Likes:
Combining story elements with a dynamic and static campaign layer - the ability to board merchants, search cargo holds, capture downed pilots or surviving crew and undertake side missions adds a new and interesting layer to an old classic genre
customizable officers and crew - You can make them and name them in a large number of ways which makes the experience your own
complexity of repair and damage control - you get some real tense Das Boot style moments now, instead of watching a damage control schematic 2D page slowly repair itself, now you see men scrambling for parts, being sprayed with water while trying to fix a leak and stop the flooding
Mod support and ease of modification - this game has an insane amount of mod support, and despite constant updates and patches, most of the higher end mods are updated for compatability within days if not hours of the new version update
Dislikes:
steeper learning curve than most, just because you are acustomed to SH3, SH4, SH5 and others the gameplay style is very different and will take some getting used to and i think this causes a lot of folks to abandon early on what could be one of their favorite subsims if they gave it a few weeks of tinkering otherwise
Limited voice acting - i suspect this will change over time, but for now, various things we might expect would be modeled speech wise arent
too many friendly uboats - especially early in the war, im running across 10 and 12 other boats in October 39 when there probably werent even that many ordered to sea by then
Not enough friendly other stuff - currently there is only one french port, and it is empty of any friendly activity, merchants, trawlers, mine sweepers, tankers, destroyers etc... nowhere to be seen.
Conclusions:
Just as my review (outdated a bit now) says - the game has gobs of support from the dev team and the modding community, and on vanilla patching and release versions alone, the game isnt what it was 12 months ago let alone 6. It has vastly improved over the last couple of years worth of work done to it. so there is a TON o potential, both realized and untapped
The players of our genre are fortunate that these titles exist at all, we are a unique corner of the gaming world, and with first person shooters and so many other games capturing the market the way they do, we are easily becoming spoiled with our current variety of subsims. Uboat - if the player can get through learning the user interface, offers unique fun and challenges in ways that havnt been considered before. I myself am a traditional hard core player... If realism is what you seek, put the game in FPP mode only and enjoy, because the only thing you wont be doing is filling out Kriegsmarine requisition request forms and typing after action reports to Bdu while in port - i just wish you good luck in even surviving your first five missions that way.
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