Comments on: Silent Hunter 4 a Failure, Colossal Disappointment

By: jasonb

jasonb — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:31:03 +0000

You can’t go past 2048 because of a design flaw.

Stuff like not implementing the Imperial system for a sim of US submarines during WWII, a basic gameplay element, is rather pathetic. With oversights like that, the other issues are hardly a surprise.

I hear SH5 is going to spend time incorporating more pointless features, like a free walk came in the sub. Lovely. Meanwhile, I fully anticipate basic things will be hopelessly broken.

Such is the competence of UBI software developers.

By: jasonb

jasonb — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:27:28 +0000

BF2’s the only EA game I own. I play games so rarely, I’m still playing BF2 and Neverwinter Nights, from like 2002.

By: Jegas

Jegas — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:15:32 +0000

I have Silent Hunter 4 - Wolves of the Pacific - and I’m a diehard sim fan but not a die hard sub-sim fan but I think the game is fun. I like the graphics personally. I’m running a humble dual core PC and everything works well - though I don’t speed up time past 2048 or it gets weird (chugs hard) - but that’s because of my PC I’m sure.

I have seen some things go awry in some places - but hardly anything I’d rip UBI a new one for. I’m a professional developer and I occasionally make video games and products for game developers - and its not an easy thing to do. I’d be honored to make a game as cool as Silent Hunter IV. It’s pretty sweet.

Do I wish I could get a better handle on the anti-aircraft gun? Sure. Do I think it can get dry and boring at times? Sure. But I’ve had some fun things happen in game that I thought were pretty awesome; one in particular was a lucky romp in a Japanese harbor where I pummeled a bunch of docked boats - finally a destroyer found me but after some hide and seek with depth charges - we had a collision - we both took damage - but I was able to hobble out of there after finishing him off after an emergency surface and deck gun bath! It was worth the price of the game alone. Now I’m trying to have another fun run - it’s a game - a deeper game than donkey kong for sure - but still a game and a reasonable sim in my opinion.

By: visitor-style

visitor-style — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:26:47 +0000

“Thankfully I’m still busy with Battlefield 2, which at least doesn’t crash constantly, even if it has plenty of balance issues and a virtually useless server browser…”

Well, no thanks. EA has ruined more games than most devs/publishers will ever release.

I don’t see how you can complain so ruthlessly about SH4 when you tolerate EA Games. They’ve been on boycott on my PC since like 5 C&Cs ago… (Or several advertising-integrated multiplayer shooters, depending on which unit of measure you want to use! :P)

They are some non-fan-listening, bug-ignoring(/denying), non-patch-releasing, development-resource-shortening, product-lifecycle-terminating, cash-cow-milking mofos.

I am with you in demanding better PC games for all gamers, but I sure as heck don’t think we’ll achieve that by throwing hard-earned $$ at EA. Doing so just encourages their bad behavior.

Maybe it’s because I haven’t played a sub game since Silent Service, but FWIW I got some good kicks out of SH4.

By: jasonb

jasonb — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:10:13 +0000

I couldn’t agree more. I thoroughly enjoyed SH2, although I think I reloaded each mission about 35 times to ensure best angle on the capital ships once I learned their relatively static routes. The destroyers would drop on you in a big way and the damage model was somewhat better than SH3. From what I had read, SH4’s damage model was similarly broken.

By: Nigel

Nigel — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:24:48 +0000

Not a huge subsim fan, but bought SH4 to try it out. Don´t know if I had the settings wrong but I got so bored that the Jap ships didn´t attack me that I started to ram them and not a shot was fired. Got SH2 on a revival label and it´s a lot better.

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:14:18 +0000

You can set the resolution in the Options but it doesn’t change the ingame graphics. It only changes the apperance of the instrument shortcuts. If you zoom in with binocs or scope, the ships are jaggy, and can’t tell a destroyer from a fishing boat. My son got a copy for his birthday but didn’t like it and said it looked bad, I didn’t believe him and took his copy and I have to agree with him. Best part of the whole game is the intro.

Also I need to mention that I have had nothing but problems with Ubisoft for years. It appears that every title they ever put out is beta at best. With nothing but promises for a fix later. I WON’T buy a Ubisoft product ever. I would consider this title, but after 5 patches, it’s still crap, I’m back to Crysis. Pretty bad when Crysis plays and looks awesome but Ubi can’t get a destroyer to look right sitting in an ocean.

By: ted

ted — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 06:20:54 +0000

the medals are wrong because of the us navy copywriting them

By: desroses remy

desroses remy — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 00:38:57 +0000

hello
i agree, i played a lot sh3 but sh4 lack of a charming,

By: jasonb

jasonb — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:18:57 +0000

Another SH4 apologist? Recent patches resolved bugs such as crashing when using some of the common shortcut keys, so I shall forgive you for being unaware.

SH4 shipped without any competent QA; the measurements were all in metric when it shipped! SH4 fails to offer any sensible damage management model, a step backwards even from SH3! In fact, SH2 more correctly modeled many things than either of its successors.

SH4 was dead on arrival for anyone serious about subsims. That’s par for the course for Ubisoft, though. They seem to be spectacularly incompetent at software development.