Not worth it
I want to like this game. Starting out, driving the sub out of harbor, so exciting. But the excitement quickly ends. You sail towards your patrol area, and will suddenly encounter a small target. Not only in the middle of nowhere, but technically in US waters. What is this freighter doing way out here? When you do encounter a ship, suddenly they are barely 2nm away if not closer. The game takes away the entire skill and thrill of stalking a convoy. And the graphics! The “map” view, has glyphs for your sub and other contacts, looking wildly out of place for a WWII simulator. It should look like grease pencil markings, instead it looks like a modern naval simulator on top of a cheap reproduction of a map. The worst part of the map view, is it doesn’t show the torpedo tracks! So while it shows accurate glyphs of each ship, you have no idea where your torpedoes are. Then the worst part, which should be a celebration, is when you sink a ship. *Nothing happens*. You check the map, the red glyph is just gone! XO not gonna confirm the tonnage sunk?! He confirmed every single rudder change saying “rudder amidship” but when you finally sink something he’s weirdly silent? The single moment you are playing the game for, and there’s zero recognition or celebration. And it gets worse! If you are stupid enough to keep playing it, you literally run out of targets. It’s as if there’s a fixed number of ships in its universe, and after 4 or 5 patrols, they are just all gone. I’ve driven patrols around Japan without a single contact. And *over* Japan. You can just directly sail over Japan. Why worry about where there is land? Just sail right across! And I can keep going. The “toolbar” at top is weirdly complicated. Separate buttons for periscope view and top of sail view. Should just be a single button. And a pointless 3D view button - looks great, but doesn’t make sense, how is this 3D view even possible? I have to carefully set every throttle and rudder and depth setting, but somehow I can freely fly around the ship with a 3D view? To fix, it’s really not much: - map view should look more like an actual map, with grease pencil markings for ships and torpedo tracks - scratch the 3D view - only a single “binocular” view button in toolbar, which goes to periscope if up, or sail view if surfaced - ship systems button is pointless, certainly not needed at top toolbar - binocular and deck gun view are wildly difficult to keep on target. Need an ability to keep locked on - engage