評論

• gamedeal user

  Jun 7, 2017

  First of all we need to establish what Cold Waters is and more importantly what it is not. Cold Waters is a remake of the 1980's Microprose game Red Storm Rising, based on the Tom Clancy novel of the same name. It's a submarine game set in a "Cold War gone hot" scenario. It is *not* Dangerous Waters or any of the other Sonalysts submarine sims. Nor is it meant to be. The different crew stations are not represented. Cold Waters places you in the role of the submarine commander, *not* the sonar operator, *not* the weapons officer nor does it put you working out TMA and firing solutions. The UI is a basic 2D map showing your submarine and other contacts. The contacts shown are based on the best solution available given the sensors in use. If you are just using passive sonar the solution won't be great until you've taken the time to build up a good solution by changing course and letting the AI classify the contact and work out its speed. You can help out the AI by selecting a contact as your active contact (i.e. telling it to focus more on building a solution for that contact) and by manually cycling through the narrowband signatures and selecting the one you think it is. If you're right the solution will firm up faster than if you just let the AI do it. If you're wrong the solution will take longer and be less accurate. If you head up to periscope depth and visually mark a surface contact the classification and firing solution will be pretty much spot on straight away. If you just use your ESM mast you'll get a bearing only solution. You can use your radar mast, but the Soviets will pick up your radar transmissions and at a much greater range than you'll get a return. Oh yeah, your periscope... has a basic ESM indicator to give you an idea if Vasiliy in the Tu-95 has just picked up your periscope on his radar. Navigating the sub is by WASD to set speed, rudder and dive plane angles, and you can also adjust the ballast tanks. It's not great but hopefully the developers will add a function to allow the user to set course, depth and speed directly (like in Dangerous Waters and Silent Hunter). The current controls are not ideal, but they are workable and in my opinion are better when taking evasive action to dodge torpedoes. Weapons are fairly straightforward and very easy to get to grips with if you are a sub sim fan. Torpedoes can be set to active or passive, you can set them to run shallow, normal or deep, you can set the direction of the search pattern and give them a waypoint when to go active. Wire guidance is simulated so you can steer the torpedo or change its depth, activate it... as long as the wire is intact. Yes it models wire breakage. Harpoons and TASMs are pretty simple. You can set the waypoint you want them to start searching for a radar target. You can set narrow or wide radar search pattern. You can also set them for a sea skimming or pop up terminal profile. The Soviets will really let rip with their CIWS so don't expect a lone UGM-84 to do much against a Kirov. The sonar model seems to be quite in depth, most of the reviewers here criticising it are doing so because they haven't read the manual, don't see a waterfall display and think "Muh, arcade game". Killerfish have modelled sonar performance and environmental effects, it's just the AI interprets it all and presents you with its interpretation on the 2D display instead of having the user mark contacts on the broadband waterfall, classify them on the narrowband and work out turns per knot, etc. Acoustic layers, convergence zones, surface ducts... it's all there. Killerfish actually said in the game previews they were putting a lot of effort into the sonar/environmental modelling. Lots of people are asking about the towed array. Apparently it *is* modelled, but you can't stream or retrieve it manually, and you can't actually see it in the 3D graphics. Yes cavitation is modelled and yes you can create a knuckle to spoof a torpedo. You can rig for silent running and this means you can't reload weapons. Torpedoes can jam in the tube if you try to launch them at high speeds, rendering the tube unservicable until you return to port. Damage control is of course very simplified. You just tell the repair party what to fix. The manual does say that flooding gets harder to deal with the deeper you are, and I've noticed if your submarine is flooding it does effect the bouyancy and you need to blow ballast or use the dive planes to compensate. Playable subs are all the USN SSNs from the Skipjack through to the Los Angeles class. All your favourite old Soviet subs and surface units are there - Alfas, Deltas, Novembers, Victors, diesels like the Whiskey and Tango, the SSGNs like the Charlie and Oscar. Surface units are fairly comprehensive too including Karas, Udaloys, Moskvas, Kirovs, etc. Aerial units include Bears and Helix (I think there are Mays too but I haven't seen any yet). The AI seems to take pretty sensible torpedo evasion manoeuvres and uses noisemakers. Once the Soviets have located your sub they pretty much spam torpedoes, depth charges and rockets at you so things get pretty interesting. Two campaigns included, both are dynamic, one set in 1984 and one set in 1967. The campaign map is pretty much straight out of the 1988 game. You "drive" your sub around the map where you will see enemy surface and sub surface contacts as they are detected by satellite, maritime patrol aircraft or SOSUS (contrary to what another review here says, SOSUS is present and modelled in the campaign map). Bear in mind the Soviets also have satellites and maritime patrol aircraft, if they detect you then they will vector ASW assets to your location. You can drive around at normal speed, which is deep @ 25 knots. This will mean your sonar performance is degraded, you are easier to detect and once you make contact you're likely to be much closer to the enemy. You can drive around at slower speed shallow @ 10 knots which gives you a better detection range and you will start engagements further from the enemy. This isn't so great when you're chasing down a surface group though. Finally you can sit still on the map, shallow at 5 knots, have the best detection range and start the engagement at the longest range. Note that there doesn't appear to be any NATO units in the game, so you never see friendly units, only Soviets and maybe some biologicals. Campaign missions I've had so far are stuff like intercepting Soviet SSKs inserting special forces behind NATO lines, inserting SEALs behind Soviet lines, intercepting amphibious task groups, intercepting diesel or cruise missile submarine wolf packs, interdicting submarine replenishment tenders. There will be other Soviet units going about their business on the campaign map and you could very well run into these. The campaign is semi dynamic, fail missions and the Soviets win WW3, do well and NATO wins. The campaign is pretty brutal. You will die a lot. As far as technical problems go, I've come across a couple. I've had the game freeze on me after I abandoned ship, was rescued and assigned to another sub. I've had another campaign mission where I sank a Victor but it didn't "die" and was sitting there immobile on the bottom but I couldn't exit the mission because the game still thought there were enemy vessels nearby (I'm pretty sure there wasn't). The developers have said they are considering adding period British and French submarines for the player to control as well. Swiftsure, anyone? If you want a "new" Dangerous Waters then this is not it. This is not a Sonalysts submarine simulator. If you buy Cold Waters expecting it to be all broadband waterfall displays and TMA calculations then you're going to be disappointed. If you want a submarine *command* simulator set in the Cold War, or you remember the fantastic old Microprose classic and want a modern remake that is incredibly faithful to the original then Cold Waters comes highly recommended.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 23, 2017

