Silent Hunter II

The Good
I love submarine games.

The Bad
I don't like this submarine game.

"Silent Hunter II" is just a really, really paltry game. There's nothing overtly WRONG with it - at least it isn't buggy, like most games - but there's just not much right with it. Frankly, it's not nearly the game Silent Hunter was.

First off, the game is technically very primitive. The graphics are appalling; I'm no graphics nut and I know SSI doesn't make games for their looks, but teenagers could have done better graphics than this. This is a 2001 release, and the graphics are 1994-1995 quality at best, they're choppy, and they make the game hard. The sound isn't substantially better.

Secondly, the gameplay is shallow, shallow, shallow. There's nothing more to running your submarine in this game than there was in 1995. I'll grant that WWII U-Boats were not technical marvels like a modern submarine, but driving this thing is about as complex as driving the Cobra in "Carmageddon." It's not THIS easy to pilot a big boat. There's no advanced control options at all, nor is submarine captaincy given any depth - you have no options in terms of outfitting your boat, there's no crew management of any kind, etc. etc.

Third: Nor is there any sort of free-ranging campaign option. Missions are linear and preset. That's more suited to the environment (German U-boat commanders did not have quite the freedom you could give the player in the original Silent Hunter, where you captained an American sub in the Pacific) but it takes away from the appeal of the campaign game. Since you don't have a crew to manage, there's no particular connection between any of the missions, no feel that you're managing a captain through the whole war. It sort of bites, actually.

Fourth, the gameplay itself is no hot shakes. Poor graphics take away much of the fun of looking for targets (and much of the realism; in World War II, submarines had to find their targets and threats visually, for the most part) and the AI is as dumb as a football bat.

The Bottom Line
Bleah. If you want a good submarine game, buy the original Silent Hunter, or buy Silent Service II or something. This game isn't worth the new-game price.