| Silent Hunter II | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Aeon Electronic Entertainment Ultimation Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | Ubi Soft |
| Director(s) | Troy Heere |
| Writer(s) | Guy Usario |
| Composer(s) | Kevin Manthei |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Submarine simulator |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
Silent Hunter II is a 2001 World War II U-boat combat simulation published by Ubi Soft for PCs with Windows 95/98/ME.
Silent Hunter II gives the player the command of German U-boats during the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II. The game offers single-player missions and multiplayer gameplay. The single-missions include sinking HMS Laurentic and HMS Patroclus as U-99, avoiding being sunk by HMS Fortune as U-44, sinking HMS Avenger as U-155, Operation Drumbeat against American shipping, retrieving the war diary from the German battleship Bismarck, the action in Tarrafal Bay, saving the German supply ship Python from HMS Dorsetshire (40) and attacking a task force as U-2511 as the last act of the Battle of the Atlantic. The campaign, which has the player being sent notes from Admiral Dönitz, spans 21 missions from the start of the war in 1939 to the end of the war in 1945, and includes attacking fleeing Polish navy destroyers during the invasion of Poland, hunting British shipping off the English coast, penetration into Scapa Flow, assisting in the invasion of Norway, Blitzkrieg and Dunkirk evacuation ("Dunkirk little ship" Sundowner appears in this mission), then battling in the North Atlantic, before passing through the Strait of Gibraltar to La Spezia, severing the British lifeline to Malta, Operation Drumbeat, attacking in the Caribbean, attacking Arctic convoys to the Allies ultimately gaining the upper hand in the Mid-Atlantic gap, repelling the D-Day invasion and finally escaping to Buenos Aires, Argentina at the end of the war, whereupon Dönitz sends a final message. [3] [4]
German war veteran and U-boat commander Erich Topp was one of the game's technical advisers, and a series of interviews with him appears in the game. [5] [6]
Silent Hunter II was developed with multi-player support as a notable feature. Players were able to connect with other 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. [7]
Silent Hunter II was first announced in 1999, [8] and originally 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. [9]
After release, instability with the multiplayer feature was found to be commonplace, yet Ubisoft never resolved 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. [7] The fan community raised over $7000 for an unofficial patch development project called Projekt Messerwetzer which ultimately fixed the issues. [7] [10] Since then, unofficial expansion packs like the World War II Pacific war theatre-based total conversation "Pacific Aces" were released by community. [11] [12]
In June 2009, after many years of commercial non-availability, the game was re-released on the digital distributor gog.com. [13]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | 71/100 [14] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Computer Gaming World |   [15] |
| GameSpot | 6.1/10 [16] |
| GameSpy | 87% [17] |
| GameZone | 6/10 [18] |
| IGN | 7.8/10 [19] |
| PC Gamer (UK) | 61% [20] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 75% [21] |
| PC Zone | 67% [22] |
Silent Hunter II received "average" reviews according to video game review aggregator Metacritic. [14] A Subsim review rated Silent Hunter II 80/100 in 2005 and named it "the new WWII subsim benchmark". [23] [24]
U-571 is a 2000 submarine film directed by Jonathan Mostow from a screenplay he co-wrote with Sam Montgomery and David Ayer. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel, Jon Bon Jovi, Jake Weber and Matthew Settle. The film follows a World War II German submarine boarded by American submariners to capture her Enigma cipher machine.
The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade of Germany, announced the day after the declaration of war, and Germany's subsequent counter-blockade. The campaign peaked from mid-1940 through to the end of 1943.
Silent Hunter is a World War II submarine combat simulation for MS-DOS, developed by Aeon Electronic Entertainment and published by Strategic Simulations in 1996. The game takes place in the Pacific War during World War II, the player commanding a submarine of the United States Navy. Most contemporary US submarines and Japanese warships are featured along with some generic merchant ships.
SUBSIM is an online publication founded by Neal Stevens in Jan. 1997 that focuses on naval and submarine computer game reviews, articles, and news. Subsim is short for Submarine simulator. Subsim's forums have been online since 1999, with archives back to 2001. Membership totals were 117,023 at August 2016, with approximately 7,700 active members daily. International meets have been held in London, Houston, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Groton, Germany, and Tokyo.
