Shells of Fury (or Die schalen des Zorns in my case, cos I have the German version) is a funny game in a lot of ways. Graphically, it looks oldish in some places, but then there are parts of it that look stunningly well done too, and it's apparent that it was intended to be more than it eventually ended up being upon release. Of course the upside of that means that it has the potential to be improved by mods and there are a few people doing that kind of thing (including me).
If you would be put off by having to do completely manual targetting, then don't be, as you can have the sim assist you. What you do is spot the target in the scope and press 'L' to 'lock' it. This is the equivalent of having taken range and speed data and passed it along to your crew. In the torpedo room you see data for your solution chalked up on a board and the gyro angles are set on the torpedo. From this you can decide whether it is worth taking the shot at that point (note that a hit is not guaranteed by this, and some careful judgement is required with long range shots, so it's not
that simple). Like SH3 etc, you can select torpedo depth and one of three speeds for the torp, which affects its range as it does in other sims, so in this respect, it is no less complex than other sub sims. Of course you can forego all that and do it manually if you like with pure deflection shots, as was often done for real in WW1, but it is tricky at range, and although I have had some success with it (courtesy of the speed data chart I made for it, which you can find on this thread), it is tricky to say the least.
Another thing which forces you to think a bit where Shells of Fury is concerned, is that the ship AI is very intelligent and will spot you if you take liberties with leaving the scope up (this is much more realistic than in the SH games, although it has to be said that the crews on the ships do seem to be particularly eagle eyed, which is probably not that realistic. Again, I get around that by plotting courses for targets spotted at range on the map, stop and submerge and keep the scope down. In SH you can do that and track the target with the hydrophone, but there is no hydrophone in SOF, so instead I time the target over its course plotted on the map by using my home made speed/distance chart, until I think the target is in an ideal position for a shot. At that point, it's up with the scope, quick check to see range and course, fire a torp and back down with the scope, to prevent the target spotting me and beginning to zig zag. This requires quite a bit of positional planning and forethought as your sub is not particularly fast, which is why I was pleased the shot pictured above came off at such a range. In short, SOF offers the same kind of challenges that SH does, but with some twists.
Where it differs is that the deck gun (if you have a sub equipped with one) is much more of a primary weapon in WW1 than it was in WW2, and is much more like a proper naval artillery piece than the auxilliary weapon it was in WW2, with gun laying being more realistically portrayed than it is in either SH3 or SH4, in that you have a chart alongside the gun which marks where the rounds are dropping as though you have a gunnery officer plotting things. Because of this, you can range your guns in much the same way as it was done for real back then, with a long shot and a short shot either side with rings marked around the target on your shooting clipboard to indicate how long or wide your shot is. This is very similar to how WW1 artillery observation aircraft equipped with a morse radio would spot for artillery, and so, is inkeeping with the period.
Another aspect of WW1 subs that has received scant attention in most other subs sims, is that you can lay mines, and there are enemy minefields to negotiate too, which incidentally, are annoyingly deadly if you try and be a smartass and go through them like I've tried to do (and failed) a few times!
If you are an 'eye candy' fan, you might face a bit of a dilemma with SOF. The ship models are superbly evocative of the period and some of them are real modeling masterpieces, and yet other bits of the sim show some rough edges graphically (although most could be corrected with mods). For example, the texture for the 'sky dome' has a noticeable 'join' where the texture was not drawn carefully enough in Photoshop (or whatever they used to create it), not a disaster, but a bit sloppy nonetheless. so I've tweeked a few things like that for myself in it, such as drawing ranging lines on the periscope (which by default has none) and reducing the stupidly big green crosshair you get on the antiaircraft machine gun to a very small dot. I intend to stick all these mods in a big file at some point by the way and make them available, but if anyone cannot wait, PM me.
It has a good campaign (several campaigns in fact to be strictly accurate), plus single missions and a mission generator too, and for the most part the campaigns and missions are fairly historically accurate, so that's another plus point.
With the dearth of WW1 sub sims available, the simple fact is, if you want to play a WW1 sub game, at the moment it is this or nothing, and that fact alone makes it worth having for me. But if you want, and expect something which looks as polished as SH4 from both an audio and visual standpoint, then you might be disappointed. Personally, I can live with its rough edges, as it does 'feel' like WW1 in terms of appearance and 'clunkiness' of the switches and levers in your sub.
For the price, if you like subs, I think it's worth having, as there is definitely fun to be had with it.
Chock