The German officer operating the hydrophones has just alerted me to the sound of a ship’s engine in sector AN493, traveling at medium speed and on a course of 23 degrees (that’s northeast for landlubbers like me). I’m looking for freighters delivering supplies to the UK, and it sounds like I’ve just found one. Another officer sets an intercept course, and we increase speed as we descend to periscope depth. My captain is on the attack periscope, and we spot the freighter – but it has a Finnish flag, and we’re technically neutral unless they’re helping the enemy, so we surface from the water and radio them to let us aboard.
A small crew boards the ship, checks the cargo manifest and finds that the goods were destined for Liverpool, a clear violation of our blockade. In accordance with the prize rules of war, the boarding party orders the crew into lifeboats, supplies them with provisions and sinks their ship with explosives. Mission accomplished, and we return to port, ready to await our next orders from the Admiralty.
That’s just a single mission that follows the life of a WWII German submarine crew in UBOAT, which is set shortly after the war began in 1939. UBOAT was published by PlayWay SA, a Polish publisher that focuses primarily on simulator games. It’s a survival sandbox game with similar mechanics to Fallout Shelter that revolves around life on a German submarine. It’s also interesting to know that your side will ultimately lose, so the whole affair has a certain air of fatalism.
(Video not showing above? Click here » arkansasonline.com/826gameon/)
I wouldn’t generally consider myself someone who is interested in games of this genre. The hyper-realistic simulator games probably appeal mostly to those who have a dedicated passion for the subject matter at hand, be it trains, planes, cars, or in this case, submarines.
However, UBOAT tries to strike a balance between the two with a range of settings to adjust the realism to the level that’s right for you. In the more arcade-like modes, the crew has less micromanagement to do and the enemies aren’t as strong. At the other end of the spectrum, players might try to calculate intersection vectors using a compass, a ruler, and high school math I’ve long since forgotten.
I’m not someone who went into this game with much knowledge of submarines, beyond a decent general knowledge of history, the Tom Clancy novels, and movies like The Hunt for Red October and Das Boot, but thankfully there is a seven-part tutorial (which lasts a good hour or two) that teaches players the basics of submarine warfare.
The last time I had to try this hard to have fun with a game was with Kerbal Space Program, where I tried to calculate the intercept trajectory for a rocket launch to meet a second spacecraft in orbit around a planet. Thankfully, UBOAT is more accessible to the average player, as the crew can automate these tasks. But if that’s your thing, there’s also the option to calculate torpedo attack vectors manually.
(Courtesy of PlayWay)
The submarine crew faces a long campaign, initially to help invade Poland, keeping the French out of the fight if possible (initial orders are to only attack in self-defense, for example), and to prevent Britain from assisting in the war effort. As the war campaign progresses, the crew gains experience and prestige, unlocks new skills, researches technological upgrades, gains access to bigger, better submarines, and of course faces stronger, deadlier enemies whose technology also improves. Later missions involve being part of “wolf packs” that hunt groups of freighters guarded by convoys, having to dive to avoid depth charges, and making many difficult decisions while keeping crew morale high. Things get pretty serious the first time you have to seal off a flooded bulkhead with sailors inside because you’re too busy trying to rescue them while the ship flirts with crush depth at 200 meters to avoid being sent to Davy Jones’ locker.
The missions are varied and can change at any time. For example, I was tasked with hunting an enemy ship, but was then ordered to go to a Dutch port and scout out the position of the anti-aircraft guns. So we glided down a river at periscope depth to a port, located the guns and were lucky when we found two British freighters at anchor. This meant we could easily fire a torpedo at point blank range and sink them.
Well, it wasn’t that easy, at least at first. First I had to locate them in the periscope, then aim at them, then transmit their coordinates to the torpedo room, wait for some kind of gyroscope to stabilize and make sure the target was accurate, then flood the torpedo chambers and fire.
UBOAT makes pretty much every task a little more complicated, but that kind of makes sense because submarining is complicated. It also comes with an instruction manual that’s a whopping 200 pages long.
If you’re a WWII fan, you’ll probably enjoy this game a lot, but it’s not without its bugs and visual glitches. I feel like I soaked up a lot of history while playing, and that’s worth something too. If you’re looking for a more arcade-like experience, I’d go with something like War Thunder (which features multiplayer battles in the air, sea, and ground), but if you want a single-player sandbox campaign, this is worth a look.
After more than a decade as a reviewer, Jason Bennett has developed an unhealthy penchant for roguelike survival games and terrible puns. Questions or suggestions? Contact him at [email protected]
(Courtesy of PlayWay)
(Courtesy of PlayWay)BOAT
Platform: PC
Cost: $29.99
Rating: Teen+ for war themes
Score: 7 out of 10
