Silent Hunter 3

This game is unplayable due to the confusing interface. When you eventually sink a ship you feel like a god, as your patience with the bad manual and interface have yielded something. I bought the Silent Hunter 3 PC game with high spirits, and I was disappointed. I was playing Company of Heroes again within five minutes.

I enjoyed playing the Silent Hunter 3 PC simulation game. It is different to the normal shoot em ups, and for that reason alone the game designers should be applauded.

Well, Silent Hunter 3 is quite simply (at the moment) one of a kind.

As usual with the manufacturer (Ubisoft), they have considered all abilities with this game, from those of us, such as myself, who have never commanded a sub and do not know the maths and formula, to the hardcore gamers who know exactly what to do and want to play the game in real time.

For amateurs, the most important aspect is the play as your taught tutorial. The game will give you objectives (and a video tutorial if you choose to watch it, by clicking on "view tutorial") and you must complete these objectives. The game will give you a grade and if it's satisfactory enough for all of the exams, a boost of reknown will occur when you start a campaign, so this is quite good motivation to actually complete the "Naval academy" or training to the simple minded.

After completing the recommended tutorials, the player can choose between pre-set single missions or go for the Dynamic Campaign.

The dynamic campaign starts, as usual, by requesting your players name, then you move on to choosing the start year (anything from 1939, September the 1st, to 1943) and which flotilla or "company" you'll serve for. This affects which grid patrol space the player will patrol and which Submarines will be available, so read the background information before finally confirming which flotilla you, the player, will serve with.

The player is then taken to the captains office, where he/she'll have options such as video and sound (which includes changing the voices into German for more realism with English subtitles) and then the options such as enlisting sailors, petty officers and Officers before finally making any additions to your Sub and then clicking the map to check the realism settings before finally loading the mission

Once it has loaded up, the player has the task of navigating out of the docks and any channels and then sailing to the grid space to patrol, however the open endness of the game means you could patrol some where else, provided your fuel doesn't run out before returning to the grid space and patrolling for 24 hours and then return to base.

The player will most likely soon find how difficult finding merchants is in both the early days and near the end.

You may also discover the atmosphere when you are detected by a warship and fired out, such questions as "should I dive to emergency death to avoid detection, or should I try to fire back at the warship?"

It is very gripping for a while, but you may find an hour is easily enough for one day unless you are skilled at finding merchants.

Finally the last point is, unless your computer is great by the system specs:

"1.5Ghz minimum

512mb of RAM minimum

64mb memory card (3D)

Direct X 9 or higher (included on the Game)

4X DVD-ROM drive

Direct X sound card compliant

2 GB hard disk

Keyboard/Mouse

then you just isn't going to be able to run this classic properly. It is very annoying. What's worse is that Geforce MX cards wont run this game either (as I found to my annoyance) as the graphics cards need Pixel shading.

So to conclude,

A classic, would recommend considering it, and possible buying SH3. Value for money.

I looked forward to Silent Hunter 3 for about 4 months. I bought it on the day of its release and got it home and was impressed initially. Sinking a ship was fun, the interface was quite good and the graphics and views were impressive. Thats where it stopped.

For those of you who enjoy realism in your simulators you are in for a bit of a disappointment. IL2 was one of the best aircraft simulators I have played with excellent sounding aircraft. Yet on Silent Hunter 3, the aircraft sound like ballistic lawn mowers. In campaigns don't look to the sky for weather because on a bright sunny day you'll be informed there is a storm in progress and you won't be able to use your deck gun. Your flak will be out of bounds to, even though aircraft are attacking you in wonderful clear skies.

Its little things like this that ruin a game for me, causing frustration and disbelieve. Especially the weather. The aircraft noise is pathetic, it just seems cheap.

All I have to say is that I hope some patches come out or this game is gettin deleted.