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Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific
Home : Games : Reviews : PC / Windows : Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific

All is not well in paradise. SH4 is an incomplete game that shipped with a lot of bugs and show stopping problems! There was even a 100MB plus patch that was released before the game was widely available in the U.S. Let us begin. First we have the dreaded “maintain depth key” problem with the “A” key. If you press the “A” key, you are treated with an automatic CTD. You can’t travel for more than a hundred miles or so before you are attacked by Japan’s 100 million plane Air force.

These guys have planes everywhere! Even in the middle of the ocean with no apparent bases or carriers around, there are planes coming after you. It seems they have unlimited range and F-22 style radars, because they always make a beeline straight for you. Don’t take any enemy fire! Once you get flooded, that’s it. If you take on even a cupful of water, you’d better not dive! If you do, you’ll never return to the surface.

The command deck is almost useless.

No matter what you do, you can’t surface. That’s a major problem. Enemy lifeboats are a problem. You can’t capture any POWs. Also, these guys must have forearms as big as Popeye’s. In order for me to catch up to one of them, I had to travel at flank speed. You can’t select a custom difficulty for the campaign you want to play. You select from a generic menu, i.e. easy, normal, hard, etc. It’s not always clear what options will be chosen for you when you select a certain difficulty. Mission objectives are not always clear for you as well. You don’t get a sense of what you have to do or where to go. Sometimes you’ll leave your base and after a patrol you’ll come back and your base has been captured.

No notice, no change of base coloring on the map, no messages, nothing! You will stare at your sonar station absolutely dumbfounded. You get a paragraph of sonar operations in the manual, and nowhere does it tell you to use the “home” and “end” keys to rotate your sonar. I have no idea how to use the radar station or if it even works. I know it’s not in the early subs, but in the latter part of the war…well good luck with it.

Screenshots can't truly describe what this game looks like on your computer.

In terms of campaign play, in SH3 you can play the entire length of the war. In SH4 your campaign can end abruptly for no apparent reason. German and American doctrines were vastly different, but sometimes the reasons for the campaign ending just don’t make sense. Especially after a successful patrol. Long time players of SH3 will have no problems with waiting for the game to be fixed. The company has a good track record, but I’m worried about the casual gamer. I’m worried about the guy who may watch an episode on submarine warfare on The Military Channel, see SH4 in the store, buy it, install it, and then wonder why it doesn’t work. Such is the problem with PC gaming.

All in all there are a lot of good things that are in SH4. It is a definite step in the right direction and could be a worthy successor to SH3 once it’s fully patched. As it stands right now, this game can only be recommended to hard-core fans.

Highs
Pacific theatre; american subs; great visuals; terrific sounds.

Lows
Awkward interface; numerous bugs; incomplete manual; feels rushed.

Final Verdict
A very good game of American submarine combat in the Pacific theatre. Especially for those willing to wait for the game issues to be ironed out. Unfortunatly I don't see the game attracting new people to the annals of submarine combat.

79%

Mar 28, 2007

Review by Gus Lane.