Silent Hunter III Review

Well Review Time. Let me just say I have not played a WWII sub sim since Silent Service II. And I have never played A Sub Sim from the German perspective.



System Specs
AMD BARTON 2500 Overclocked to 2700
Gforce 6600GT
1 Gig Of Ram
DVD ROM (needed for first batch of SHII since its DVD only)
Windows XP

Graphics

Lets start with Silent Hunter III Graphics, With only a Default Level of 1024*768 the graphics look amazing. From the Inside of the Uboat, to the outside everything looks great. The SHIII developers even included the various crew members, which add a Huge immersion factor to the game. Not only that but the Explosions of the various Merchant and Warships are just great. They split in half, explode.. Or just sink from a normal hit.

But with all good things come trouble. On most of the Gforce Cards there are some graphic glitches that effect the Binocular view and UZO (this is what you use to target surface vessels while surfaced). Basically, if you have the Bug you will see white fuzz. And your frameRates will Plunder. Kinda hard to attack anything like this. Lucky for us though the Devs released a patch 2nd day, that turns off Particles for you can use the UZO. Its a Temp fix, and the devs have said that its A Driver problem with Nvidia cards, not a bug. Who knows hopefully a full fix will be soon.

Also the sun effect for Nvidia cards again are bugged or wrong. With other cards the sun is Very Bright and shiny. But with my 6600Gt it looks like the moon. If you shut off AA though it looks right, but AA is more important to me then the Pretty sun effects so I keep AA on.

Dynamic Campaign

Well, the fan's got what they asked for. A Dynamic Campaign! That along with the graphics and crew, brings this sim too the spot light. I must say Other then a few bugs, (more later) you have not played anything like this in your life. Where to start. Hmmm.



Well first you can start your career anytime between 1939 and 1943. You can choose a large number of flotillas to start from. (they differ from year to year) When you start your patrol, you start in the harbor. There is a Band and nurses waving at you wishing you and your crew luck. Just be careful navigating out. Do it manually, because you can't see the Docks and buildings in the map screen. And if you use the map screen to get out, you might hit a dock and end your career real early.

Your ship has a limited number of fuel, and if you start in a type IIA your not going to be out long. Type IIA has a range of about 1300M. And only has 6 Torps. After you upgrade too the Type VIIB things get a little more easy. Well at least for the happy Time. (Happy time was the time between 1939 and 1941 when German uboats pretty much almost destroyed the British Merchant Marine)

When your on patrol you have the option to use Time Acceleration, which unless you have no life you will need. Don't worry, if your Watch Crew Spots something the Time Acceleration drops to 8X or 1X. (It matters how far the contact is)

Before you leave port you are given orders to patrol a Particular Grid. You have to reach that grid and stay inside it for 24 hours. Now if your saying to yourself that sucks! I have to go where they tell me? Yup, but it doesn't suck, after you do your 24 hour stint in the grid your free to go where you wish, as long as your fuel holds out that is. (Don't forget you have to have enough to get back to your home port)

If you start in a Type IIA Sub, don't expect to go to far. Your patrol will last about a week. But a little hint, keep your speed at about 1/3, and you can almost double the distance you can go.



The actual patrols can be exciting, Nerve racking, to very boring. My first patrol I Didn't get a single kill. My 2nd Patrol I got 1 Merchant Kill. So it does very. One thing you will want to learn is how to plot an intercept course. There is the complicated way, and there is the simple way. Since Im a simple person I use the simple way. It's pretty easy to use this method for a merchant. Faster Warships would most likely require the complicated way. Basically once you find a contact and its reported on your map (if you use easy nav its put on map automaticaly). Use the ruler to draw a line from the contact, and your ship. The ruler will give you the distance. After finding the distance use the ruler again to draw a line in its probable direction of travel. You can tell this buy the little line sticking out the back of the Contact square on map. Draw the line for the same amount of distance between you and the contact. Now simply change course, and head to the end of that Line full speed. (since your much faster then the merchant, you should almost always get there before him). Once there reduce speed and start searching down the Probable course you think the contact will be on. For better luck Dive to periscope depth and listen for him. After a few minutes you should find him.

While in campaign you will be responsible for your crew, and officers. They get tired, can have low moral (if your not doing to well that is). Once you finish the patrol you will be able to train your crew in certain areas of the ship, like Machinist, torpedoes, flak guns etc. You can also give medals, promotions. The great thing about all this is that all the medals you give will actually show up on the 3d Render of the person you gave medals to on the next mission, Officers mostly. The only other way to see regular crew is on watch, or in the bridge.

Don't worry, when you use Above 32X time compression, things like fatigue, and moral are not counted. But it does become an issue when your searching for that Merchant and using under 32X time compression.



After the Patrol you are also giving Points for how well you did in the mission. Its called Renown. You can use your Renown to get upgrades for your Sub. Or better subs when they become available. You can also use renown to recruit New Crew Members that are a little better trained then the guy that just came from Sub School.

There are a huge number of Merchant ships, and most the bigger cargo vessels like the C2 and up, can have many different types of cargo on them.