Destroyer Command is a naval simulation released by Ubi Soft in 2002 and developed by the now-defunct Ultimation Inc.
Silent Hunter III is a submarine simulation developed by Ubisoft Bucharest and published by Ubisoft. It was released for Windows on March 15, 2005. Like Silent Hunter II, it places the player in command of a German U-boat during the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II.
Wolfgang Lüth was a German U-boat captain of World War II who was credited with the sinking of 46 merchant ships plus the French submarine Doris sunk during 15 war patrols, for a total tonnage of 225,204 gross register tons (GRT).
German submarine U-26 was one of the two Type IA ocean-going U-boats produced by Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine. Constructed in Bremen, U-26 was commissioned in May 1936. She experienced a short, but successful combat career, sinking eleven ships.
Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific is a computer submarine simulation for Windows developed by Ubisoft Bucharest and published by Ubisoft in 2007. It places the player in command of a U.S. Navy submarine during World War II and takes place in the Pacific theater. The game allows players a variety of play modes including career, single war patrol and single battle engagements. An expansion pack, The U-Boat Missions, was released in 2008.
Wolfgang Heyda was a German U-boat commander during World War II.
Convoy HG 76 was an Allied convoy of the HG series, during the Second World War. It was notable for the destruction of five German U-boats, although the true total was not known to the British until after the war.
Allied submarines were used extensively during the Pacific War and were a key contributor to the defeat of the Empire of Japan.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier is a third-person tactical shooter video game developed and published by Ubisoft for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. It was released in May and June 2012. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Future Soldier was announced to be in development by Ubisoft on January 22, 2009. The game has a futuristic take on the Ghost Recon series. The campaign has settings such as Bolivia, Zambia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, and Norway.
Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic is a submarine simulator for Microsoft Windows developed by Ubisoft Bucharest and published by Ubisoft. It is the fifth and latest installment of the Silent Hunter franchise and the successor of Silent Hunter 4: Wolves of the Pacific. Like Silent Hunter II and Silent Hunter III, it places the player in command of a German U-boat during World War II, more specifically the Battle of the Atlantic.
Operationsbefehl Hartmut was the code word to begin German submarine operations during Operation Weserübung - Nazi Germany's invasion of Denmark and Norway. Occasionally these operations are termed Operation Hartmut. The orders involved submarine screening actions for the German invasion fleet and reconnaissance - particularly off Narvik and Trondheim. The orders also resulted in a number of attacks on Allied forces - particularly in or near the fjords of the Norwegian coast.
An unofficial patch is a patch for a piece of software, created by a third party such as a user community without the involvement of the original developer. Similar to an ordinary patch, it alleviates bugs or shortcomings. Unofficial patches do not usually change the intended usage of the software, in contrast to other third-party software adaptions such as mods or cracks.
German submarine U-56 was a Type IIC U-boat of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that served in the Second World War. She was built by Deutsche Werke, Kiel as yard number 255. Ordered on 17 June 1937, she was laid down on 21 September, launched on 3 September 1938 and commissioned on 26 November under the command of Kapitänleutnant Wilhelm Zahn.
Convoy HX 90 was a North Atlantic convoy of the HX series which ran during the Battle of the Atlantic in both world wars, this being a Second World War convoy.
Wilhelm Zahn was a German Kriegsmarine officer during the Second World War. He was U-boat First Watch Officer, then became U-boat commander and was finally promoted to Korvettenkapitän on 1 April 1943. As commander of U-56 he was able to avoid detection by the destroyers surrounding HMS Nelson and came in close proximity to the British flagship, launching three torpedoes against her whilst she was carrying Winston Churchill and the high military command of the British Navy. Following that incident he became widely known as the "Man who almost killed Churchill" amongst the U-boat submariner corps. He was one of the commanding officers during the sinking of MV Wilhelm Gustloff which has been described as "Adolf Hitler'sTitanic".
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.
Subsim Review served as the gathering place for Projekt Messerwetzer, the project that brought Silent Hunter II - Destroyer Command computability to full fruition.
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