marinesims.de - Silent Hunter 4: PressEvent Hamburg 2007

When we received an invitation for a „press-event“ of Ubisoft about Silent Hunter 4 in Hamburg several days ago, we lined up at the EAST-Hotel to pay a visit to the Russian Tango-class submarine U-434. Back in the seventies this submarine served as a spy-sub and is now a museum ship in the harbor of Hamburg and accessible for everyone.

Here we got into the right mood for the narrowness of a submarine for addressing the original purpose afterwards in the EAST:

Silent Hunter IV .

All visitors took a seat in the small cinema and were officially welcomed by Carsten XXX. Press & Co. got prepared for the pacific and Emil Gheorge, developer from Romania, demonstrated the German press SH4. The order of events was about the same as at the last presentation in Düsseldorf, of which a report has already been written by us

When the lights illuminated the cinema again the most important part for us as community took place: the test of a playable version which was prepared especially for this event. And this is also the reason why many things can´t be judged at this time. The completeness was at about 80 %, that´s why only the singleplayer part was available. And this we wanted to test in detail. The controls and keyboard layout remained the same. The interface got a bit smaller, the symbols are different and important dials now slide in from the side, also known from the modding scene of SH3. People who preferred a manual target solution will no longer have a notepad and need to use the rotary switches of the TDC. Once you are ready choose the tube, open the hatch and fire. No changes were made for the TDC-sourpusses, as usual an officer takes over this part. The eel follows its course and hits the victim with a deafening sound. A huge hole gapes in the body of the ship and you can see the interior in 3D.

As usual the player can visit several parts of his boat and watch the crew at work. Control room with Radar and Sonar, conning tower, bridge, deck gun and Flak are the primary stations that are accessible for the player. Noteworthy the din if the boat is under attack, the light goes out or begins to flicker intensively, the crew seems to be panic and wounded or dead crewmen fall to the ground. I have to make a note, though, that the new damage control got much more extensive and takes a certain time to get used to it. The new crew management seems to be quite good. The crew is divided into three groups: active, reserve and sleep. You can intervene, though and rearrange your crew as you wish. All available stations can be reached quickly by a small navigation bar, here you also can comfortably give orders, as far as available.

Back to the game:

A very beautiful effect takes place if you raise the camera out of the water: the water runs off like on a screen, the same if you raise the periscope. New is drifting plankton and aquatic plants and stones at the seafloor. A view through the periscope reveals living on the ships: crewmen stand or walk on the decks of ships that are anchoring in harbors. If you sink a ship in SH4 you can sometimes even see lifeboats with crewmen drifting in the water. There are also graphic effects like spectacular explosions and reflections on the surface or the ships. A boat at periscope depth can be made out shimmering below the surface. Also a great view is a slowly sinking battleship while it´s outlines disappear in the depth of the ocean. All options in the extensive grafics menu must be on „high“, though.

But at a certain time we were tempted by something to eat and free drinks. We used the pleasant atmosphere to talk to other people like Ubisoft-Germany and Emil Gheorge, Radio Hamburg and Gameswelt.de. Extraordinarily remarkable: although we clearly criticized things including Silent Hunter 3 the people of Ubisoft and Emil Gheorge answered our questions! I guess we wouldn´t have been able to empty the hotel bar as it was too well equipped. We left the EAST in the late evening and went with the people of Ubisoft into a little pub to finish this day and to disappear in the hotel later. All in all this event was very well organized, it was a great day for us and we want to thank hereby the people of Ubisoft very much. At the end I would like to add that we would have liked to describe more about the game experience but as the version we played is far from a Gold-Version, detailed technical informations like the AI of the destroyers can´t be described. That´s why we are waiting for the preview-version to release reliable informations about AI and technical details.

More Screens from Silent Hunter 4!