- #SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS HOW TO#
- #SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS PDF#
- #SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS MANUAL#
- #SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS SERIES#
At least these goals are situated in a way that makes you feel like you're part of the war.
It's a little too much like you're clocking numbers, hoping to win the war if your sunk-ship totals wind up higher than the other guy's. Aside from short briefings on maps at the start of scenarios, the rationale for missions is never explained. Your directives are sensible and usually involve taking down a couple hundred thousand tons of merchant shipping in the North Atlantic or sinking specific Allied ships by set deadlines, but the way they're presented leaves a lot to be desired. Patrol objectives seem arbitrary and dry. Oddly, the campaign can be sort of a snore.
#SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS SERIES#
From there, you are promoted to captain and given your own boat to guide through a branching series of assignments that take you into 1943. Your first assignment is to play the first officer aboard a sub patrolling the Polish coast during the German invasion in September 1939. At least you can try multiplayer missions solo, so you can get a taste of how they play even if you can't connect with anybody else.Ĭampaign missions start as the war begins. Unfortunately, the online game suffers a lack of players, partly because this is a niche sim and partly because of connection problems that force some users to manually open a handful of ports on routers. Modders are already making missions for the multiplayer, which should give it a long life span. Objectives range from simple quick strikes against small convoy groups to large-scale assaults on task forces that include dozens of merchant ships along with battleships and even a carrier. Multiplayer (LAN or online) offers a more intriguing hook with co-op teams of up to eight U-boats working together to hunt ships in the eight included scenarios. Most of these historical missions are brief and flavorless, wrapping up fairly quickly after you fulfill basic objectives, such as sinking a specific enemy vessel or sending a set amount of cargo tonnage to the bottom of the sea. You assume the role of a U-boat captain in the lengthy single-player campaign, as well as in the handful of one-off historical missions where you do things like protect the Bismarck and sail down the St. If you can get over this steep learning curve, you'll find a full-featured game awaiting you on the other side. First impressions don't get much worse than this.
#SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS MANUAL#
Even worse, the manual has been scanned at a low resolution, so you can't zoom in on maps and illustrations without them turning into blurry messes. The tutorial sees you do nothing but sink sitting-duck cargo ships and use the map screen to plot a course, while the manual spends more space on cheesy bios of your crew ('Emil is usually very quiet and somewhat nerdy') than it does on the nuts and bolts of the sub operations necessary to get everybody home to Hitler.
#SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS PDF#
The early hours are frustrating, largely because the tutorial mission is a waste of time and the 35-page on-disc PDF manual covers virtually none of the core concepts you need to understand. And it's a good thing that you can dumb everything down, because Ubisoft has made it tough on rookies.
Just about everything can be configured, so you can go for total realism or take advantage of crutches that make it easier to spot enemies, shoot torpedoes, and so forth. Like its predecessors, Silent Hunter 5 is a thorough World War II simulation of life spent hiding under the waves in a German U-boat. There are a few glimmers of hope, but much of the time this is one of the most grueling experiences below the waves this side of Das Boot. And let's not forget the generous assortment of design quirks and bugs, which are joined by an obnoxious copy-protection scheme that requires you to be online at all times. The new morale system for crewmen is broken. Key functions have been stripped from the interface in favor of clumsy commands and giving orders to the crew in person.
#SILENT HUNTER 3 HOTKEYS HOW TO#
The opening tutorial mission teaches you nothing about how to captain a sub. While the game has strong points and shows potential if you want to wait for developers and modders to (hopefully) fix the current problems, at present you have to do everything the hard way. The latest addition to Ubisoft's venerable submarine simulation franchise is so confusing and unfinished that it would be less of a hassle to join the Navy and get firsthand experience underwater than to figure out what's going on here. Have a lot of spare time on your hands? If so, Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic might be the game for you.