After I finished reading The Thunder Below, a book describing Admiral Gene Fluckey's tour as Captain of the U.S.S. Barb, I was really in the mood for a good WWII submarine simulation taking place in the Pacific. The best sub simulation dealing with this theater was Microprose's aging Silent Service II. That is until now! SSI has just released its' much anticipated Silent Hunter. Silent Hunter, in my opinion, ups-the-ante in submarine simulations by narrowly surpassing the reigning king of sub simulators-Sierra's Aces of the Deep.
As with Aces, the heart and soul of Silent Hunter is the Career. If you start your career early in the war, you will be assigned a S-Class sub with limited torpedoes, speed and depth. Surviving a few patrols in this submarine is a real challenge. If you do survive, you will be assigned new subs and equipment as they become available. If you are very lucky, you can play through to the end of the war, an unrealistic, but appreciated option (It was rare for a submarine captain to be assigned more than 4 War patrols). Your efforts are rewarded with medals, awards and, of course, a record of total tonnage sunk.
If a career doesn't entice you, Silent Hunter allows you to generate your own missions. The mission generator lets you set the date, time, crew quality, convoy size, warship type, escort size, air cover, and weather. You can also set various realism levels such as limited fuel, battery life, ammo, visibility, and depth data, as well as dud torpedoes, realistic torpedo reloads, ship vulnerability, running aground, realistic charts and combat experience level. The variations here are enough to give the game almost limitless replayablitity. The mission generator is also very useful for setting up practice scenarios to develop the skills necessary to survive a career.
Being a multimedia product, Silent Hunter doesn't skimp in the "eye-candy" department. The SVGA graphic are excellent, especially of the surface ships and the sub instrumentation. The game includes 16 "interviews" with William "Bud" Gruner, technical advisor to the game and former captain of the U.S.S. Skate. These interviews aren't just "fluff", but provide valuable tactical information. There is also a multimedia tour of a Gato Class submarine.
Once aboard your submarine several stations are modeled with varying levels of accuracy. While there are only 2 "rooms" inside the sub (control room and Captain's Quarters), Silent Hunter has a full complement of gauges, a useful damage control center, a torpedo status and loading screen, very realistic SJ (surface) and JD (air) radar systems and the most detailed TDC (Torpedo Data Computer) yet seen in a submarine simulation. The TDC allows you to set torpedo speed, offset angle, torpedo depth and gyro angle. In addition, there 4 detailed pages in the manual describing how to arrive at a manual targeting solution that you can input into the TDC (I hope your basic geometry skills are sharp!). However, for the mathematically challenged, all or some of the torpedo options can be automated. Unfortunately there is no radio or sonar room but sonar contacts are reported and plotted on the chart. The Chart "room" is basic but functional. It shows contacts, heading and allows setting course waypoints. Unfortunately, the chart contains neither the plotting tools that would enable setting an intercept course nor the depth information so necessary to prevent running aground (I don't know how realistic the latter is).
The computer AI, in open water, is excellent, maybe too good. The Japanese destroyers are relentless in their pursuit of you and invoke tactics that were not normally practiced, especially early in the war. Whether this is a feature or a problem depends on your perspective. I personally like the challenge of evading a relentless destroyer Captain.
Although Silent Hunter is an excellent game, it has its share of faults. The manual, while more detailed than most, is still on the skimpy side, omitting such vital information as destroyer evasion techniques. The designers of the game released Silent Hunter without an Officer's Club or any fanfare upon returning from a successful mission. Thus, the feeling of being involved in the war is less intense than it is with Aces. Aces also handled diving past test depth much better than Silent Hunter. In Aces you received some very nice audio clues as to your ship's status as it approached "crush" depth. I also prefer the surface wave action in Aces over their depiction in Silent Hunter. Finally, for those of you hoping for the advertised special missions, this version of the game was shipped without them (they may be added in an expansion disk latter this year).
Don't let Silent Hunter's faults keep you from buying this product. Faults and all, I believe this game is the best submarine simulation on the market today and with the promised patches and expansion disks, Silent Hunter will only get better.