  Amazing title that dropped like a depth charge out of nowhere! The balance between hardcore sim and "Hunt for Red October-Simulator" is PERFECT. A few days ago I had cleared out 6 warships, banged up from depth charges and 3 flooded compartents I was limping to the edge of the map to extract, no contacts, crusing ahead standard at 800 feet. Something didn't quite feel right and I decided to "clear my baffles" (submariner term to check behind you since there's essentially a 60 degree blindspot behind you because your motor/propeller makes too much noise). I swing around to find a November class Soviet attack sub 2,000 yards behind me who's been stalking me at low speed to get the perfect shot. Knowing he's spotted he fires a torpedo right at me as my sonar starts pinging loudly at a quickening pace (the faster the ping the closer the torpedo.) Actual sweat forms on my forehead as I quickly devise a firing solution and let a weapon of my own loose in the water. I drop a noisemaker with Shift+D and immediately blow emergency ballast followed by full rise on the planes. I watch as the enemy torpedo misses my rudder by literal inches as I quickly ascend upward. Halfway up at around 400 feet I watch the now rattled November class take my torpedo to his port side and blow up instantly from the pressure changes at his depth. I literally performed a movie-worthy Crazy Ivan manuever, all of it transpired in less than 20 seconds and the adrenaline was oh so real. All of it was completely dynamic because the AI is outright vicious in this game. On harder difficulties you WILL channel your inner Gene Hackman or you will die in the murky depths below along with your entire crew. (Soviet anti-submarine warfare Helos and Bear bombers will hunt you to extinction) This truly is a worthy spiritual successor to MicroProse' Red Storm Rising back in the ancient days of 1988, with a fully dynamic, long campaign that reacts and morphs with your performance, culminating with either defeat or victory in the bigger picture conflict that you're just a small part of, just like in the real Cold (hot in this case) War. The fact that you see land battalions and surveillance aircraft fight it out over a Northern European map that responds to what you've done makes it feel very real. They even have generated news headlines that take into account your success/failure/partial success the day before. Everything matters and the stakes are high as WW3 without nukes is in full swing. The small development team deserves support and are quick to respond to bugs, tweaks and suggestions. Multiplayer is coming at some point and I for one cannot wait to sit in silence sonar pinging freshbloods storming through shallow waters at 25 knots, just waiting to be picked off. Couple this with upcoming Soviet campaigns and NATO forces modelled in-game and you've got a bright future for this title. At first I thought the price was steep but after playing it for 12 hours I can see the effort and detail that went into this game, the sound modelling alone is next level, and with great graphics immersing you as you skirt below an iceberg off the coast of Greenland to hunt nuclear subs, the whole package proves itself to be worth every cent. Finally, let's not forget the excellent soundtrack, which, while only containing a few songs, perfectly understands what type of music should accompany modern submarine warfare. It's straight out of Crimson Tide, but with its own style. If you have even a passing interest in naval, submarine or simulated warfare of any kind you owe it to yourself to pick up this gem. "Some things in here don't react well to bullets".
• gamedeal user

