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Video Game of the Week /‘Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific’
Into the depths with a gorgeous submarine hunter
By SHAUN CONLIN - COX NEWS SERVICE
Updated: 06/18/07
Apparently, there’s such as thing as “submarine enthusiasts†which, at face value, sounds akin to a suicide cult with a fetish for being drowned and crushed under tons of water. As it happens, however, submariner is really a rather stimulating (and worrisome) career choice. Or so Ubisoft’s “Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific†would attest.
The fourth installment of the “Silent Hunter†series, “Wolves of the Pacific†lets you skipper an American sub during World War II, visit the vessel’s various stations and micromanage the crew.
It’s a gorgeous game with great attention to detail and plenty of pretty explosions. The game’s difficulty is supposed to be scalable, so a novice can jump in and play, then tweak the settings for deeper intricacies once the player gets the hang of it.
Sadly, easy settings just seem to give you more time to die, and you pretty much have to figure out how to navigate and when to launch a torpedo from what depth on your own.
Granted, there’s probably no better way to learn such intricacies, but it can be tedious and frustrating. At least the controls are consistently intuitive throughout, even when you don’t know what half of them are for. Go ahead, fiddle and see what happens.
Your crew evolves (or “levels,†RPG-style) right along with you, as does your boat, in a video- game-like promote, swapout and trade-up system.
Oddly, the game also sports some programming bugs out of the box that crash the game outright (tested on Windows XP). Fixes (patches) have rolled out to remedy most issues (keep your fingers crossed), but you’ll need to download and install them.
In fact, “Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific†seems not ready for prime time. Missions often seem vague or contrary — patrol where? Sink what? — and the press of any key is a game of roulette in which the game might just shoot itself in the foot and shut down (with a nice little apology built right in). Weird.
Still, when the game is firing on all cylinders, it makes submarinering a rather enthralling ordeal, if you can get past the bewildering bits. Ubisoft is touting it as “accessible and empowering,†and that would be more true if they added “vexing.â€
So, although it’s ultimately designed with casual accessibility in mind — where the uninitiated can still play point-andshoot, “Wolves of the Pacific†is at its best as a meticulously involved naval-warfare simulation.
However, to really appreciate it, you’ll need to be a navalwarfare buff, relish a good vexing and enjoy the view from the bottom up — or perhaps just like the idea of suicide by drowning and crushing.
Into the depths with a gorgeous submarine hunter
By SHAUN CONLIN - COX NEWS SERVICE
Updated: 06/18/07
Apparently, there’s such as thing as “submarine enthusiasts†which, at face value, sounds akin to a suicide cult with a fetish for being drowned and crushed under tons of water. As it happens, however, submariner is really a rather stimulating (and worrisome) career choice. Or so Ubisoft’s “Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific†would attest.
The fourth installment of the “Silent Hunter†series, “Wolves of the Pacific†lets you skipper an American sub during World War II, visit the vessel’s various stations and micromanage the crew.
It’s a gorgeous game with great attention to detail and plenty of pretty explosions. The game’s difficulty is supposed to be scalable, so a novice can jump in and play, then tweak the settings for deeper intricacies once the player gets the hang of it.
Sadly, easy settings just seem to give you more time to die, and you pretty much have to figure out how to navigate and when to launch a torpedo from what depth on your own.
Granted, there’s probably no better way to learn such intricacies, but it can be tedious and frustrating. At least the controls are consistently intuitive throughout, even when you don’t know what half of them are for. Go ahead, fiddle and see what happens.
Your crew evolves (or “levels,†RPG-style) right along with you, as does your boat, in a video- game-like promote, swapout and trade-up system.
Oddly, the game also sports some programming bugs out of the box that crash the game outright (tested on Windows XP). Fixes (patches) have rolled out to remedy most issues (keep your fingers crossed), but you’ll need to download and install them.
In fact, “Silent Hunter: Wolves of the Pacific†seems not ready for prime time. Missions often seem vague or contrary — patrol where? Sink what? — and the press of any key is a game of roulette in which the game might just shoot itself in the foot and shut down (with a nice little apology built right in). Weird.
Still, when the game is firing on all cylinders, it makes submarinering a rather enthralling ordeal, if you can get past the bewildering bits. Ubisoft is touting it as “accessible and empowering,†and that would be more true if they added “vexing.â€
So, although it’s ultimately designed with casual accessibility in mind — where the uninitiated can still play point-andshoot, “Wolves of the Pacific†is at its best as a meticulously involved naval-warfare simulation.
However, to really appreciate it, you’ll need to be a navalwarfare buff, relish a good vexing and enjoy the view from the bottom up — or perhaps just like the idea of suicide by drowning and crushing.