I remember playing the original Silent Service I on my father's Atari when I was a kid. It was on that game that I learned what bearing and heading were. A few years later when my father upgraded to a Windows PC, SS II was the first game he bought, and we both played hours on it. Needless to say, I was excited when I saw both SS titles were available here. The games bring a blend of arcade gameplay with simulation. It's not as realistic as the Silent Hunter series... in SS the game automatically computes a firing solution for the torpedoes. But, it comes from the genius known as Sid Meier... need I say more?
I've been playing Civilization since 2002, when I got hooked on Civ 3. I'm one of those Civ fanatics who can't stand Civ V, and are still playing Civ IV. Then I found this gem on GOG. I've roughly heard of it before, but just assumed it was a mediocre version of Civ. I was wrong. This game adds a little more spice to Civ. If Civ is checkers, this is chess. It's more complex, and requires more thinking before any kind of move- whether it be moving a unit or a diplomatic move. The diplomacy is better here- with a lot more options than I've ever seen in Civ. Being able to choose a diplomatic tone is a definite plus. The military side is better than Civ in the form of the Army Management screen. Here, you can form individual units into a group, with its own name. Here, units go into combat in a "combined arms" fashion. Compared to Civ, where if you wanted to capture a city, you'd have to move a stack of single units, and attack multiple times to conquer. Unfortunately, however, you can't upgrade units. One thing I do wish this had was the vassal state that was introduced in the first Civ IV expansion. However, as this is an older game, that's forgivable. I've only been playing this game for a few days now, so I'm still learning- and there's a lot more to learn. But it has that infamous "just one more turn" addictive nature of Civ that we all know so much about. Bottom line- if you love Civ, try this for a little extra spice. If anyone knows of any good mods for this gem, let me know!
I love this game for sentimental reasons. My grandfather was a crew member on one of the first B-17s sent to England as part of the 8th Air Force. I grew up listening to him tell his war stories, wondering what it was really like. I remember playing it years ago, naming the plane after my girl, and naming the tail-gunner after my grandfather, as we flew bombing raids over occupied France. This isn’t just a mere game, it’s a simulation. Learning to fly, using the bombsight and other tasks are difficult, but that’s what makes it a good simulation- there is no arcade like simplicity to it. And, this game captures what a combat mission with the 8th actually was (according to my interpretation of it)…mostly boredom en route to and from the target, sandwiching a few minutes of anxiety and terror facing the flak and fighter attacks. Playing this though, I gained a better appreciation of what my grandfather and so many other young men went through. I thought I’d never play this gem again. Thanks GOG, for bringing this game back. Now I can spend the weekend flying over occupied Europe.
Unlike a lot of other commenters, I never played this game in it's heyday... too young back then. And, honestly, I've been wanting to try this game for a few months, and only joined this site because of this product. I love Sid Meier's Civilization (except for the latest Civ 5 incarnation!). I couldn't get much into Colonization, however. To me, this game is better than Colonization. In Colonization, I found myself spending the entire game just trying to prepare myself to ultimately fight the motherland. In this game, while this is still feasible, it's more open-ended. And, while gamers of my generation are used to high-end graphics, the simpler 2D graphics like this are a nice change. Too often, it seems new games are nothing more than eye-candy, with less depth to them.