  Jun 9, 2017

  After playing Cold Waters for only 8 hours, I thought I'd offer a few quick comments. The graphics are awesome. The game works beautifully. That being said, I have to shake my head at a few things. First, I was in the Navy during the 80's. I know about Sonar & Oceanographic conditions. Unless you're very close, a submarine is almost impossible to detect by a surface ship (passively OR actively) if it's under a strong or moderate layer. Not in this game though. Even in the 80's the Los Angeles Class Attack Subs were quiet as tombs. If they didn't want you to know they were there, you didn't know. Also, while I've always had respect for my Soviet "Adversaries," I can assure you that they were never as good in real life as they are in this game. Even at the easy level, the Soviets are routinely kicking my butt. And there seems to be no logical reason why I've been detected. It feels like the game just decides to attack you whenever it feels like it. I like simulation games but I like realism, too. And a lot about the game just "feels" unrealistic. Not sure if I'd recommend, but here's some advice. Get good at evading torpedos. You'll need to be. And don't forget, Evade in three dimensions. Turn and change depth at the same time. Torpedos have a wide left/right field of view, but it's much narrower up and down. Good luck.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 20, 2018

  Bottom line: A very good sub game, with a wrong perspective that makes it feel like a game, not as a sim. After playing Silent Hunter 3 for about 600 hours and enjoying every second of it, i have been looking for a modern succesor to it. By "modern" I dont neccesarily mean with modern subs weapons & warfare, but as in with modern graphics, native wide screen support, etc. Silent Hunter 4 i couldnt get into for some reason, Silent Hunter 5... We better not go there. Then i got Cold Waters. I liked it right off the bat! Its well made, with the right ammount of complexity, beautiful graphics, a good implementation of mission & campaign structure, a good representation of modern equippment & weapons, and a great sense of tactics and warfare, its like playing in the movie "the hunt for red october". However, and here is my main problem with the game: I cant get immersed in it. At least not nearly as much as i did in SH3. The single reason for this is the perspective the developers gave us of the game. In SH3 you saw the world from the 1st person perspective of the captain, in other words you saw and heard everything the captain aboard the sub would, you allways felt like you were aboard that sub commanding it. Yes, you could use some external cameras and see your sub, enemies, explosions, torpedoes, etc. for eyecandy (provided you enabled them in the realism settings at the cost of realism score), but 95% of the time you saw "what the captain saw". On the other hand, in Cold Waters you are presented with a 3rd person, external perspective. Never do you see what you would if you were the captain aboard that submarine. You allways have an external (and impossible) view of your sub, your enemies and weapons. Thats why playing it makes me feel like when im flying my RC quadcopters. Yes, im in control of it, but im not... "there". Add to this is the fact that the external views where you can see your sub, the incoming torpedoes, sometimes enemies, etc. while at 500ft deep, sometimes at night are completely unrealistic, and realism takes a huge hit. This kills immersion for me. I think KillerFish did a great job with Cold Waters, but they also missed a HUGE opportunity. The opportunity to capture all the Silent hunter fans who are craving for a modern version of our beloved game(s). I wish they had chosen to provide us with a different perspective. Every other aspect of what makes a good sub sim is there! the realistically (and beautifuly) implemented vessels and weapons, the crews voices, the campaign scenarios, the tension, the sense of dread when avoiding enemies, the feel of "the hunt" when you are tracking your prey, the investigation work to model things as they are in real life, its all there. If only i could have a view of my sub interiors, my crew, my monitor screens, the reactions of my crew when under stress, what i would actually see if i was there, instead of the completely unrealistic, and quite frankly useless (except to cheat) external view of my sub. That would make Cold Waters the "defacto" place to go for all of us Silent hunter fans. Dont get me wrong, as i said before, Cold Waters is a great game! and i highly recommend you get it if youre into this genere, but thats just it. To me it feels like a game, not as a sim. But dont be too concerned about this. if yoube never played the Silent Hunter games, youll probably have no problem at all getting immersed in it. EDIT: If you do decide to give the game a try (and i advice you do), be sure to do the next things before you start to play: 1.- Read the operations manual included with the game. In fact, read the manual before you buy, it will give you a good sense of how it plays. Make sure to go thru the in-game tutorials as well. 2.- Head over to subsim and get the Reduced underwater visibility mod. Seriously, its the ocean, not a swimming pool. You shouldnt be able to see a torpedo a mile away. 3.- Look here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/541210/discussions/0/1473096694436827913/ For a guide on how to set the UI so that all the panels are visible at once, otherwise you can only see one at a time (i dont understand why they designed it like this). It will make controlling your sub a LOT easier. Finally, If you are finding the game a bit too hard, i can recommend these guides: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=974409462 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=956445120 And did i mentioned to Read the manual? really, its well written and short. And it will help a lot in preventing you and your crew from becoming fish food.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 27, 2017

