Silent Hunter II

Silent Hunter II
Developer(s) Aeon Electronic Entertainment
Ultimation Inc.
Publisher(s) Ubisoft
Director(s) Troy Heere
Writer(s) Guy Usario
Composer(s) Kevin Manthei
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release November 5, 2001
Genre(s) Submarine simulator
Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer

Silent Hunter II is a World War II U-boat combat simulation from Ubisoft for PCs with Windows 95/98/ME.

Gameplay

Silent Hunter II gives the player the command of a U-boat during the Second Battle of the Atlantic. The game offers single-player and multiplayer missions. In addition to some separate single-player missions, they also come as a string in the theme of "U-boat highlights", allowing the player to re-experience such well-known adventures as sinking the HMS Avenger as U-155, retrieving the war diary from the Bismarck and Operation Drumbeat against American shipping.

German World War II veteran and sub commander Erich Topp was one of the game's technical advisers, and a series of interviews with him appears in the game.[1]

Silent Hunter II was developed with multi-player support as a notable feature. Players were able to connect with other Silent Hunter II players, and engage in sub vs. sub combat. Furthermore, connectivity to the separate game Destroyer Command (also released by Ubisoft) was available, which enabled sub and surface ship combat.[2]

History

Silent Hunter II was originally being developed by Aeon Electronic Entertainment, the developers of Silent Hunter, but they had to leave the project unfinished, and Ultimation Inc. finished it. After considerable delays it was released in November 2001 after three years of work.[3]

After release, instability with the multiplayer feature was found to be commonplace, yet Ubisoft never resolve this issue by releasing another official patch. While in 2002 Ubisoft had ended the official support, they authorized and enabled the game's community at Subsim.com to fix the game themselves by giving them the source code.[2] The fan community raised over $7000 for an unofficial patch development project called Projekt Messerwetzer which ultimately fixed the issues.[2][4] The community build also content wise significantly on Silent Hunter II with expansion packs like the WW2 Pacific war theatre based total conversation "Pacific Aces".[5][6]

In June 2009, after many years of commercial non-availability, the game got re-released on the digital distributor gog.com.[7]

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
Metacritic71/100[8]
Review scores
PublicationScore
CGW[9]
GameSpot6.1/10[10]
GameSpy87%[11]
GameZone6/10[12]
IGN7.8/10[13]
PC Gamer (UK)61%[14]
PC Gamer (US)75%[15]
PC Zone67%[16]

Silent Hunter II received "average" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic.[8] A Subsim review rated Silent Hunter II 80/100 in 2005 and named it "the new WWII subsim benchmark".[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Technical Advisor". Silent Hunter II. Retrieved 2007-10-26.
  2. 1 2 3 Trotter, William (May 1, 2003). "Submarine marries Destroyer: The long vaunted union of SSI naval-sims is complete - thanks to fans.". PC Gamer. Retrieved 2017-05-06. gave source code to subsim.com [...] a fund raising drive netted more than $7000 to jump-start Project Messerwetzer [...] Skilled volunteers and playtesters rallied to the call [...] a free 5MB to 6MB patch that will be finally polished and playtested. The original crippling flaw, multiplayer instability, has been dramatically minimized
  3. ↑ Special: Silent Hunter 2 - Interview on 4players.de (2001, in German)
  4. ↑ Scott Parrino (24 May 2003). "Behind the LInes #5". The Wargamer. Retrieved 2017-05-06. Subsim Review served as the gathering place for Projekt Messerwetzer, the project that brought Silent Hunter II - Destroyer Command computability to full fruition
  5. ↑ Najciekawsze modyfikacje (15/03/10) on gry-online.pl by Adrian Werner "Silent hunter II: Pacific Aces - podstawowa wersja gry obsadzała nas w roli kapitana U-Boota na Atlantyku, podczas gdy ten mod dodaje okręty podwodne marynarki amerykańskiej i wody Pacyfiku. Poza tymi dodatkami Pacific Aces wzbogaca grafikę, dźwięk i strukturę misji w kampanii oraz wprowadza szereg poprawek do mechanizmów rozgrywki." (March 15, 2010, in Polish)
  6. ↑ Silent Hunter 2: Pacific Aces on PC Games (February 19, 2004, in German)
  7. ↑ silent_hunter_2 on gog.com (June 25, 2009)
  8. 1 2 "Silent Hunter II for PC Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  9. ↑ McDonald, Thomas L. (February 2002). "Silent Hunter II" (PDF). Computer Gaming World (211): 91. Retrieved 2016-04-24.
  10. ↑ Chick, Tom (2001-11-14). "Silent Hunter II Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  11. ↑ Hiles, Bill (2001-11-25). "Silent Hunter II (PC)". GameSpy. Archived from the original on 2005-02-17. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  12. ↑ Ovaldog (2001-12-03). "Silent Hunter II Review - PC". GameZone. Archived from the original on 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  13. ↑ Butts, Steve (2001-11-14). "Silent Hunter II". IGN. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  14. ↑ "Silent Hunter II". PC Gamer UK. February 2002.
  15. ↑ Klett, Steve (February 2002). "Silent Hunter II". PC Gamer: 71. Archived from the original on 2006-03-15. Retrieved 2014-12-22.
  16. ↑ "Silent Hunter II". PC Zone. 2002.
  17. ↑ review silent hunter ii on subsim.com (June 1, 2005, archived)
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