Naval submarine sims just aren't very common these days. We haven't seen a decent entry into this genre since Dreamcatcher's Enigma: Rising Tide in 2003. So it was no surprise to see fans of these sims disappointed when Ubisoft's new sequel to their Silent Hunter series got delayed last year. Well we can proudly say that it looks as if the delay was well worth it. Silent Hunter III is the submarine simulation that all fans dream of. It brings a nice sense of reality and detail that you just can't find anywhere else even though it sports some annoying bugs and odd design decisions.
Silent Hunter III sees you as a captain of a grey wolf, the U-boats of the German Kriegsmarine, during World War II. As a U-boat commander it's your job to take care of your crew, your sub, and to cut England's lifelines. The game features some realistic environments, all of which are mapped after the Atlantic Ocean. It's a huge area to explore and will certainly keep you going for hours on end.
Silent Hunter III includes a number of different gameplay modes and some much needed tutorials. Commanding a realistic sub is no easy task, so if you're new to this type of game it really does pay to sit through the tutorials, which come in the form of a naval academy. This is where you can watch some very informative training videos and perform some tutorial missions. Some of these tutorials include navigation, naval artillery, flak artillery, torpedoes and convoy attack manoeuvers. Completing each of the tutorials will give you extra renown points to be used when you start your career (which we'll explain shortly).
The career mode in Silent Hunter III tasks you with going on some lengthy patrol missions. How lengthy you might ask? Try taking a couple of days just to reach your designated patrol zone. When starting out on each mission you'll take off right from the harbour and into the wide-open ocean. You're given a specific area to patrol which can be located on your map. It can take up to two or three days to reach your patrol area. Once there, all you have to do is simply patrol the area, destroy any enemy vessels that you come across, and then return home. Fortunately you can speed up the game so that you really don't have to sit there for days watching as your sub floats through the ocean. Whether it seems to be a little too much for you or not, this is one realistic feature that makes the game that bit more authentic.
Starting a new career gives you a certain amount of renown points. More points can be earned from completing missions and destroying enemy ships. These points can then be used to gain access to better U-boat types, equipment and crewmembers. The career mode also includes a timeline that takes you through the duration of the war. You can start your career in any year of the war, but no matter where you start it will always end in May of 1945.
Included in this sequel is a large list of German U-boats for you commanding pleasure. Depending upon which base and which year you've chosen to start at, you will receive a specific U-boat to begin with. Throughout the years you will gain new U-boats which can then be upgraded. You can somewhat personalize your U-boat by adding certain emblems as well as some upgrades including engines, snorkels, sonar, radar, and more. Also newer flak guns and different types of torpedoes are easily selectable before heading out onto a mission. Of course all of these upgrades will cost you renown points so you'd better make sure that you complete all of your missions to gain more points.
Gameplay
Before heading out onto a mission you can also select the number of crewmembers to occupy your sub as well as which departments they will spend most of their time in. From a simple barracks option menu you can recruit new crewmembers, position them in all of the different areas of your sub, promote experienced crewmembers, and you can also check out any type of awards or medals that you've gained throughout your career.
Once you're ready for your first mission, the navigation controls may seem a little intimidating. There are so many different controls to learn, but as long as you go through the tutorials we mentioned earlier then you should have little trouble. The bottom of the screen displays your necessary navigation devices. Such devices include a depth meter, speed gauge and a compass, all of which can easily be controlled by a click of the mouse. The side of the screen includes buttons to change views, and among other things, to check out the overhead map in order to plot a course. You can also click on any of your leading officers in order to issue specific orders or ask for reports. Your management of the rest of your crew during your mission is vital as they too need rest in order to perform at the peak of their abilities. All of this adds up for a realistic experience that allows you to micromanage different aspects of your sub.
Some other gameplay modes include a mission editor that allows you to create your own scenarios, and single-player missions that are mainly historical scenarios. Silent Hunter III also includes a multiplayer mode that can support up to eight players in generated and scripted missions. We also must mention the fact that this title includes a dynamic campaign system. So when playing the career mode you'll come across different ships at different times, and it should never be the exact same experience twice.
Of course a naval sim isn't effectively realistic without a high attention to detail. With that said, Silent Hunter III is as detailed as it gets. So detailed that you can actually see flocks of seagulls flying above your U-boat, experience realistic day and nighttime transitions, and watch the marching band and citizens cheering you on as you leave the harbour. You can even see the sailors controlling the guns on other ships with large explosions accompanying these massive weapons. Obviously this all leads up to one satisfying experience when you sink some enemy ships. Cargo and other debris will simply explode and fly off ships when hit with torpedoes. Also, depending on how your torpedoes hit your target, the ship may actually split in half and you can watch it as it slowly sinks to bottom of the ocean and crashes into the floor below.
Enemy ships even have search lights as we noticed while on one select mission. It was a night mission when we came across a British destroyer. Fortunately the destroyer didn't spot us and we were able to dive down to periscope depth. Slowing down our engines made us undetectable as was acknowledged by the handy stealth meter. We then proceeded to launch two torpedoes at the destroyer at which point they discovered our position. In a frantic move of desperate survival, they turned their two spotlights on and shined them directly on our position. Before they could even attempt to man their guns, both of our torpedoes made contact with their hull ending their best efforts. Mission complete.
