Historically accurate, great fun throughout
I can't bring myself to think of Silent Hunter II as a classic, or retro game, I just spent too much time with it, and for some reason, in my mind it hasn't really aged quite as much. Sure enough, those of you that are more in tune with high realism in terms of graphics, the kind you'd get from recent, next gen games, my love story with the way Silent Hunter II looks would probably feel a bit off. But what I'm trying to say is that Silent Hunter II achieved, at least for me, the kind of graphical sweet spot that I could be alright with, never to evolve or get better, and I wouldn't mind. At any rate, apart from my rant, what Silent Hunter II did great was to create a very believable game world, with great detail and great attention to simulation details, and a player interface that was just right. You see, with as deep a simulation as this game offers, the ways in which you can conceive of controlling it can be so diverse. Heck, you can even create a control and interaction scheme 9as some modders have done!) that would bring the game to feel like a total arcade game, but nope, the basic version of the game controls half way between hardcore simulation and easy to sink into arcade. Plus, the missions are very true to the Allied and American side of the WWII real life interactions, which can just be sank into (sic!) for hours and hour on end. Definitely the epitome of U boat simulation, for me at least, only bettered just slightly by later games in the series, but as good as you'd ever want it to be, again, for me, and believe me, I can be quite pretentious, me, hehe!
