Definitely Not Yellow Submarines

Flight Journal, Aug 2005 by Marks, Bob

SILENT HUNTER III * S.C.S. DANGEROUS WATERS

OK, OK; I KNOW. "SUBMARINE GAMES, IN AN airplane magazine? Are you mad?" Probably, but that's between my therapist and me, but just stay with me for a moment, flyboy. The fun of flight sims-especially combat flight sims-stems from virtually experiencing the challenges faced by real-world combatants from the safety and comfort of your desk, right? And, really, when it comes right down to it, there are quite a few similarities between submarine and aircraft combat. Whether he's sinking victory ships in the undersea battlefields of the North Atlantic or prowling for enemy fighters in the wartorn skies over Europe, the simulation fan must have the ability to deal with complex systems and, most important, to think in three dimensions. Got your slickers on? Let's dive in!

Some simulations just seem to get almost everything right, which gives the player that elusive feeling of really being a part of history even from the comfort of a warm, dry, home office. Given the rather bleak mortality rate of Unterseeboot crews, your chair is probably as close as you'd want to get to a sub anyway. Developed and published by UbiSoft Romania under UbiSoft's Strategic Simulations brand, Silent Hunter III is an amazing and incredibly immersive (bad pun only partially intended) foray into the gritty, dank, dangerous and thrilling realm of German U-boat operations during WW II.

U-boat sims are not a new thing, a fact made obvious by the numeric suffix of this game. What really sets Silent Hunter III apart is its almost cinematic experience, courtesy of the sim's incredible graphic and audio engines. Sure, you may be ensconced inside a steel tube with your only visual window on the outside world piped in via periscope, but thanks to modern technology, the claustrophobic environs of undersea combat can now be scenic! A very flexible camera-control system allows the virtual submariner to wander about his or her watery surroundings and get a frontrow view of triumphant torpedo strikes or that stubborn sub-killing crew on the destroyer above. If "cheating" is not your thing, and you prefer to see only what a real commander would see, that's fine as well. The submarine's interior and deck positions are incredibly detailed and vivid. The excellent and very intuitive interface allows you, as commander, to interact with your crew in the first person-almost as if you could tap them on their shoulders to get their attention. The sound rendering is likewise incredibly well done, especially when played over a surround-sound speaker system with the volume set to a level that could prove lethal to household pets. The ominous reverberations of hostile propeller screws, dental-work-loosening sonar pings and thundering depth-charge blasts add to the confusion and terror of a hunted U-boat crew. With sight and sound handled so well, it's almost a shame that the olfactory senses can't be accommodated so that the smell of the sea air could be simulated, although the greasy stink of diesel fumes and infrequently bathed bodies would probably drive most to disable such a "feature."

Thanks in large part to the scalability of difficulty, any sim fan from the greenest cadet to the most seasoned member of the "U-Bootwaffe" admiralty can enjoy Silent Hunter III. Several excellent training missions are available, with predeployment walk-through hints provided by excellent instructional movies. It isn't a requirement to go through the training, but doing so earns "renown" points that later allow you, der Kapitän, to upgrade and trade up to more advanced boats through your career-should you live that long. This career mode is incredibly engrossing. I have yet to talk to a single virtual submariner who doesn't remark about how easy it is to lose all track of time while on patrol in Silent Hunter HI.

If securing a few hours for campaign play is difficult, individual missions and a cooperative multiplayer mode are also available. Operating as a wolfpack with several friends is almost more fun than a simulation fan should be allowed to have, and games are quite easy to set up via Ubi.com's game server system. Besides being a hoot, sailing with a group of buddies is one of the best ways to learn tricks of the shipkilling trade.

I highly recommend this game to any virtual pilot, even if airplanes exist only in a supporting role. Spotted convoys can have air strikes called in on them (courtesy of the rather pretty Focke-Wulf Kondor), although the most prevalent planes in the sim are bad guys. If you look up and see an aircraft, it's apt to be a Shorts Sunderland or a B-24 that's about to drop a stick of bombs on your waterlogged head.