The main attention to detail seems to have been addressed within the interior of the subs. When inside of your U-boat you can see your crewmembers moving about at their designated stations. They respond to your orders and you can even go into the different stations to watch as they do their job. When you are inside the sub and under attack, the whole sub will rock back in forth, lights will flicker, pipes will burst, and gauges will explode. Talk about a realistic experience. However, if it isn't realistic enough for you, there are many different options that you can enable to make the game even more realistic and challenging.
Silent Hunter III includes some great looking visuals with its realistic water effects, explosions and simulated interior of the sub. Specific events even look better thanks to a small window that pops up when a torpedo is launched and when a ship is sinking. Clicking on the window makes it expand to full screen giving a rather good cinematic effect. However, with great graphics comes some very disturbing issues. One such issue seems to only appear on GeForce 6800 cards as far as we know. Whether this is a driver problem on nVidias part or if it's a problem with the game itself is unknown at this point. The problem is that when starting a new mission at night, a large moon-shaped texture shows up in the distance and basically takes up your whole view and looks so out of place. In other words, it shouldn't be there at all, and it even made it impossible for us to see the night to day transitions.
Fortunately we found a simple but only temporary solution to this problem. Instead of loading the game from the .exe file on your PC, just simply load the game from the autorun menu on the CD. This completely fixes the problem and it's rather odd that the developers didn't seem to pick up on such an easily solved issue. Another strange problem with the graphics, although it does seem more like a design decision in the game then a true problem, is the fact that you can't select the resolution in the game. Yes, you read that right. We contacted Ubisoft about this, and the development team replied by saying that the game only uses a resolution of 1024x768 which can not be changed at all. Also they mentioned that the game will look much better depending upon how good your graphics card is. Leading us to believe that Silent Hunter III automatically selects the graphic setting for you based upon your card.
Hopefully a patch will be released soon to allow us to change resolutions. Until then you really just have to enable anti-aliasing in Windows in order to get rid of the jaggies. There doesn't seem to be any problems with the sound design, though, which is done very well in Silent Hunter III . When diving the sub, you can hear the detailed sounds of the hull creaking under the pressure as well as alarms and leaking pipes spraying water.
Conclusion
Overall Silent Hunter III does create a realistic and fully enjoyable experience. If you're a fan of naval simulations and just simply love the cat and mouse type of gameplay that is so apparent in submarine warfare then this sim is for you. It may have its obvious flaws, but that still shouldn't stop you from enjoying this great sim. After all, Silent Hunter III succeeds at being just what it was sent out to be: the most realistic naval sim ever conceived.
Silent Hunter III sees you as a captain of a grey wolf, the U-boats of the German Kriegsmarine, during World War II. As a U-boat commander it's your job to take care of your crew, your sub, and to cut England's lifelines. The game features some realistic environments, all of which are mapped after the Atlantic Ocean. It's a huge area to explore and will certainly keep you going for hours on end.
Silent Hunter III includes a number of different gameplay modes and some much needed tutorials. Commanding a realistic sub is no easy task, so if you're new to this type of game it really does pay to sit through the tutorials, which come in the form of a naval academy. This is where you can watch some very informative training videos and perform some tutorial missions. Some of these tutorials include navigation, naval artillery, flak artillery, torpedoes and convoy attack manoeuvers. Completing each of the tutorials will give you extra renown points to be used when you start your career (which we'll explain shortly).
The career mode in Silent Hunter III tasks you with going on some lengthy patrol missions. How lengthy you might ask? Try taking a couple of days just to reach your designated patrol zone. When starting out on each mission you'll take off right from the harbour and into the wide-open ocean. You're given a specific area to patrol which can be located on your map. It can take up to two or three days to reach your patrol area. Once there, all you have to do is simply patrol the area, destroy any enemy vessels that you come across, and then return home. Fortunately you can speed up the game so that you really don't have to sit there for days watching as your sub floats through the ocean. Whether it seems to be a little too much for you or not, this is one realistic feature that makes the game that bit more authentic.
Starting a new career gives you a certain amount of renown points. More points can be earned from completing missions and destroying enemy ships. These points can then be used to gain access to better U-boat types, equipment and crewmembers. The career mode also includes a timeline that takes you through the duration of the war. You can start your career in any year of the war, but no matter where you start it will always end in May of 1945.
Included in this sequel is a large list of German U-boats for you commanding pleasure. Depending upon which base and which year you've chosen to start at, you will receive a specific U-boat to begin with. Throughout the years you will gain new U-boats which can then be upgraded. You can somewhat personalize your U-boat by adding certain emblems as well as some upgrades including engines, snorkels, sonar, radar, and more. Also newer flak guns and different types of torpedoes are easily selectable before heading out onto a mission. Of course all of these upgrades will cost you renown points so you'd better make sure that you complete all of your missions to gain more points.
