First Impressons: Silent Hunter 5
“Wake up! The captain wants to speak to you.”
That is how the campaign in Silent Hunter 5 starts. You’re sleeping in your bunk when a crewmate comes over to wake you up. While shaking off your drowsiness, you overhear a conversation which pretty clearly implies one thing – “War is coming”. You then have to walk through parts of your submarine, speaking to a few of the crew members on the way, and climb a couple of ladders to go meet your captain. Sounds mundane, doesn’t it? In any other game, this wouldn’t be special at all, but in Silent Hunter 5, this sequence just feels vitally important, in the way that it sets the tone for the rest of the game.
The “Interactive U-boat” feature addition lets you wander around in your submarine, see what your crewmates are doing, and lets you talk to them. This means that you’re personally involved in crew morale, and it also means that you could make or lose important strategic time depending on whether you’re at the right place at the right time.
The inside of the submarine looks great, as does everything else in the game. Models are well-detailed, and the graphical quality in terms of location, ships and your own U-boat is fantastic. Even the water looks great. This is just on a medium-quality rig mind you, so if you’re running a real powerhouse of a PC, this game could be a really stunning experience.
The gameplay is fully customizable depending on your tastes and enthusiasm as a gamer. Want to play a ridiculously realistic sub simulator? Go ahead. Or do you only want to get your ankles wet while checking out the experience rather than the realism of being a submarine captain? You can do that too. This is a returning feature from the previous Silent Hunter games, but it’s an important one. It does not alienate either casual or hardcore gamers, and that’s a big plus.
Speaking of alienation, this preview build was the first taste I got of Ubisoft’s controversial new online DRM protection system. The system installs a game launcher, where you have to log-in before booting the game up. I haven’t tested it, but I think the game checks if you’re logged in periodically, even when you’re in game. Also, save games are synchronized with the server each time you save, or load. While it wasn’t much of a hassle for me, I can see why so many gamers are up in arms over this. Also, how the system works when there are millions of users bombarding the servers is also something to look forward to. If they’re not up to the task, Ubisoft could lose paying customers. Protecting against hackers is all well and good, but incurring the wrath of legit customers can’t be good for them.
Overall, I came out impressed after playing this preview code. The new interface is a bit clunky at times, but it won’t take much time to get used to it. With great graphics and the increase in interactivity, Silent Hunter 5 looks to be a very solid game, but it remains to be seen how good the final product turns out to be.
*Preview code courtesy-E-Xpress