  Purchased this game originally as I played Atlantic Fleet and thought it would be similar. How wrong could I be, but in a good way. On the surface seems like a 'plug-n-play' arcade sim, but very quickly you realise it develops into a rather in depth tactical simulator. The game play and actually how to play is not that easy to work out, but fortunately there is a very active community on youtube and twitch that provides endless tutorials. In particular Jive Turkey is an ex-submariner and his tutorial videos and live streams are both informative and extremely entertaining. Also The Mighty Jingles provides fun insights and between them I believe they have increased the player base massively. I strongly recommend this game as long as you have a bit of patience and like to get involved with the community aswell. There are plenty of mods for the game that it seems the developer looks at and actively takes on board the best ones as part of the game update. Good job all round.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 14, 2018

  I want to like this game and give it a good review. I really, really, REEEAALLLY do. The depth and attention to detail is stunning. During the training missions it looked like it was going to be great. The problem is that the game is so full of artificial difficulty that I just cannot give it a positive review. I warn you now.... This is going to get really wordy. If you don't feel like reading, here are the bullet points: Pro's: - The most recent sub sim out to date, so a modern gaming experience - High attention to detail and not much complexity sacrificed. Stays interesting - Multitude of realistic weapons and strategies allow you a lot of creative freedom in how you defeat the enemy - @&#$ yeah I get to blow stuff up as a submarine Captain, LETS DO THIS! Con's: - Ultra high level of artificial difficulty which ruins the game for me (read more on this below) - Aimbot AI is annoying AF. The second they detect you, even faintly with a crap firing solution, ordinance are on your location with 100% accuracy, fired off in seconds. Yet my 30 million dollar sonar takes a good 10 minutes to figure out their location. - Emphasis on stealth, then ignores it's own rules on stealth and detects you - May as well tear off all your masts because the moment they break the surface anything with radar knows your exact location in seconds making having any kind of periscope or other masts useless - After first exchange of munitions, enemies always seem to know where you are despite not having any active sonar contact and your sub being in quiet mode - Your sub crew must be the only qualified crew in the US Navy because you take on thousands of enemy ships on your lonesome without ever having any help. It's also the only one in the water that isn't an enemy. - Evading torpedos is both challenging and incredibly easy. Unless you have 8 of them tailing you, which is a situation you will get used to in this game. - Game doesn't seem to understand it's own distance measurements - Did I mention artificial difficulty? If you want a more detailed break down, especially on what I mean by "artificial difficulty", keep reading. First off during training you are BOMBARDED with information, to the point that it feels like you probably should apply for the Navy because you now know half of what is needed for basic submarine warfare. The training missions are well guided, detailed and fun. The missions are fairly fun too and you go into those expecting a challenge, and you get it. Where the game goes astray is it's campaign.... The first campaign is rated difficulty "normal" but considering it's only normal and hard, I'm going to just call it easy, as it's the easiest of the two settings. Campaign has you darting around the map with orders to go to a specified area, bump your icon into the target icon and sink certain vessels. Before an engagement starts you can choose how to load your torpedo tubes, what the current weather conditions are (important to stealth), the basic situation and at what range you want to start at. Along the way you can choose to engage other vessels that are not your orders and usually they result in a 1v1 or merchant ships with a few escorts. These are fun, not neccisarily easy but the task is managable which makes it all the more rewarding when you sink them. I thought the game was going to be quite good judging by the first little bit of the campaign. Then comes the surface escorts you have to engage..... Simply