Gameplay
Before heading out onto a mission you can also select the number of crewmembers to occupy your sub as well as which departments they will spend most of their time in. From a simple barracks option menu you can recruit new crewmembers, position them in all of the different areas of your sub, promote experienced crewmembers, and you can also check out any type of awards or medals that you've gained throughout your career.
Once you're ready for your first mission, the navigation controls may seem a little intimidating. There are so many different controls to learn, but as long as you go through the tutorials we mentioned earlier then you should have little trouble. The bottom of the screen displays your necessary navigation devices. Such devices include a depth meter, speed gauge and a compass, all of which can easily be controlled by a click of the mouse. The side of the screen includes buttons to change views, and among other things, to check out the overhead map in order to plot a course. You can also click on any of your leading officers in order to issue specific orders or ask for reports. Your management of the rest of your crew during your mission is vital as they too need rest in order to perform at the peak of their abilities. All of this adds up for a realistic experience that allows you to micromanage different aspects of your sub.
Some other gameplay modes include a mission editor that allows you to create your own scenarios, and single-player missions that are mainly historical scenarios. Silent Hunter III also includes a multiplayer mode that can support up to eight players in generated and scripted missions. We also must mention the fact that this title includes a dynamic campaign system. So when playing the career mode you'll come across different ships at different times, and it should never be the exact same experience twice.
Of course a naval sim isn't effectively realistic without a high attention to detail. With that said, Silent Hunter III is as detailed as it gets. So detailed that you can actually see flocks of seagulls flying above your U-boat, experience realistic day and nighttime transitions, and watch the marching band and citizens cheering you on as you leave the harbour. You can even see the sailors controlling the guns on other ships with large explosions accompanying these massive weapons. Obviously this all leads up to one satisfying experience when you sink some enemy ships. Cargo and other debris will simply explode and fly off ships when hit with torpedoes. Also, depending on how your torpedoes hit your target, the ship may actually split in half and you can watch it as it slowly sinks to bottom of the ocean and crashes into the floor below.
Enemy ships even have search lights as we noticed while on one select mission. It was a night mission when we came across a British destroyer. Fortunately the destroyer didn't spot us and we were able to dive down to periscope depth. Slowing down our engines made us undetectable as was acknowledged by the handy stealth meter. We then proceeded to launch two torpedoes at the destroyer at which point they discovered our position. In a frantic move of desperate survival, they turned their two spotlights on and shined them directly on our position. Before they could even attempt to man their guns, both of our torpedoes made contact with their hull ending their best efforts. Mission complete.
The main attention to detail seems to have been addressed within the interior of the subs. When inside of your U-boat you can see your crewmembers moving about at their designated stations. They respond to your orders and you can even go into the different stations to watch as they do their job. When you are inside the sub and under attack, the whole sub will rock back in forth, lights will flicker, pipes will burst, and gauges will explode. Talk about a realistic experience. However, if it isn't realistic enough for you, there are many different options that you can enable to make the game even more realistic and challenging.
Silent Hunter III includes some great looking visuals with its realistic water effects, explosions and simulated interior of the sub. Specific events even look better thanks to a small window that pops up when a torpedo is launched and when a ship is sinking. Clicking on the window makes it expand to full screen giving a rather good cinematic effect. However, with great graphics comes some very disturbing issues. One such issue seems to only appear on GeForce 6800 cards as far as we know. Whether this is a driver problem on nVidias part or if it's a problem with the game itself is unknown at this point. The problem is that when starting a new mission at night, a large moon-shaped texture shows up in the distance and basically takes up your whole view and looks so out of place. In other words, it shouldn't be there at all, and it even made it impossible for us to see the night to day transitions.
Fortunately we found a simple but only temporary solution to this problem. Instead of loading the game from the .exe file on your PC, just simply load the game from the autorun menu on the CD. This completely fixes the problem and it's rather odd that the developers didn't seem to pick up on such an easily solved issue. Another strange problem with the graphics, although it does seem more like a design decision in the game then a true problem, is the fact that you can't select the resolution in the game. Yes, you read that right. We contacted Ubisoft about this, and the development team replied by saying that the game only uses a resolution of 1024x768 which can not be changed at all. Also they mentioned that the game will look much better depending upon how good your graphics card is. Leading us to believe that Silent Hunter III automatically selects the graphic setting for you based upon your card.
Hopefully a patch will be released soon to allow us to change resolutions. Until then you really just have to enable anti-aliasing in Windows in order to get rid of the jaggies. There doesn't seem to be any problems with the sound design, though, which is done very well in Silent Hunter III . When diving the sub, you can hear the detailed sounds of the hull creaking under the pressure as well as alarms and leaking pipes spraying water.
Conclusion
Overall Silent Hunter III does create a realistic and fully enjoyable experience. If you're a fan of naval simulations and just simply love the cat and mouse type of gameplay that is so apparent in submarine warfare then this sim is for you. It may have its obvious flaws, but that still shouldn't stop you from enjoying this great sim. After all, Silent Hunter III succeeds at being just what it was sent out to be: the most realistic naval sim ever conceived.
