Great Sub Sim with immersive visuals and lots of strategic depth
There are improvement to the interface. It is easier to issue commands now, although I never found it difficult in SH3. The one thing missing from Wolves is the ability to issue a command directly to your crew. Now it must be done at one of the stations or with a hotkey - easier, but not quite as immersive. It gives me less reason to hit F2 and get down into the belly of the boat.
The map features are easy to use. Thanks to an easrly patch, timescale is increase, making travel times shorter. It is sometimes frustrating when you want to advance time but it keeps getting bumped back because of a contact. Even the same contact updated will take you out of high speed time, and I find myself spamming the "+" key just to get my sub our of the harbor and into the ocean. Documentation is lacking, especially about the submarines. I have no idea the differences between the Americans subs, but the game comes with a bonus documentary DVD which I haven't gotten to watch yet. It may offer some insight.
The graphics are amazing. There is a noticeable difference between SH3 and Wolves of the Pacific. While SH3 looked very realistic, Wolves takes it a step further, adding so much detail and presenting a bit of a different graphical representation that is hard for me to explain, but it looks great. I like to just watch the submarine move through the water as sunlight refracts into the depths, bubbles rise to the surface, and waves crash on the surface. Inside the sub, there is a lot of detail. I would have liked there to be more to do inside, but that's a minor detail. The action is out on the waves, and although it can sometimes be difficult to find it, when you do, it looks awesome, with great smoke, explosions, etc.
Sound is awesome. The wind, waves, propellers, enigines, crew - almost everything you can think of at sea can be heard . . . except for the marine life. I miss the whale sounds from 688i Hunter/Killer. It's nice that there is now an ocean bottem represented in Wolves, though.
The gameplay is a mix of planning, travel, hunting, hiding, battle, and escape. It can seem quite boring at times, but when the action starts, there's nothing like it. It's a game that I like to play at anytime, no matter what I am doing or what's going on, because it's easy to get up and walk away - chances are nothings going to happen in the game if you leave it on realtime (assuming you are not already engaged with the enemy, in which case, I would recommend using pause!). I sometime get up for dinner and return to the game, reading my crews messages to inform me of anything I may have missed.
I've been a fan of Sub Sims since Silent Serice way back when. Silent Hunter III was among my favorite all-time PC games. Wolves of the Pacific picks up the franchise a little bit more, and it's a fine simulations that casual and hardcore players will enjoy.