Silent Hunter II

"Das Boot ist voller Löcher"

During World War II, Winston Churchill said that the only thing that really frightened him was the German U-Boat threat. The Kriegsmarine almost single-handedly brought allied shipping to its knees, having successes much out of proportion to their strength. But by the end of the war, 30,000 of the 40,000 men who went to sea had perished, and on the Allied side, over 30,000 merchant seaman had lost their lives. The word "U-Boat" now conjures up images of movies like Das Boot with crewmembers huddled in their steel cockleshells, listen fearfully for the sound of the destroyer above, not knowing when the next depth charge might send them all to a watery grave. It's no wonder that many sim companies have tried their hand at recreating this period of history, the most famous being Sierra's Aces of the Deep. Many years later, we have Silent Hunter 2, a sequel to SSI-produced original which placed the player in an American submarine in the Pacific. Sadly, this so-called "sequel" arrives in such a wretched state that Ubisoft and developer Ultimation should have spent a few more months fixing the huge amount of bugs, or simply scrapped the whole project altogether.

Imagine, if you will, a car company releases a brand new model that has eagerly anticipated for some time now. But when the people head into the dealership for a little tire-kicking, they find that this supposed "new" car is actually three years old, it's missing the entire back seat, the wipers don't work, the engine only fires on half the cylinders, and every so often the car will suddenly and mysteriously burst into flames. The idea of a car company foisting such an obviously unfinished product on the market is ridiculous, so why should it be any less ridiculous for a software company? Silent Hunter, in addition to being deeply flawed to its core, is also blatantly unfinished. Given that the development of the beleaguered title has been tossed about like a football, one gets the impression that Ubisoft simply wanted to dump the title on the unsuspecting public and put an end to its suffering.

Clues as to SH2's age start to show themselves even before you even hit the waves. The maximum resolution is a paltry 800x600, which is downright bizarre given that games as old as Quake II allowed me to crank things up to 1600x1200. Once you start playing, the graphics engine quickly confirms all doubt as to this sim's lengthy time in development limbo. The ship and aircraft models are decent, as are the 2D rendering of the interior stations, but that's about all the positive things I can say about the visuals. The water is like an flat, undulating blue carpet; explosion effects are a series of poorly animated 2D sprites, and there is almost no land-based detail at all. There's barely any damage effects to boats; ships don't break in two or explode, rather they all list to the side and sink straight down as if they were simply melting into the ocean. Most egregiously, there is an utter lack of any sort of weather modelling. Remember the famous storm scene in Das Boot where the actors had huge amounts of water dumped on them to simulate an actual storm? Well there's nothing of that sort here; in SH2, weather takes on two forms: calm and cloudy. No rain, no massive swells, nothing. This game should have been released three years ago, and it shows.

Sound is about the only thing in SH2 that approaches decency, but then again in a world where your ears are as much a part of the battle as your eyes, not having good sound in a sub sim is really unforgivable. Hulls creaking, diesel engines rumbling, depth charges exploding, all are done adequately, save for the explosions. Sink a torpedo into a massive oil tanker and what do you get? A tinny "boom" that sounds like it was pulled from the most overused set of stock sounds available. For the most part, however, the sounds work (which is more than can be said for most of the game), and the ability to have the voices of crew be in German or English is a welcome addition.

Your U-Boat is controlled from several, static 2D panels, such as the helm, periscope, map screen, hydrophone, damage control, etc. While the stations themselves look nice enough, the truth is that they are all sadly so very useless, as everything can be done from the map screen. Plotting a course, spotting and detecting targets, attacking ships, everything can be done here, making all the other stations redundant. Particularly useless is the hydrophone station; contacts are marked and identified automatically, so all you get to do with it is listen to the noises of the ships around you. It's clear that some amount of effort went into rendering all of these stations, so why are they so utterly superfluous? Furthermore, as well-rendered as the stations are, conspicuously absent is that of the control room, or U-Boot Zentrale. It might not seem like much, but it contributes much to the atmosphere of the game, making you feel as if you're truly onboard a submarine. In SH2, depth charge attacks are reduced to simply sitting and watching to see if anything lights up on the damage screen. No flashing lights, no violent shaking, and no pesky leaks springing up. And should you complete your objectives, you'll be dumped right into the mission debriefing screen, even if you were in the midst of a depth charge attack. In short, it feels like I'm the captain of a ghost ship sailing in an almost empty world. SH2 is distinctly lacking in both atmosphere and ambiance, two big strikes against any submarine sim.

