Silent Hunter III

Azza

Anyone else prowling the virtual north atlantic seas in a U-Boat yet?

Excellent sim in my view. Looking foward to the multiplayer aspects on a lan.

_Kaiser_

just ordered it from Play this morning...hope it's as good as I've been reading

Winning Hand

Bought it on friday, fun for a while but even at 1024 time compression there is a ton of farting around waiting to get to your patrol zone. Engine is pretty nice though, much improved over aces of the deep . Still not sure what my verdict is on it.

Balfa

yaargh. i never got to finish my campaign in SH2. i love that game so much. i'll definitely be getting SH3.

bus77

Been eyeing this for awhile, gona be picked up real soon.

Azza

Bought it on friday, fun for a while but even at 1024 time compression there is a ton of farting around waiting to get to your patrol zone. Engine is pretty nice though, much improved over aces of the deep . Still not sure what my verdict is on it.

Well it is a sim. Lot of uneventful flying around to get to a target zone in combat flight sims. Part and parcel of the genre.

Gameplay and graphics are excellent. I'm quite enjoying it at the moment. I got Brothers in Arms (which looks pretty good too) on the same day and I have barely touched it because I'm just wanting to get stuck into this.

BlitzKrieg

i wish they had sims for being battleship captians

Enigma promised it but failed to deliver. but sub sims are alot of fun.

Trine

Think I'll pick this up tomorrow, haven't got really involved in a sim since B17 Flying Fortress and this video really got me going.

For the people who have it, what kind of rig are you playing it on and how do you find it runs? I've got a P4 3.4, 512MB RAM, 128MB Radeon 9700, so I should be ok, though I hear it eats up the RAM a fair bit.

Balfa

BlitzKrieg wrote:

i wish they had sims for being battleship captians

Enigma promised it but failed to deliver. but sub sims are alot of fun.

Destroyer Command (also by Ultimation) might quench your thirst? I found it for just $5 Although, to be honest, i don't get anything like the same enjoyment out of it as i get out of SH2. I know there are specific tactics involved in surface battles, but it always feels kind of "sit there pounding hell out of each other until someone sinks"ish. Whereas with a submarine it's all sneak, sneak, sneak, follow, follow, fire torpedoes, run away like mad, get spotted by a destroyer, hide, hide, tremble as the sonar ping gets louder, hide, get depthcharged repeatedly for hours, repeat

edit: coo, just watched the video. very nice. It's a shame i rarely get to look at the nice visuals because i play on 100% realism and don't get any 3rd person cam views etc. It makes it more fun and scary when the destroyers are after me, anyway

abccormac

That video looks great! I just ordered it from play.com after seeing it. Hope it's as good as it looks, I haven't played a good sub game since silent service 2 on the amiga.

BlitzKrieg

theres a major difference between destroyer battles and battleships. hence i didnt pick up destroyer command.


a really good battleship sim despite being very old is Great Naval Battles of the North Atlantic.

The appeal was that it was very open, you arranged your taskforce of ships and plotted a course into the atlantic (with fuel and ammo constraints) and tried to jump convoys while avoiding or engaging other taskforces.

Or you can play as British and try to catch these german task forces sneakign out.

exciting stuff.

But no one has come close to recreating it ever since which is very disapointing.

dearg_doom

Balfa, that post just sold me on that game(at least SH2;) i'll get it on the cheap just to see if I like it)

Bet it's mad hard, sounds intense though!

O_o... just compared SH2/SH3 on gamespot:

SH2: 6.1
SH3: 9.2

looks like I'm gonna have to get a new game!!

qwertz

This might help some of you wannabe submarine-captains to make a decision.

http://www.subsim.com/ssr/sh3_rc1/sh3_review1.htm

dearg_doom

ohOh, I smell obsession a-brewing!

That review was great! I'm kinda pissed off now 'cos I just bought RomeTW and was really looking forward to getting into it; but now I can't even bear thinking about siege towers and Greeks, this looks slick.



I'm far too fickle, moaning about having too many good games:rolleyes:, maybe I should just buy NFSU2 and be done with it:D

bizmark

IGN gave it 88%..Ordered my copy from play.com yesterday so hoping to be avoiding Yankee destroyers come Thursday (sh 3 far cry and full spectrum warrior for only 54 euro \o/ i love you play.com)

dearg_doom wrote:

ohOh, I smell obsession a-brewing!

That review was great! I'm kinda pissed off now 'cos I just bought RomeTW and was really looking forward to getting into it; but now I can't even bear thinking about siege towers and Greeks, this looks slick.

Rome total war is the best game ever made by man once you download the rome total realism mod http://www.rometotalrealism.com god bless those mod makers

Azza

Ekk did the single mission where you try and penetrate the English naval base at Scapa Flow at night.

After about 4 close calls with a few destroyers I entered the major inlet that leads to Scapa Flow. About 12km away I got detected by a destroyer but I threw him off track of so I thought . Then 4 more of them showed up. Worse still I was at 14m depth with only 2 metres left under my keel. After about 25 minutes I was eventually rammed and depth charge after being attacked no less than 8 times. A few minutes later despite the efforts of my repair crew I lost the boat due to flooding.

Swinehund Royal Navy...I'll have my revenge.

JCDenton

Having just finished "Pirates!" 5 minutes ago (a whole 10 minutes after I bought it in the first place), this is starting to look really promising.

The thing is though, I'm really divided as whether to get this or "Brothers in Arms"?

Can anyone help me with this?

