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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.

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.

Great game but released unfinished!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 21 / 22
Date: May 19, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This will probably be a great game after it is properly patched. They have only released patch 1.2 as I write this and unfortunately, there are still major issues to be corrected. I am a huge fan of Silent Hunter III (that is a 5 star game, by the way).
So, the game as it is now, is not great. If you buy it now, you will join me as an unwanted beta playtester for Ubisoft that should have waited and released the game when it was READY!
If they continue releasing patches and fix all the issues, this will probably be a 5 star game at some point in the future.
It is a real shame, really, I would like to have been writing a great review for this game...

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!

Does not work

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 17 / 20
Date: June 02, 2007
Author: Amazon User

For background I have played all the Silent Hunter gamers from early DOS SS! To the new Wolves of the Pacific. The NEW Wolves of the Pacific is the worst I have played. Buttons don't work, short keys have been changed and it crashes big time. Silent Hunter 3 (MS Flight simulator) does not crash in the same PC. FYI my systems is a P4 3.0 gigahertz with ATI Radon 9800 Pro 128mb with 2 gigs of 3200 ram.

I have also noted 2 current upgrades for a game that has only been out for a few weeks. The graphics are very good with a lot of detail that is not really needed. I would rather have a robust game like SH III that runs and functions. I would not recommend this game for at least several months to see if UBI get all the bugs fixed. They should have stayed with the same game engine and configuration as SH (which works) instead of adding way to many little things that make the game unplayable. It is Sad that SH 3 works fine but Wolves of the Pacific crashes big time on the same PC.

Good game hobbled by poor management

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 11
Date: May 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game would be fun to play if it hadn't been rushed out the door like it was. Even after two patches, critical issues remain with the AI, the chronometer does not work as advertised, radar and sonar do not work properly, and the measurement system does not work properly when using imperial units. To top it off, due to poor past decisions made by Ubisoft, we are stuck with inappropriate Allied aircraft (Lancasters in the Pacific? LOL), only one fleet carrier for the USN (and an early-war one at that) and medals that are totally fantasy. Had this game been published by anyone else and given proper time to develop, these problems wouldn't exist. As is stands, Silent Hunter 4 1.2 is a good game but still hindered by bugs and omissions that shouldn't have been there to start with.

Disappointment turns into amazement

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: January 06, 2008
Author: Amazon User

A big fan of Sub Hunter III, I was very excited to see what improvements were implemented in SH IV. My first impressions were, "What on earth have they done to this game?"
I was disappointed by slow load times, a very different user interface from SH 3, but most disappointing was the graphics. SH 3 had fluid, beautiful graphics on my relatively modern computer, but SH IV crawled, and I mean REALLY CRAWLED. I started my patrol in Pearl Harbor, and that was probably part of my mistake, as I was getting framerates of about 4 FPS. What was worse is that the graphics actually looked "ugly" compared to SH 3.
If I could have returned the software, I might have done so right then, but instead, I did some research online and found the latest game patch from Ubisoft as well as advice from other submarine simulation fans. I was able to tweak the game to get 20 FPS out of my computer, and this was with some pretty astonishing graphics.
It wasn't until my new video card arrived, an NVidia 8600 GT, that I was ready to write this review. The video card made all the difference for me, and now instead of 12 to 20 fps, I'm getting 60 fps, with occasional drops down to 30 fps. It only drops less than this during intense battles, but during normal game play, those battles are rare.
Now, on to the game. It's really more of a simulator, so if you prefer fast action and somewhat mindless game-play, this game is NOT for you. This is a chess-player's game, in that it's all about tactics and strategy, positioning yourself without getting detected, firing your torpedoes and living to tell about it. If you want to get the feel of how it was to serve in the Pacific submarine fleet during WWII, then this is definitely the game for you.
In a game like this, immersion is everything. The feeling of being there, in command of a Navy vessel of war, that's what it's all about. This game does an amazing job at this, with a little help. Let me explain - much like other simulation games, SH IV is designed to be modded. There is a community of people who spend countless hours of their own time working to make SH IV better than it is out of the box. If you are interested in this game, head over to www.subsim.com to learn about all the various mods that can be added to the game to make it even more realistic. For example, one of the mods is a free-float camera mod, that allows the player to walk around to parts of the command room that they normally could only view from a distance. I've also used this camera to walk the decks of other surface ships. In fact, this unconventional use of the game is quite addictive! There's nothing quite like being on the bridge of a battleship slugging it out with an enemy fleet!
One of the things I discovered using this free cam mod is the detail put into the 3D models. The command room, where you spend much of your time, is modeled down to individual bolts. I'm talking detailed, 3D bolts - not just textures. The detail is breath-taking, especially since you would not be able to see it all with the stock game mode (which just allows to turn but not walk through the room). The problem is, once one sees all this detail, one will want to explore the rest of the sub. Unfortunately, that is not possible. The conning tower and the command room are the only rooms available to visit. How I would love to visit the engine room or the torpedo room!
The crew is also modeled very well. They are close enough to life-like to be almost "spooky" looking, especially their eyes, which are always fixed on you. They'll acknowledge orders and manipulate the controls. They even tighten down bolts when the sub takes damage.
I'm also amazed at the detail of the surface ships. These are normally viewed from a distance through periscope or binoculars, yet using the free float camera mod to walk on the decks is quite a pleasure. The detail doesn't compare to the sub itself, but it's still amazing what is rendered. People walk the decks, all guns, radar, depth charges, etc. are functional and moving on the warships, and ships accurately show damage, including large holes exposing flooded compartments that are blown into the ships by your torpedoes.
However, the most impressive part is the water. With a graphics card that can handle the higher settings, the water looks more realistic than computer-generated water on many TV shows. In fact, there are times, looking out from the bridge of your sub, that you can almost smell the salt water in the air. That's not to say it is perfect, because water is tremendously difficult to render accurately by computer, but I have never seen a game do as good as a job as SH IV with water.
Land, on the other hand, can ruin the immersion if you get too close. Cartoonish trees, for example, spoil the realism. The navy bases are nicely rendered, yet for some reason the lack something that was present in SH 3. I can't place my finger on it, but even with the better graphics, SH 3 gave a more real impression of pulling into a real port than what I've felt playing SH 4. Since most of your time is spent out in the open ocean and away from port, this is of little matter, and I'm sure the subsim community will someday soon create a mod to replace those glow-in-the-dark fake looking trees with something more realistic.
Having not been in WWII in a Navy submarine, I can't comment on how realistic the simulation is regarding WWII submarine combat, but from the books I've read and reviews of others, it's about as close as you can get, at least in the games available in this genre. There are some things missing, even things that were in SH 3 but have been removed from SH 4 (like giving commands directly to crew members). However, I know of no other game, that taken in it's entirety, does a better job at simulating life on an American submarine operating in the Pacific.
I gave SH IV 4 out of 5 stars because it does take a little work to get up to it's full potential. The departure from the SH 3 interface is disappointing, but it doesn't take long to get used to the new layout. Many bugs are fixed in the latest patch, and there are mods that compensate for some of the odd things (like giant underwater plants and rocks) that come with the stock game. Ubisoft has a reputation of rushing products to market before they are ready, and SH IV is no exception. However, they do seem to work hard to patch the game with fixes - the latest being patch 1.4 as of this review. What Ubisoft does not offer in regards to patches and support can be found in the subsim.com community, and that alone adds much value to the game. If my first impression had been as favorable as my current impression, I'd easily would have given all 5 stars for this review..

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.

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!

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