Situation:
 The December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor damaged or destroyed
nineteen capital ships of the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Fleet. This left the aged and
outgunned forces of the Asiatic Fleet as the first line of defense against the oncoming
might of the Japanese Navy. One force that emerged from the attacks on Pearl Harbor and
Cavite, virtually unscathed and ready the carry the war to the enemy, were the submariners
of the Fleet Scouting Force. The 51 submarines of the Asiatic and Pacific fleets were
ordered to “...Execute unrestricted air and submarine warfare against Japan. You
will sink and destroy enemy shipping wherever encountered.”Authorized to sink any vessel bearing
the “Rising Sun” of Japan, you and the men of the Pacific submarine forces
become the hunters of the largest prey around.
The Review:
 Silent Hunter is a
realistic submarine simulator in the style of games like Aces of the Pacific. In World War
II, submarine technology was not as advanced as you might think it was. Most submarine
commanders relied on guts, luck and the seat of their pants to sink enemy ships without
visiting Davy Jones’ Locker themselves (the USS Tang was sunk in the Formosa Straits
in 1944 when hit by her own malfunctioning torpedo!). Silent Hunter includes all of the
problems and trials of commanding a World War II submarine. There is even a tour of the
sub narrated by a World War II submarine Vet. Because of the realism, you get a real feel
for the strategy submarine commanders employed in World War II. Because your submarine is
diesel with battery backup, you have to run on the surface whenever you are not engaged.
Underwater, your submarine is much slower than most ships so you have to run at them on
the surface and dive before they can bring their deck guns to bear. Your torpedoes are not
guided in W.W.II so you need to get close to the enemy for a shot if you honestly hope to
hit. Angle in and cut the distance by anticipating their heading. Be sure to kill their
destroyers before they find you with sonar and start dropping their depth charges. If you
need to submerge deep and escape you had better hope those destroyers do not follow
because you have a very limited range on your batteries and if you are forced to surface
before you get free ... a watery grave is all you have to look forward too.
I have to admit, my first impression of
Silent Hunter was not that good. At first I just played the single missions and it seemed
to get repetitive and boring fairly quickly. However, after I stared a career, the game
started to grow on me. As you move through a career you get better torpedoes, new and
improved submarines and better radar. You also earn medals and letters of commendation for
acts of valor. So once you get into the theme of it all, it started to get addictive. The
graphics are good and the realism is very good. Everything from the sound of the engines
of enemy ships to torpedo reload times is in accordance with actual WW II submarines
(although you have a realism panel to modify reality and make things easier).
Although I became rather fond of Silent
Hunter, there are a few things that S.S.I. could have done better with it. The biggest
thing I noticed was that when you leave port and are out “hunting” around, it
moves pretty slowly. They give you a map of the region you are to patrol and let you have
at it. So you set up a search pattern, or head towards an enemy port or chase a reported
sighting. But in that time, it can get boring. Although there is a time compression up to
256X, I think they should have made it even faster for those in between times. Also, you
can play and play the game, but advancement through the war goes pretty slowly. I played
for several weeks and only passed about a year in game time of the war (1941-1942). So I
still had three years to go!
--Brent Hegarty |