But nothing in Silent Hunter 2 matches in sheer disappointment than the miserable excuse we get for a "campaign." As anyone who has studied submarine warfare of the Second World War knows, U-Boat attacks on Allied convoys were an uncertain affair. The task of finding a convoy, and the technical limitations of torpedoes at the time meant that it was not uncommon for a U-Boat to come home (if it even came home at all) totally empty-handed. Unfortunately, SH2 goes and throws this historical fact away with the dreaded "static campaign." Despite promises from development Ultimation that SH2 would not suffer in quality for its lack of a dynamic campaign like Aces of the Deep, what we end up getting is nothing but a series of canned, linear missions that play out exactly the same each time. As a further insult to realism, most missions feature tonnage quotas, meaning if you don't sink enough ships, you'll have to replay the mission over and over until you do. The fact that this is blatantly contrary to history is made all the more unbearable since each missions plays out the exact same way each time you play it. The thrill of hunt is quickly replaced by the drudgery of tedium as you play the same mission over and over trying to sink enough tonnage to continue. The lifeless, static campaign of SH2 really kills all pretenses of historical realism and just feels like a chore. Considering how Ultimation clearly intended the player to spend the bulk of their time in the campaign modes, hardcore simmers might be tempted to write off Silent Hunter 2 at the mere mention of a "static campaign." And you know what? They'd be right. Ultimation's reasoning for not including a dynamic campaign was either that they lacked resources (which is somewhat believable) or that it "couldn't be done right" on todays hardware, which is a total crock that is not so much an inaccuracy as it an outright lie.

However, the lack of realism in SH2 extends beyond the campaign. There's a distinct lack of air traffic in any of the missions featured; considering that aircraft were among the greatest killers of U-Boats this seems like a rather glaring oversight. There are no wolfpacks, no dynamic radio communication from other U-Boats, hydrophones magically work just as well on the surface as they do underwater, and the list goes on. Destroyed ships cannot be targeted, meaning you never have to worry if you've actually killed a ship or not, and ships are automatically identified as friend or foe, so there's never any need for vessel identification. The game does include scalable realism, but given the totally static nature of the campaign, there's no reason to enable things like "dud torpedoes" or "manual TDC" since they will just prolong the whole, tedious experience. There's simply no way to play SH2 for any length of time that is both realistic and entertaining at the same time. Within a few days of playing I had already felt like I had seen and done everything the game had to offer.

Making matters worse is the absolutely horrid AI. Now tell me prithee, fellow readers, what kind of things should the captain of a naval vessel keep in mind whilst sailing? If you answered things like "don't run into other ships" or "don't run yourself aground," then you'd be far too smart to exist in the world of Silent Hunter 2. In SH2, ships will gleefully plow into other ships. They'll plow into the land; if there's shoreline nearby, you can bet that at some point, someone will beach themselves on it. I vividly recall one mission where I was submerged over 100 meters below the surface, avoiding depth charges from the two destroyers above that were eagerly trying to kill me. Suddenly, the explosions stopped. Had I lost my assailers? Had they run out of depth charges, or simply given up? Going to periscope depth and looking around revealed a far more disheartening answer. While they were searching for me, the two destroyers had collided with each other and were now flaming hulks adrift in the sea. But as downright stupid as the AI can act, it also plays like a cheater. Destroyers can instantly locate your position underwater and dump depth charges upon with unerring accuracy...even if they aren't equipped with sonar! The AI of Silent Hunter 2 displays a gross incompetence on the part of the developer, which is bad enough without considering...the bugs....

Oh yes, the bugs. Silent Hunter 2 wins my personal prize for crashing more than any other game I've played. (I haven't played Battlecruiser 3000 A.D., so I'll hold on saying it's the buggiest game ever produced) Crashes to desktop were so frequent that saving repeatedly during campaign missions was a must, even though this also resulted a bug that meant that saving would result in you receiving no medals for that particular mission. Almost every action on the player's part can result in the game suddenly and unexpectedly crashing. I crashed when I scored I hit with my torpedoes. I crashed when I hit another ship. One time I tried seeing how deep my sub could do before imploding, but the moment the hull collapsed, the game crashed. To add insult to injury, after crashing, your screen will be totally blank, thanks to a mysterious "SH2 Screen Blanker" program still running. Other bugs abound; laying down one waypoint on the map screen would often inexplicably lay down 100 or so waypoints right on top of each other. The engine noises of my sub would sometimes cut out for no reason. Enemy ships would sometimes find themselves sticking out the ground at 90 degree angles like a giant lawn dart. The whole debacle is utterly shameful and proves that there's no level to which a piece of software can sink at which Ubisoft will not publish it.

The quality, or lack thereof, present in Silent Hunter 2 is all the more painful given the utter dearth of submarine simulations on the market. The only other option right now is Sonalyst's shockingly mediocre Sub Command, a listless, tiresome game that presents the thrill of commanding a modern nuclear sub with all the flair of a high school drama production. Those in need of a quality sub sim will have to look to older titles like Aces of the Deep or the first Silent Hunter title to find the enjoyment they seek, there's simply none of it be found here.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 04/14/05