Silent Hunter III Hands-On

Gameplay Footage

A U-Boat launches an attack on a Royal Navy formation.

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It's no understatement to say that submarine sims are few and far between, so it was understandable that sim fans reacted with dismay last year when Ubisoft delayed Silent Hunter III to 2005. This World War II submarine simulation caught our eye at the Electronic Entertainment Expo last year, in no small part because of its gorgeous graphics and beautiful re-creation of U-boat warfare. The delay was so that the developers could have enough time to incorporate a dynamic campaign, which is a popularly requested feature in sims. Was the delay worth it? It appears so. We've been playing around with an early beta of Silent Hunter III, and so far we're very impressed with the amount of detail packed into the game.

To a submariner, there are only two kinds of vessels: submarines and targets.

Silent Hunter III will let you play as a German U-boat captain during the Second World War, from the heady, early days of the war, when U-boats ran rampant across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, to the desperate, last days, when the feared predators became the prey. The game will feature several gameplay modes, including a naval academy mode to teach you the basics on navigation, naval artillery, torpedo attacks, and more; a single mission mode, which will let you select from historical scenarios, individual missions, and custom missions that you can create using the mission editor or download from the Internet; and a career mode, which represents the aforementioned dynamic campaign. In the career mode, you'll take the role of a U-boat captain tasked with conducting long-range patrols in search of Allied merchantmen and warships. In theory, the dynamic campaign means that no two campaigns will ever play out the same way, since your decisions as to where you go will affect the progress of the campaign. You can start your career between 1939 and 1943, which will determine the types of U-boats at your disposal, and you can choose a flotilla, which affects the area of operations that you'll patrol. The campaign will always end in 1945, so your goal is to do your duty and try to survive, which is no small feat considering that 75 percent of Hitler's U-boat crews never came home.

Whatever mode you select, you'll soon discover yourself within the cramped quarters of your U-boat. Though you won't be able to "walk" around the beautifully rendered interior of the U-boat, you will be able to click and enter certain compartments, such as the command room, the radio and sonar room, and the deck (assuming the sub is surfaced). To help command the submarine, you can rely on your officers, such as the chief engineer, the navigator, and the weapon officer. Giving orders to them is simple, thanks to the icon-based menu system. Simply click on a man, and various options will appear on the screen. This way, it only takes a few clicks to order the chief engineer to execute a crash dive, rig the ship for silent running, launch underwater decoys, and more. Click on the navigator, and you can plot a course or order him to execute a number of different types of search patterns. The weapon officer can be instructed to identify a target, program a firing solution, and target a certain ship. Meanwhile, if you're more of a hands-on type of simmer, you can take direct control of each station, such as sonar, and do all the work yourself.

This is a sight to warm any U-boat captain's heart.

Silent Hunter III will be geared toward both veteran submarine fans and newcomers to the genre. For the newcomer, the game has various settings that eliminate or minimize the learning curve. For example, with casual targeting selected, all that you have to do to sink a ship is to lock onto it using the telescope, choose a torpedo, and fire. It's point-and-click warfare at its simplest. At higher difficulty levels, though, you'll have to use the torpedo data computer to generate firing solutions, taking into account the target's bearing, range, speed, and angle on bow. In either case, it's somewhat of a nail-biting experience as you wait for your torpedoes to hit the target. In some cases, you'll miss by the barest of margins. In other cases, the torpedo will explode prematurely, sending up a geyser of water and alerting ships to your presence. Still, in other cases, the torpedo may hit the target and not explode. Even worse, it does explode, but it's not enough to send your target to Davy Jones's locker. However, when ships do sink, it's a glorious sight. Some ships sink quickly, others flip over, while others go aft or stern first, with the other end sticking straight up out of the water.