Never in the field of human gaming has so much been released so early by some fools.
User Rating: 6.2 | Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific PC
Take one of, if not the, best subsim games of all time, change theatres of war, make it look sexier and hit harder... then release it approx three months before it's ready and watch the bugs total up. That's basically what Ubisoft have done, taking the brilliance that was silent hunter three and rushing silent hunter four into production rather than taking the time needed to perfect the the gameplay and material. Dont' get me wrong, this game looks good and feels good for the majority of the time. However, and it's a pretty big however, the amount of glitches almost make the game unplayerable as well as the amount of Lag even when played on a pretty serious gaming machine. The main glitch I have found is the enemy's un-nerving ability to find my sub when I'm outside of their field of view/sensors/sound sensing equipment, it just doesn't make sense. Couple this with the frustration of having to infiltrate Yokohama harbour about four times in a row for photo rocon and being told to patrol and sink shipping in a certain area only to find no time period defined for the length of patrol and no response when shipping has been sunk in the area, the game can get very annoying very quickly. Don't even get me started on the lack of help in the manual or the repetitive sound effects or the fact you can spend hours stalking into a harbour only to take one mild hit on the casing and promptly sink to the bottom of the sea. I'm sure, once the modding community get to work, this game will improve, hopefully we'll see a steady flow of patches, but until then this game is sitting on my shelf waiting for the day when I can cruise the pacific and blow the hell out of some shipping. It's good, one day it could be great. (and yes this review is of the game after it's been patched once!)
