1990 classic Amiga game -
Second version of first "proper" submarine simulator, Silent Service, that laid the basic principles that are used in the genre until today. The first Silent Service was a revolution in the simulators, but at the same time was limited due to hardware capabilities, so the graphic side was a weak point of that production. Silent Service II was published 5 years later, the hardware have changed in that time and the second game was seen as chance to improve the whole game. On first glance Silent Service II was improved, especially graphic side - the simple pixels that represented enemy vessels were replaced by graphic objects that had defined the look of the ships from different angles. It was a step forward, but unfortunately even the graphic object game only very vague idea what kind of ship it is and are we looking at it from front, back, is it coming towards us or moving away. The sounds were improved, including speech elements. The least improved element of the whole game was the gameplay itself - still we could have play the single mission and war patrol, the new thing was the career option, which was more or less the string of war patrols. During our journey on the main map we were given the latest news from Pacific Theatre of World War 2, which was nice addition, but very annoying with time. Another improvement was the screen when we made contact with enemy - all the details of weather and time laid out for us to make decision if we are gonna engage the enemy or just move away. Graphically Silent Service II was far superior to first game, but at the same time this subsim sometimes lacked the atmosphere and huge graphic object representing enemy ships were a bit of a let down, especially when they quickly switched between two different views.
1
2
3
4
5
All Amiga Game Guide