just in one step distance to be perfect. See Pros & Cons below:
Pros:
+ Increadibly well managed interface
+ Super highly addictive gameplay.
+ Crew management and fatigue factor adds flavor to the game. Promotions and experience increase of crew after missions adds to the value.
+ it makes you feel the very ambition of hunting and thrill of being hunted very well
+ Torpedo solutions are very realistic and hitting a target very satisfactory (If you dont cheat and make the calculations by yourself) .
+ Saving and loading system is very well organized despite some reviewers complained about it. (prevents you to load for getting better results)
+ Configuration and upgrading your boat adds to addiction. And the best part is it is historically accurate. + Depth charges causes flikering of lights in command room, shakes and bolts burst out water and steam. Damage is very realistically created. Watching your boat externally is magnificent as it is shook by close depth charges.
+ Easily moddable structure which lets you to download new graphics and change the sounds provided by people. And there are lots of sites and modders providing such improvements. (I wonder why gamespot doesnt offer these links here as they do in Starwars: empire at war? or Rome:Total War?)
+ event camera shows the important situations like an aircraft starts a bombrun on your boat or your torpedo about to hit the designated target. Or most thrillingly depth charges falling on your boat!!! Cons:
- Medals doesnt seem to improve anything among crew. Besides there are no explanations of the effects of them.
- High levels of time compression pushes hard on Cpu, as frame rate is severely effected. when crowded convoys, fleets are around.
- Sadly There is no wide variety of choices when equipping your boat .
- You are not listed among the U-boat aces list, just noted in the bottom.
- Damages to the boat (Such as destroyed conning tower) not modeled when externally viewing. just a black texture paint shows the damage?
- Some aircraft sounds are non-realistic. (Most new mods corrected these) - some sounds are not available in compressed time mods.
- There is no verbal warning when you are about to hit the bottom nor you hit the bottom actually. And no one tries to act and raise the nose of the boat but you?
- The weakest part of the game is lack of mission varieties. It becomes quite repetetive after a while. Only mission given is patrol area sector... bla bla.
What would have been good:
? An animation showing your boat is being repaired in dock (welding processes, cranes moving parts) in background when you are in base. (preferably choosing equipment or crew for your boat) ? An animation of crew actually moving external torpedos inside would be nice.
? An option to stay longer in base for increasing the morale of the crew. In the other hand, the longer you wait, the more renown points you would loose.
? It would have been nice if it let you a change the course of the history , Playing with knowing that the allies will win at the end, brakes ambition. knowing what your successes and achievements leads to would be a nice feature.
? It would be very nice to see the Damages to hull from external camera and crewman trying to repair it. ? ? Ship reference book to be more specific about the armaments of the ships. So that we can act accordingly. (to mess with him or not :) )
? More verbal suggestions from the commanding officer would add to the realism and atmosphere.
? Wide variety of missions or incoming radio messages during missions such as rescue downed pilots, landing spy to enemy territory, port strikes, ambush enemy admiral etc. would have surely been a kill for the monotony.