Winning Hand

Grr, just had the game crash on me after a long mission patrolling north of malin head, managed to sink an armed trawler near scapa flow, took out the plane that was dispatched after me, once I got to the patrol zone I took out a huge tanker with the rest of my torpedos (most of them just bounced off, boo to realism) but hit it in the rear with one that sent that guy down. Just to finish up my mission requirement time I continued patrolling with just my deck gun and took out a torpedo boat who came after me in the dead of night with a huge spotlight but I got him first! With only two hours patrolling to go I sat back waiting to return to base and the immense accolades to come ONLY FOR THE GAME TO CRASH! AAHHH. Fun game though once you get into it, gradually upping the realism. Still maintain there is too much waiting to get to your patrol. Sim or no sim I dont have too much time in the day to play videogames, I would rather 60% was not taken up watching a line on the map get smaller (anyone who plays it will know what I mean )

btw there is already a patch out that stops your guys staying on deck when submerged and wont let you quit to base if there is an enemy ship in sight and other changes.

Azza

Sim or no sim I dont have too much time in the day to play videogames, I would rather 60% was not taken up watching a line on the map get smaller (anyone who plays it will know what I mean )

However if the developers had gone the other way and given you instant transport to your destination others would be complaining that you would not come accross by chance encounter with other ships. Can't please everyone I guess.

The thing is though, I'm really divided as whether to get this or "Brothers in Arms"?

Can anyone help me with this?

BIA looks good and plays good (bar for the corny voice acting).
Problem that annoys the crap out of me is the insane loading times. After second of third mission load times are about 5 minutes long even if you just reloading a check point. Its really annoying me. I assume its the same for everone. Can't be my machine its plenty powerfull too.

Trine

Picked it up earlier today, just finished the training missions and can't wait to get stuck into a career game. The graphics are amazing, picking off an incoming bomber at the last second with your flak gun and watching the twisting, burning fuselage buzz feet over your head and crash into the water behind you in a ball of flames and sea spray has to be seen.

I read some guy on the offical SH3 forum is doing a 72-hour patrol in real-time, he works at home and has a screen set up which he can monitor the whole time. Crazy.

Can't wait to get a multiplayer game going too, reckon there'll be some stiff competition on this very board.

Azza

Alas my internet connection will prevent me from playing online (for a few months at least)

But I hope to playing this at the next midlans lan in under 2 weeks.

Balfa

Azza wrote:

Alas my internet connection will prevent me from playing online

I can't imagine ping being all that important in a sub sim... or am i not understanding?

Does SH3 have online co-op? that would be delicious. mmmm... wolfpack


Hrrr... This is strange. Ubisoft have apparently penned the release of silent hunter 4 for under 12 months from now! http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/silenthunter4/news_6120654.html
Something is amiss.

BlitzKrieg

just thought i mention that the game Enigma (other not so good sub sim) is making a sequel which is a massive mutliplayer sub sim...


but back onto silent hunter 3...do you have freedom to sail around the atlantic or is it an scenario list of missions?

dearg_doom

Balfa wrote:

Hrrr... This is strange. Ubisoft have apparently penned the release of silent hunter 4 for under 12 months from now! http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/silenthunter4/news_6120654.html
Something is amiss.

That is EA-itis for ye!

It's not just Ubi that are 'hoping' to emulate EA's crap policies, even LucasArts announced a little while ago that they're going to start releasing yearly updates of Indiana Jones and Monkey games!


Also, SH3 was supposed to be released 6months ago, so maybe SH4 won't actually make it out until next Xmas?

Azza

In SHIII you given a patrol area so your suppose to sail there and patrol it. But you could defie orders if you wanted to and bugger off elsewhere.

Trine

Balfa wrote:

Does SH3 have online co-op? that would be delicious. mmmm... wolfpack

Yup, seems they're pushing that as the main multiplayer element, hunting as a Wolfpack in scripted or generated missions. Maximum of 4 players online though, 8 over a LAN. I haven't tried it yet, has anybody? I take it you can battle Sub vs. Sub?

That's interesting about Silent Hunter IV for early next year. If they're releasing an expansion pack as planned then that'll be out in a few months probably.

What realism setting are people here playing on?

TheGreatOne

Just bought this puppy today, chose it over BIA. Looking forward to getting well stuck into some action tonight. Looks like its gonna take a couple of hours to familiarise myself with all the controls tho.
Multiplayer sounds pretty cool, i'd say a co-op mission with a few other 'Human' controlled subs would rock!

Azza

Would some of you guys be interested in attending the midlans lan on next thursday. We could get a lan game going. Be at least 2 others playing it.

Trine

I'd love to play this across LAN but I have no way of getting to Roscommon. Online is excellent though once you get past the bug that stops the "Ready" button from appearing. Great game.

Would there be any interest in setting up a clan for a regular online game? An Irish Wolfpack...we'd be the terror of the British Navy...

TheGreatOne

Clan is a great idea, although i wouldn't be able to participate much myself atm, studying for finals.
Do my best though to make it for any late night online sessions once i get the feel of this game. Still find it hard to work out how to accurately pull off a torpedo attack, i'll get it soon I guess

Sand

Still find it hard to work out how to accurately pull off a torpedo attack, i'll get it soon I guess

I feel your pain. Its like supporting Ireland, so many chances going *just* wide. I actually found the convoy attack to be easier than the torpedo training exam because the convoy is moving in a line at a constant speed so you can just set yourself up at the head and nail 2 or 3 with your first salvo before they even know youre there. Whereas in the exam the ships break up and head in seperate directions as soon as the first goes down so you end up having to surface to chase and then they start tacking and its a pain in the arse trying to nail them after that.

Once I get a bit more practise in, I wouldnt mind an online game or two.