37" TV screen, Nividia XFX 7600GT 256 Graphics Card, 1 Gig Memory, AMD Athlon 64 3100+ with a DVD-ROM drive. I have the graphics set for low and it looks great to me. I downloaded the patch v1.1 before I played the game and so far I've avoided a number of problems that others have encountered.

The manual could have explained much, much more! And yes, it does freeze up from time to time but it has always gotten out of it by itself after a few seconds or so or after I push the ESCAPE key and then click RESUME, yet within 14 days I have had only 4 crashes. The game has some glitches for sure but it is still fun to play, and patch #2 is on the way which should address most of the problems. There are also many dedicated players who will be putting out trainers, mods, and cheats to make this game even better in the near future.

The number of Jap planes attacking me when surfaced was getting annoying; however, a cheat/mod available now lets you reduce the number of enemy planes and their range. I also make it a point to save the mission just before action takes place and also after I make a great kill. That way if the game crashes or I make a BIG mistake and get sunk - I have it saved at the pre-disaster or post-killing point.

This game is really like an underwater chess game. You have to carefully weigh many pros and cons while engaging a really wily enemy, choosing when to fight and when to run! The dynamic mission generator makes sure that no two missions are the same which gives it such lasting appeal for replaying. It takes hours to play but the excitement is great. You can see the ships sink under the water in a movie-like appearance. I recommend this wonderful this game even to newbies like me. You will be sinking Jap ships in no time!

Best Game of the Year (hands down)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: March 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Run (don't walk) out and buy it right now. The graphics look so real you won't believe your eyes. The ocean, the ships, the explosions, the fires. The enemy destroyers are smarter than SH3 and I have a hard time popping up to shoot 1 or 2 torpedoes before they get me. They have a Patch out that fixes all the issues that some poeple may be having but mine works great right out of the box. Maybe cause I have a good machine with NVidia SLI Video Cards. Well I am off to sink the Yamamoto (or at least try to). Dam Torpedoes!

Silent Hunter 4 Wolves of the Pacific

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: March 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you enjoyed Silent Hunter 3 then buy this one as long as you have a fast processor. I'm running it on AMD 4400 / 7300 Nivdia Card. I can only run the graphics at "Medium".

Everything that was missing in SH3 is here. Mines, Ships in Harbors, radio traffic, life boats, people on the various ships move around, and even some history of the campaign as you go along.

Very impressed

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: May 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

For those of you who are willing to put the time into learning a game (meaning hours) in order to get better at it and truly feel a sense of accomplishment out of it, then this is your game. With the recent patches that have come out for Silent Hunter IV, there are no bugs that I've noticed at all.

Simply put, this game is beautiful with some of the best ocean/water/reflective graphics ever. When something is just a few feet underwater and you're looking at it from above the surface, it looks like the real frickin' thing. Ships blow up and sink REAL good in this game too. What's creepy but fun is watching the ship you sunk, sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean (where it's pretty dark). The view underwater is incredible too beams of light coming from the surface and seaweed along the bottom.

The gameplay is incredible once you get the hang of it, like I said it takes time. You can adjust the realism features (oxygen, fuel, etc.) in order to make it more rookie-friendly. Unfortunately the tutorial/training mode is very lacking, it doesn't really explain anything to you like it should because there's a LOT of little quirks that you have to read about to understand. [...]
Avoid if you're looking for something fast-paced and action-oriented all the time. Buy it now if you love accurate simulations of WW2 subs.

Great game! Fantastic graphics!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: April 25, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game has the best detailed graphics I have ever seem on a simulator game period, and I have seen a lot of them....especially the water,....my only problem with the game is that the boats in the japanese ports are few and they all seem to be the same type of boats, no matter what port you go to.....if they could come up with a patch that could place more boats of diverse types in and around the ports, I would have absoloutly no complaints with this game.

The best of its type.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: September 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

It you like real time strategy games and have the patience to get through a relatively long learning curve then this is your game. Just be sure to make sure you have lots of power. The minimum video card I recommend for this game is a GForce 256K. Anthing less and you will find a jumpy screen and inevitable disappointment.