Game Difficulty

The difficulty of the game depends on what year you start. For instance if you start in 39, your going to have a pretty easy time of it. If you start in 42, things will be a lot harder. Allied air patrols will cover most of the hunting grounds in later years. And the destroyer force will learn to hunt you better as time goes on. And by 1942, merchants will be armed and ready for you.



You can set things in the difficulty screen before each patrol. You can choose to have Auto TDC, or Manual. In Manual TDC you will have to figure out, distance, bearings, etc to get a good solution on target. Other things in TDC you can do, you can select magnetic, and impact for the torpedoes. Basically your impact torpedoes have to hit the ship to explode. And your magnetic ones can travel under the ship and explode. To use Magnetic though you need to use the ship recognition manual and learn its Keel Depth. And set the depth of the torpedo to 1 meter lower then the recongnition has KD Set too. But beware, for the first year of war, German torpedoes had the same problems US Ones do later in war. They are duds. They get better as time goes on though. But the Magnetic settings troubled the Germans through out the war. Mainly they were very sensitive and would premature explode on way to target.

Other Menu Options

If your wondering what German Subs are in the Game here is a quick rundown.
Type IIA,Type IID
Type VIIB,Type VIIC, Type VIIC/41, Type VIIC/42
Type IXB, Type IXC, Type IXC40, Type IXD2
And Of course The Type XXI.

Silent Hunter III also comes with a Sub School. It has 5 missions were they teach you Control of Uboat, Flakgun, Deckgun, torpedoes, and convoy hunting. If you do the missions before your start your Campaign then you will get a Bonus Renown. I did 2 Of them and got 1500 Renown for it.

If you want to look at all the Units in Silent Hunter III, just check out the Museum. It has every unit in game. It also list them by year. So if you have a coastal merchant in 39, it doesn't change much in 40, or 41. But if you look at the 42 model they added a nice little Deck gun. You go to the 44 Model and the beast has forward deck gun, and 2 rear guns.

Sound

The sound in SHIII is great. It would be even greater if I didn't have a set of 5 year old 3 Piece Speaker's. But even with the 5 year old speakers the sound blew me away. You have to hear it too believe it. But beware, I noticed that if you have Time Acceleration set pretty high, you skip over most of the Voices, like contact reports etc. So you have to pay attention to the text messages. Music is ok, its always playing in the background and does seem to change with different situations.

Some Negatives

Now some of the Negative things about Silent Hunter III. First No WolfPacks. Urggg. I have to neglect some points for this one. Wolfpacks were a major part of the German Uboat Offensive. Also no Milk Cows (Resupply Ships) Again more points taken off. -5

Another small oversight by the devs, no compass tool in map room. What do I mean? Well it you have realistic Navigation set (meaning you plot the courses, speed, distance, bearings on map yourself) there is no compass tool in map room to use to Plot the contacts bearing from your Sub. So If Your spotter yells out a contact, how are you suppose to find bearings on the map? Oppsss. -2

Now for the bugs, I already told you about the the Nvidia bugs. Devs say its a Driver issue with Nvidia. Either way this should have been noticed before it hit the shelves. -3

Now I've been on the forums seen the complaints of games not starting, blah blah.. Anyway mine started, works, has no crashes. Most of these issues are Computer issues. Best advice update drivers.. And stop buying store bought junk. To be a serious gamer you should be building your own rig anyway. ;)

There also Seems to be a bug with the Sub School. I have seen on the forums people saying they have done all the Test and only got 1500 Renown. I find that kind of strange cause, I only did two of them and I got 1500 Renown too. Seems to be a bug too me. -1

Now a lot of people complain about the weather system. I tell you what I tend to agree. It seems that everytime I leave port its nice and clear out, hardly any wind, sea state is very reasonable. But after a few days at sea, I guarantee that you will be in a major storm that last at least a week. Every time. Well actually my last patrol I had decent weather for a week. And actually got to use my deck gun a lot. Anyway other people say that they never get bad weather. Some people say that they never see rain. (I've seen it twice so far). I don't know what to make of all this is it a bug? Or is it just the limitations of the game engine? Can't say for sure so No - for this one.

Conclusion And Final Score

My conclusion, your not going to find a better WWII sub sim on the market. With the dynamic campaign, crew management, reward system, and just the way that SHIII brings you into the world of Subs makes this game one of the best Simulations I have played this year, without a doubt. Even with some of the bugs and missing features, like wolfpacks. I think American Developers should start looking out for these Other side of the world Developers. If this keeps up, we will be playing mostly games made in Checkaslavokia, Poland, and Russia. And if they keep making these games, I be glad to buy them. I have a feeling SHIII will keep me busy for months. And hopefully that means I won't have to buy another game to fill the, I have nothing to play slot. Good job devs. But I still want milk cows and Wolfpacks!!! Don't forget!
When I do a review I start at 100%. I then Minus points for bugs, and glaring mistakes, and or missing options. So My score for SHIII is

89%.

Reviewed By Malkuth