Silent Hunter 5 - patience will reward...

Yes, like a bat outta hell we are blessed with another iteration of one of the best, most earnest and faithful subsims a pc gamer could hope for with Silent Hunter 5 "Battle of the Atlantic". WHoooo HOoooo!

 All is not well, however, since it seems the tradition has held true with this series, that it is inevitably released as a buggy and incomplete mess. A passing glance at the 'ratings' on Amazon indicate the typical 1 star rating for a game released with the infamous DRM anti-theft scheme. It's not that this is the single most restrictive and handicapping version of the piracy 'protecting' code ever, it's also that the game appears [as always] rushed out the door before QA testers apparently got there hands on it. I'm beginning to wonder if developers even have QA testers on their payroll anymore!

As you will read a thousand times on the Amazon reviews, the chosen version of Securom DRM that installs itself with this game requires a constant, full-time internet connection in order to even play the game. If your connection drops, it supposedly saves the current state and brings up a bothersome error, essentially locking you out of your game. Hoping to trade in SH3 for SH5 as a actual Navy seaman on duty at sea? Forget about it, unless you have some high-powered Wi-Fi on your laptop, your days of sinking digital Kriegsmarine are over! Ironic, isn't it?



I write this post as a fan of the series, having played more SH3 [with undeniably necessary Grey Wolves supermod 3.x.] for many years off and on...I have loved that game. The chance to experience the other side of the story, hearing all orders carried out in German, and spurring my curiosity to read much more about the plight of the men of the German U-boats. In SH3 there is a very real sense of 'being out there' in the cold dark Atlantic, the loneliness and boredom all-too real, interrupted by the adrenaline inducing discovery of a looming convoy full targets through the rain. The cries of joy or pain as your torpedoes smash into a gigantic oil tanker, or maddeningly bounce off their hulls in failure...the paranoia of listening for multiple destroyers endlessly searching for you...as they drop their death cans from above.

 

So regarding this newest addition to the series, Silent Hunter 5: As a fan, I wish to say this, hold your horses. Yes the game is a buggy mess, but patience does reward with this series, if not for a few developer patches to clean things up, but also an entire SubSim Community foaming at the mouth to get their hands on this baby. [SubSim Forums HERE]. There will sure to be quality and game improving mods to come of this. And maybe, just maybe, UbiSoft will, after perhaps reading up a bit on the Spore launch release, loosen the reigns a tad to let people actually enjoy this game. I'm honestly not sure if they will budge from their staunch attempt at anti-piracy, but if their pocketbooks could talk, I think they'd be crying out at the irony of damage from piracy vs. damage done to their image and legitimate sales of their games.

I will wait a bit to see, then most likely still buy it, hoping that things will have been sorted out by then, and those Grew Wolves fellas get the team back together for one last crack at this one. (hint hint)

In the meantime, you can score a copy of Silent Hunter III for a pack of cigarettes!(see above),  Then head to the Grey Wolves site and download the supermod for free..and have years of immersive, engaging fun.

  

Good Hunting!

I luv Silent Hunter III

...it was dead midnight, the waves were rough and rolling and the spotter picked out two ghostly ships between sheets of rain, about 11000 meters off my starboard bow. i attacked the first Hunt 1 destroyer, threw a acoustically guided torpedo at its companion at roughly 3 minutes earlier, to allow the slower cruise speed, then fired another dead one at the first just to make sure......5 minutes later my first fish hit hard, dead into the port beam of the closer destroyer, then 6 seconds later the other slammed in right behind it. Two direct hits, and that one was going down fast. The homing torp did not give me the explosion i expected, so i checked my targeting map, only to discover it had somehow missed and become confused by the nearby explosive noise in the water. The missile wandered like a lost and hungry shark until i heard its detonation a few minutes later. I could not tell if it hit anything or not, as i now was focusing on a 3rd accompanying destroyer that was apparently hidden behind the injured and sinking hulk of the first! The remaining destroyers both seemed quite upset at the situation and proceeded to make a direct B- line to the direction they suspected i was hidden. They lit their spotlights and started dropping depth charges all around me...that time they missed...but then i heard the newly installed technology of the day take shape...the rhythmic, foreboding ping of a sonar searching the depths for my tell-tale signature under the surface. This must have also worked pretty good, because a few seconds later, i hear both ships engine rpm speed up as they move to bear due course straight above me. With my observation scope 3 feet above my conning tower, i watch.....and wait.....and listen for the direction of the forth-coming attack, to determine which way i will attempt to run. The water is a murky dark green, and as the sound of engines and blades cutting the water at 200 rpm approach, i only have about 3 seconds before i see its speeding hull coming directly up from aft of my doomed ship. Already i see the dark barrel shapes of depth charges falling down into the water, like a waterfall of metal coming to meet me. The destroyer is moving so fast i scarcely have time to lower my scope before it buffets the top of my conning tower with its belly, tossing my ship to the side like a log and screeching as metal on metal repel each other. Immediately, an officer yells that there is flooding in the engine room, and that spells bad news. I watch in horror as one of the loaded barrels sinks directly onto the back of my sub.....and explodes.

With the sound of breaking glass, twisting pipes and water spraying at 400 psi at my crew, the tail of my Type VII U-boat, pride of the fatherland, is sinking slowly down and pulling the rest of my ship with it. A quick look through the observation scope shows the mass of bubbles and leaking oil trailing up to the surface-like many fireflies let loose from a jar....

My depth falls from 20 meters to 45...then 60...and i know that the floor is waiting for me somewhere at around 289. I move to kick the engines into full ahead flank speed to break the decent, and pull my sinking ship back up to the relatively safe periscope depth, but the engines do not respond. They are damaged and there is flooding in the compartment. i scramble to move my repair crews into that bay and place my best officer in charge to bring maximum speed to the repair...but i fear it is too late. 85 meters.......111 meters....

i hear the groaning of the bulkhead beginning to be squeezed by the thousands of tons of water pushing me down...if i could just repair the engines fast enough...i could push this hunk of metal back up to the surface and continue purging the salt water out.

149 meters....170...... my navigation officer yells to me that we are dangerously below crush level...but there is no need to inform me of this...i can hear the creaking and groaning of my ship, i hear water starting to spray in closer compartments...the bananas and sausage strung up from a pressure line above the control room are hanging at 45 degree angles toward the back of the ship...where we continue to slip down.

Even now, the destroyers, now further above, loom like dark circling shadows. -metallic killers themselves, searching for prey. Without mercy, more barrels of explosives fall from the surface and break the water all around us. My ship shudders and shakes like a giant hammer has swung upon our metal back. More breaking bulkheads, more spraying steam. The sub lurches, i can feel the speed of our decent to the bottom now. I watch as a pencil rolls off of my plotting table, and onto the floor, only to sink into the pool of water which has reached my station. A strange silence overcomes every man in my crew, i see their bloodshot eyes though the din, as they look to me without regret, without contempt...but with resignation. They have done their job, they have played their part, and they know i have as well. It was not until the remaining red light went out with a "pop"...that i became afraid. The last sound heard by me that night was;

"Vater, wer Kunst im Himmel .... bitte...”

And the implosion...the sound like . . . . ..