shows as a red fighting type naval unit on the map, you are informed that there are several high priority targets which would be devestating to the cause if you let them pass. They have escorts and you should move to engage. So you bump into them and start the combat! Being surface ships and that training does an excellent job of informing you that the Russians have an anti ship torpedo that launches via a rocket and drops into the water at your location detected and can do this up to 65,000 yards away, I figured farther is better. Well the standard setting only allows you 25,000 yards away tops so I figured I'd just rig for ultra quiet, stay below the thermal lair to interfear with their sonar and figure it out as I went. Which probably wouldn't be too bad if it actually SPAWNED YOU AT 25,000 YARDS AWAY! I don't know what the games interpretation of 25,000 yards is but it is not how I interpret it. It must take it from a random ship in the middle of the escort because it drops you most of the time less than 7000 yards from the convoy. Within seconds of spawning in... Ping.... Ping.... Crud I think they might see me, time to dive deep on quiet settings. Crap, the pinging is getting more intense I know they have seen me now, I'm going to keep quiet still and get into a stealthy location and camp out right on the ocean floor like the real boys do.... Tough for active sonar to see me there. More pinging, suddenly the sonar station is yelling at me about a torpedo in the water. Okay, I guess that was the ship launched one as it appeared RIGHT NEXT TO ME on the sonar. Now he's yelling about another.... and another... oh my god there are torpedos everywhere!!! Dodging and dropping decoys, creating knuckles, launching torpedos that sound like my ship and changing depth like crazy to confuse the torpedo's and suddenly I'm overflown by an aircraft that drops jet assisted depth charges on my location.... Okay I've taken a bit of damage, no biggie, I can work through this. Then another one, now I've taken A LOT of damage.... Well darn, I think one of those 7 torpedos is goin.... Yep I'm dead. Repeat mission... Repeat mission.... Repeat mission....... I think you get the point. I understand this is following MUCH more modern technology than the U-boat era but the fact that you cannot spawn far enough away to creep up on the convoy at depths and a position that makes detecting you difficult is just absurd. It's artificial difficulty and I hate it when games incorporate that. The only strategy for winning this kind of a fight is to quickly identify targets as fast as you can and then dump all 4 tubes to give them something to think about. Most will miss but sometimes you'll score a hit and that's one less ship hunting you. Even doing that you are still severely disadvantaged because it takes time to identify and work a target solution out that's reliable yet they have you clocked in within seconds... After several hours of trying, failing, retrying, eventually, you get it! You pound your fist on the desk as you yell out in celebration until it assigns you yet another surface convoy mission... Sorry folks, not my style being plopped into the middle of a hectic fight which I am hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned in a game that emphasizes stealth yet ROBS you of it the second you step into the game. Which brings me to another point, am I the only friendly vessel at sea? I've never seen an allied ship, it would appear that you play the lone wolf. Your character must have proven him/herself as an ace beyond the ages because Naval Command is betting on you to single handedly win the war out at sea. Some AI support on these missions would be much appreciated when it comes to assaulting a convoy, and not to mention, far more realistic. I can understand if the dev's don't want to add that in and that's fine, but at least make the convoys a little more realistic for a single sub to take out alone. I'm probably going to keep trying, because I really want to like this game. Usually by this point I've mostly figured out a game and the direction I need to be going to do things right. I don't feel like there is a real solution for this one other than take a real pounding and fail over and over again until you eventually get it. I just don't understand why the game emphasizes stealth and concealment so hard then barely ever puts you into a position to actually use it.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 13, 2021

