I only learned of this game fairly late in its development, but despite that I was eagerly anticipating it as I was a huge fan of Silent Hunter 3 and what I had heard about the game made me very excited about its release. Imagine my excitement when I found out I'd get this one to review!

The first thing that struck me about this game was the opening cinematic. Using images taken from the game and then applying a grainy filter to them makes it feel like it could have been historic footage. What was most dramatic about it however was the accompanying poem written by John Milton entitled 'On Time'. The poem, and the dramatic sequences played out in the intro set the games pace nicely and added to my anticipation!

The water in Silent Hunter 4 are nothing short of breath taking.

After being blown away by the opening cinematic, the first thing I did was to view the encyclopaedia of the included warships and submarines in the game. As well as serving a practical purpose to allow visual recognition of ship classes before attacking them in the game, they also show off the game's superb graphics. In my opinion, Silent Hunter 3 showed just how water could be rendered well without it looking fake or tacky and Silent Hunter 4 builds on the good work of its predecessor. The game is very impressive graphically, improving on earlier titles in every aspect. Explosions seem to be more dramatic and it is always fun to watch your victim sink beneath the waves.

As its name suggests, Silent Hunter 4 takes place in the Pacific theatre of operations during World War II. Instead of taking on the 'bad guy' as you did in Silent Hunter 3, you take on the role of a junior Captain in the United States Navy. The missions are much more varied in this game as well. In the previous game, most missions entailed going to a specific quadrant on a map of the Eastern Atlantic and patrolling for a specific amount of time, sinking whatever you came across. In Silent Hunter 4, the missions are much more detailed and to an extent difficult. The first mission I had was to sneak into the anchorage of one of the Japanese home islands and take surveillance photos of the berthed vessels. This was as difficult as you would expect, as most entrances were guarded by Destroyers and other surface assets.

One of the grainy images from the opening cinematic

The other thing that made missions different in this game was the transit required to reach your objectives. You start the game based from Pearl Harbor and as you can expect, transiting the breadth of the Pacific Ocean takes quite some time! Thank god for the excellent time compression utility built into the game. When you've learned the finer aspects of navigation you can plot your course right from your berth to your target and then based on the time of day, weather conditions, and your proximity to possible enemy vessels you can compress time to make the trip fly by. Of course, the higher the compression the less responsive your computer will become, so those with computers approaching the minimum specs might find they cannot compress time all that much without the frame-rate going into single figures.

One curious feature in Silent Hunter 4 missing from its predecessors is that enemy planes and ships you have destroyed will leave behind some survivors, usually in a little boat. Of course it is entirely up to you what you do about them. You can merely leave them be or go in and finish them off. What is curious to me is that Ubisoft said this 'feature' was not in earlier games because of ethical issues. Of course there are plenty of stories about German U-boats killing survivors from the ships they destroyed so it is very understandable, but why include it when you play as the Americans? I have my own opinions on this but this is a game review, not a political discussion.

As in earlier games, completing mission objectives and sinking enemy vessels earns you reputation which can be spent on upgrading most major systems within your submarine as well as entirely new submarines when new and upgraded classes become available. These points can also be spent on more experienced crew members. The use of experienced and talented crew members is best served during damage control and torpedo reloading as the more experienced they are, the faster repairs will take place and torpedos will be reloaded.

You can actually watch your prey slip under the waves!

Make no mistake, this game is a simulation of World War II submarine combat, but how this game differs from other simulations from any genre is that it is very accessible to pretty much any type of gamer. I love simulations of most genres, but I also like a game that gives some flexibility to ease yourself in without bombarding you with ten thousand features right off the bat. When you begin a new campaign you can change the difficulty settings very easily by specifying options like the amount of fuel you have or whether your batteries need to be recharged every so often. The game also allows you to use realistic torpedo targeting or it will handle most of it for you, all you need to do is be within range and on a good angle relative to your target the computer handles the rest. This is heaven sent as manual torpedo targeting would turn a lot of people off this game. It is amazing just how skilled these men were because manual targeting is immensely complicated.

There are some minor criticisms related to historical accuracy with this game. For instance the United States is shown as using Lancaster bombers, which it never did. Also major aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy such as the Akagi are not featured. Finally some people have said that they have come across and sunk more than two Yamato class battleships which is impossible since only two were ever completed. But these criticisms are something only the most hardcore enthusiast would notice and in no way detracts from an otherwise awesome game.

If submarine combat is something that is of interest to you in a game and you have not played any of the series predecessors, then I suggest you buy this game now. For those that enjoyed Silent Hunter 3, I again urge you to purchase this game as Wolves of the Pacific betters its predecessor in almost every aspect.