Silent Hunter 4 Review

Great Game! And I’m not a sim-type person!

I just got my SH4 two weeks ago – and I have been playing every minute I can since then. I am not a Sim type person. However, I am totally hooked on SH4. I always wavered on SH3 because it seemed just too Sim for me - mainly, the crew management! However, in SH4 the crew manages themselves which is what I was waiting for.

The compression time is now much faster so I travel great distances within minutes instead of hours. I can now switch off many of the sim features which would bore someone like me, who is not interested in all the nuts and bolts of the ship. Most of the control buttons are easy to locate: S for surface, C for crash dive, D for dive, etc. I can choose unlimited fuel, Batteries, compressed air, oxygen, and 11 other more sub-friendly choices which make the game less taxing for one like me. I was hoping for unlimited torpedoes and other ammo or at least choices for double or triple amounts of these – but no go for now.

I have learned how to aim the torpedoes. The red, yellow and green indicator arrows over the targets indicate the chances of hitting your target: Green =best; yellow = maybe; red = no good. The closer you are to 0 degrees for a forward shot the better and the closer you are to 180 degrees for an aft shot the better. So much to learn yet!

I had a lot of fun and excitement playing the Sub School. I’m on my first career game (off the coast of Japan) and I played the Midway Quick Mission twice. The first time I learned the hard way how not to attack a Jap Task Force – both periscopes were damaged and I wasted a number of my LIMITED precious torpedoes. The second game was great. I sunk three military ships and played a cat and mouse game with a destroyer for about 30 minutes. I went deep and ran in silent mode and went dead still and then I would move at flank speed when his propellers were facing me as he could not pick me up on sonar then. It was quite thrilling. He was dropping depth charges – but in the wrong places! He was guarding a cripple destroyer which I wanted to finish off. I had one forward fish and one aft torpedo. I had no chance to surface and sink him with this determined destroyer so close – he was too fast for me and looking for me in a mean way! In the Sub School (which I love and one can replay over and over) during the torpedo practice I was able to take out two smaller type Jap gun boats with my deck gun – but this destroyer was too big and fast for that! I kept moving away at flank speed every time his sonar couldn’t detect me and it worked. Eventually he left, and with one aft fish I finished off the crippled destroyer and moved on.

I have a 37” TV screen, Nividia XFX 7600GT 256 Graphics Card, 1 Gig Memory, AMD Athlon 64 3100+ with a DVD-ROM drive. I have the graphics set for low and it looks great to me. I downloaded the patch v1.1 before I played the game and so far I’ve avoided a number of problems that others have encountered.

The manual could have explained much, much more! And yes, it does freeze up from time to time but it has always gotten out of it by itself after a few seconds or so or after I push the ESCAPE key and then click RESUME, and within 14 days I have had only 4 crashes. Also, the number of Jap planes attacking me when surfaced was getting annoying; however, a cheat/mod available now lets you reduce the number of enemy planes and their range. I also make it a point to save the mission just before action takes place and after I make a great kill. That way if the game crashes or I make a BIG mistake and get sunk - I have it saved at the pre-disaster point. The game has some glitches for sure but it is still fun to play, and patch #2 is on the way which should address most of the problems. There are also many dedicated players who will be putting out trainers, mods, and cheats to make this game even better in the near future.

This game is really like an underwater chess game. You have to carefully weigh many pros and cons while engaging a really wily enemy, choosing when to fight and when to run! The dynamic mission generator makes sure that no two missions are the same which gives it such lasting appeal for replaying. It takes hours to play but the excitement is great. You can see the ships sink under the water in a movie-like appearance. I recommend this wonderful this game even to newbies like me. You will be sinking Jap ships in no time!