  As a former submariner, I can say this game is very, very good. The Sea Wolf is nerfed a fair bit, but if it was portrayed accurately it would be like a cheat mode anyway lol! Brings back some good memories, and a few bad ones, but this is definitely the best modern sub sim to date. The game can be pretty hard, but that is a pretty accurate depiction of life under the water. If you're on the fence, I suggest you buy it. I'd be pretty surprised if you ended up disappointed. Learn the controls, and use F9 to speed things up.
• gamedeal user

  Jun 7, 2017

  So let get this out of the way immediately. This is not Dangerous Waters, Sub Command or Jane’s 688(i) Hunter/Killer. This is not a tech sim in sense that each station is meticulously researched and modelled and your job as the player is NOT about staring at the green sonar waterfall display until your eyes bleed. This is a much lower fidelity sim than the above-mentioned titles, focusing primarily on the command decisions a nuclear submarine captain would face. It is also a loving recreation of sorts of the classic Red Storm Rising, which is certainly no bad thing. As such, it is doing a marvelous job at keeping me entertained and challenged. The survivability of the boat rests on your shoulders as you advance through the campaign. WWIII has broken out and it is up to you to perform the various tasks command sends down the line to you. Convoys and Soviet subs roam the Atlantic and if you run into them the game takes you into battle mode where you get to test your tactical acumen against a sharp and ruthless AI. The auto-crew will handle sonar duty, TMA and weapons release while you focus on getting the boat into a firing position undetected. It is also up to you to device an evasion plan, because when that torp goes into the water, chances are you will be counter detected and attacked. Ruthlessly. Cold Waters is in my book much more adept at supplying that suspension of disbelief that the older and higher fidelity submarine simulators often lack in my opinion. They are great at technically reproducing the inner workings of a nuclear submarine, but this a whole different kettle of fish. This is war, and you are in command, and that feeling is very efficiently conveyed thanks to beautiful design, art and graphics. It also forces you to make interesting and risky decisions. Approaching enemy convoys, maneuvering into the baffles of two silent diesel subs, avoiding detection while dropping off a SEAL-team outside Archangelsk, all helps to create heaps of tension and suspense. It is a proper submarine experience in every sense of the word.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 25, 2022

  If you want a more "realistic" expereince, get the "DOT" mod. It's an exe install and super easy. I play Uboat and SH3 (GWX mod) and have been looking for a more realistic cold war era sub game. Dangerous waters is cool, but it's a little too much of a simulator for me, and it's not. . . graphically appealing. Which does have effects on my decisions, and I don't have high standards. SH3+GWX doesn't look exactly. . . great. But, if you don't mind the more "arcadey" mechanics (they are done with a perfect balance of arcade and realism, IMO, esp w DOT mod) it's by far and away the best modern cold war era sub game. Or modern sub game in general. Not for the hardcore "sub simmer," but if you're a casual simmer or even a moderate simmer, this will do well for scratching that cold war era itch. The campaigns are dynamic, your actions and failures or victories matter. There are like 5 whole campaigns with DOT mod that are all well done and thought out to keep you entertained for serveal playthroughs. On top of that, there are dozens of premade missions that are super fun and play differnelty every time. There's nothing like knowing there are enemy subs around, they know where you're at, and you're both hunting each other, trying to stay in the right depth to catch them before they catch you, managing your cavitaiton and speed, torpedo types and settings, tactics against all the types of subs and surface ships. . . every interaction is different, every game is different, it's fantastic and I can't rec it enough if you're into this type of stuff at all. The only person I would not rec it for is the, again, hardcore sub simmer. Someone who wants to calculate everything themselves and basically run the whole ship singlehandedly. I don't mind that in a WW2 sub, but in a modern sub like this? nahhh the balance, esp with the DOT MOD, are faaaaantastic. I have around 200 hours, not 14. Not all are on steam : )
• gamedeal user

  Jul 1, 2019

  Give me a ping, Vasili. One ping only, please.