Mar
2

Silent Hunter 5 – Eating Crow

3 Comments

…time for me to have a nice, big plate of crow.

I should have known better actually. I’m an MMO gamer, so really, why should a DRm scheme that requires an online connection bother me that much. As a wargamer, though, I don’t really like it because my expectation when getting a single player wargame or simulation is to “stay offline”.

So…after some thought, I figured I better get the game and see what the real deal was instead of just doing just a bunch of hand waving like a typical gaming blogger ;) . Honestly, it really is not that bad a scheme to be introducing. What happens is that you register with your game key and create an account with Ubisoft. From then on in, you log in just like any other MMO. At the log in, it “synchronizes” your save games with their servers and you off and running. Really…nothing wrong with it.

One thing I did encounter over the weekend was that I was not able to sync my saved games with Ubi’s servers…and I think that is where some contention will come in for some of the hardcore rivet counters. If you cannot sync your save to the server, you cannot play. If you don’t log in…you cannot play. It does seem kind of ridiculous to cut off the player from playing because of a save sync issue even though they successfully logged in.

As MMO gamers, we expect server downtimes and, for the most part, these downtimes are well communicated. I’m wondering on how Ubi is going to manage this type of service going forward.

That all being said, Silent Hunter 5 is pretty good. Already sunk about 15000 tonnes of Allied shipping. Goooo me ;)

D out.

Posted in Editorial
3 Comments Posted by Darren

3 Responses to "Silent Hunter 5 – Eating Crow"

  • Adam says:
    March 3, 2010 at 12:43 am

    What if you’re in the middle of nowhere, like say a soldier serving in Afghanistan and you just want to chill out and play a game? Sucks to be them I suppose.

  • Cj Didge says:
    March 3, 2010 at 3:43 am

    I think the only issue i would have with it is that if they are forceing me online to play their game then i want them to make sure it works all the time, also i want it to work on any computer i put it on. What i mean is i want all bug fixes automatically applied when i log on, and for them to be working on bugs as well. Like an mmo in some respect. If they like some companies dont fix bugs for ages then i think i would take the game back to the store rather than wait like i have in the past.

  • Akely says:
    March 5, 2010 at 3:41 pm

    My first reaction when I heard about tthis DRM was WTF, loudly. But thinking about it have lead me to change my mind. If it means that there is nothing extra installed on my machine that can crash it, render my DVD-burning software inoperable or what-not I’m actually all for it. If only they would have stopped with an initial check I’d call it a great move. Even a periodic check would be fine, as long as it retries a couple of times. Not all people have great internet connections, after all.

    It’s been AGES since I played a good sub game. I need to get SH5, methinks.

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