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If you think that the above explosive dialogue came out of "Das Boot," you are only a step behind the experience that Silent Hunter III delivers. The third installment of the powerful and immensely entertaining submarine simulation franchise takes us deeper into the role of being a World War II German submarine commander. As the recently graduated naval officer of the prestigious Kriegsmarine Naval Academy, your career is about to be charted in numerous encounters. Silent Hunter III brings us a full dynamic campaign which will start you at the beginning of the war, and provided that you live long enough, allow you to witness it to the very end. As you progress through the dynamic campaign and rack up sunken tonnage, you will absorb a true sense of accomplishment which will let your imagination parallel the game, thus immersing you fully into the role of the feared German submarine commander.

Aside from the dynamic campaign, you can also choose to play one of many single missions. For example, there is a mission builder which extends the replay value of the game by allowing players to take full control over the creation of individual missions. Multiplayer components of Silent Hunter III are very impressive and offer up to eight people to play over a LAN or via the Ubi.com matchmaking service. There are two multiplayer game modes:

The game's graphics are simply amazing. One of the most unique graphical elements is the ocean rendering, which looks and feels natural. Water moves in a variety of ways depending on weather and it shows that the developers have taken their time to make sure that the player's environment is as lifelike as possible. Think Far Cry's water on steroids. Aside from the water aesthetics and movement there are many ways in which the water usage in the game adds realism. When the periscope is raised you will notice that the water washes of the periscope lens temporarily blurring your vision. This effect is one of many small touches that Ubisoft's Romanian developer team added to this labor of love. The game runs at a fixed resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels which translates into steady frames and very sharp details on large CRT and LCD monitors. Ships are modeled with a high polygon count which means you will be encountering realistic looking opponents. And then there are explosions… Both the surface and subsurface explosions are almost on par with war movie special effects. Ships explode in an endless variety of ways depending on factors such as hit location, on board secondary explosions, torpedo vs. deck gun explosions, types of torpedoes used, etc. Your targets can sink in very realistic ways due to the hit location and the amount of damage taken. You can also expect attacks from the sky as enemy airplanes can strafe and bomb your boat. You can man all of the deck guns including the anti-aircraft gun.

The sound quality is top notch and the amount of sound files is staggering. The music is subtle and does not take away from the experience. There also many nice little touches in the sound dept. that shows off the developer's love for their work. At high depths the sub's hull integrity will be severely affected and the player can feel as the infrastructure of the sub takes the pounding from the water pressure. If the sub is hit by a depth charge the sound of water coming in from one of the control room broken pipes is one of many surprises that will enhance the meaning of sound quality in this particular game genre. Sonar station is an animal for itself, one which I will leave to you to discover…

The actual game play is very addicting because of the historic rise and fall of German sub warfare. Early in the war it will be easier to sink ships as Allied shipping does not utilize any good strategies to protect its supply lines. On top of that, allied ships sail in small and often unprotected convoys. By the middle of 1943, the Allies began to shield their supply lines with constant destroyer and cruiser support, hence it begins to get gradually harder to attack without being slammed by the escort ship deck guns and peppered with the depth charges. The hunter becomes the prey overnight. This is a good thing in Silent Hunter III: by the time you get to the middle point in the war, your skills will be strong enough to put up a tough fight. Your successful run in the campaign adds points that you can use to upgrade your sub. There is also an odd micro-management routine of rotating your crew on various points in the sub. This point of the game may be eliminated in the upcoming patch as it takes away from the game experience.

Silent Hunter III is a scalable simulation experience. It will allow the sub n00bs to easily pick up the game and even sink a ship or two without much trouble. This is due mainly to the automatic fire control which can be disabled later in the game. The experienced sea wolfs will perhaps want to choose the manual torpedo control where with a little bit of math and luck your torpedo will find a way to its target. Either way, Silent Hunter III does not require you to read a 300 page manual (the actual manual is less then 100 pages long and it is well written) or go to the naval academy in order to enjoy the game. I applaud the development team for not forgetting the fun factor in any part of the game without sacrificing the realism.

At a time when naval simulations are scarce, Silent Hunter III brings the old glory back to our computers. The game is a master piece and after you get immersed by it. I recommend trying the first and second Silent Hunter games as well. Even thought the graphics might not be as nice, the game play will not let you down. I will leave you with the captain's order: Get Silent Hunter III and dive into it!