I spent 8 years in the submarine service and still enjoy the feeling I get from playing this game. I have a relatively large screen and it is easy to lose myself at times when the action gets hot. Very realistic. Of course there are lots of details that aren't available, but that has to be expected. Maybe in the future.....

Good hunting!!

Wolves

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A great game, once the patches are installed, but, visually stunning. If you like War, and Sims, and fire, and explosions.....this game is for you! I love it despite the bugs initially, and system requirements are steep.

Tucky

The best once patched to 1.3

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: November 21, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I have played them all from Microprose Silent Service through all the Silent Hunters and this is easily the best. Make sure you have the patch and a rig that is about 3.0mghz with a high end video card that is no older than two years old. The view cameras, action, AI are amazing. Unlike many Silent Hunters this has a free-form type of campaign that is not scenario driven and allows you freedom to continue or return to port at will. Probably the best graphical warsim I have ever seen, you can even pick out crew on opposing ships with your binoculors with facial features. You can use the cam to watch the ships sink, they have holes in their sides, gun shots will topple the big smoke stacks on ships. Wow.

Some in-game moments seem straight out of an action film...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 86 / 88
Date: March 23, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game was extremely buggy out of the box. Stretched textures, strange inconsistencies (metric system used in manual/imperial system in game), and other horror stories you may have heard of.

Yesterday (2 days post release) a 116mb patch was released which fixed and offered workarounds to these and many other issues.

While I understand the reality of modern software development, and that most publishers offer release day patches to finish the game after it has gone gold and shipped - I still find it in poor form.

That being said - I played for a few hours last night and had a blast.

First of all - this is a simulation. However it is not as hardcore as say Falcon 4.0 - but it can be. The best thing the developers did in my opinion was offer a sliding realism factor, whether you want to actually use the in-game ruler/protractor/compass to plot your course or develop firing solutions for your torpedoes manually - or let the AI do all the math - you can do it however you like. Don't want to worry about CO2 levels, Oxygen, Fuel, Battery Life? You can make it a bit easier. Thankfully there is a time dilation feature. You can play in REAL-TIME days of game time on a single patrol - or you can speed up to 2x, 4x, 8x, all the way up to 5000+x depending on how much you want to miss. Spending hours of staring at the water might suit some - but not most I would wager.

There is nothing arcade about the game. Plotting your approach, sending crew to battle stations, etc. - all of this is relevant to your attack. You can't just aim/target/fire like in some games. You have to line up and give the AI (or yourself) time to calculate the firing solution. Nothing is quite so satisfying after such hassle than the beauty of an explosion and a burning ship gradually going tail up in the water as it sinks below the depths - sailors crying out and flapping around in the water.

There are lots of small details like that paid attention to. Last night - I had my AA gun firing on a Japanese plane that was coming in on a bombing run to hit my Sub. A lucky shot blew the plane's engine and the entire thing burst into flames, I watched as crew bailed out the back of the plane in parachutes and the plane spun out of control - crashing not very far from the starboard side of my sub. I had to remind myself to exhale.

Visuals in this game are beautiful. The character models are average by today's standards - but ship/water/explosions/etc. are top of the line from what I've seen in games.

Dynamic mission generation is another plus:

I carried out a short patrol from Pearl Harbor to the mainland of Japan on a spying mission to take photographs of the harbor there. I encountered Japanese recon planes as I got closer to the mainland - and the closer I got the more determined the patrols became until I had to dive in order to avoid the bombs being dropped. Sonar detected a Destroyer which I stalked and sank - then continued into the sea of Japan. Ultimately the shallow waters led to my downfall as Destroyers started circling my position and I ended up running into one maneuvering.

My career ended on the bottom of the ocean along with an unlucky Japanese ship.

Sea birds circle your conning tower when on the surface, and sea weed floats around the ship in the water as well. All the little details seem to be noticed by the developer.

If you played SH3 - I can recommend this as a follow up that feels very similar albeit in a different setting. New features and updated graphics are only a good thing from the already beautiful Silent Hunter 3. The immersion of the Radio traffic is a big plus also to remind you of the setting. You are notified in real-time of convoy locations, war news (Germany and Italy declaring war), and invasions of islands.

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