I heard it is going to be released this friday. Heard it was going to be cool, like you can finally free roam around the sub, sucks that there breaking away from the u-boats though

Never even played the first one yet  Might have to check it out.

here is the skinny on SH4 . . . just got finished playing it.

I think the graphics are quite a step up from SH3, character modeling is awesome, the sub looks great, the water looks great, they captured the interior pretty well...

all that being said

the graphics can appear grainy as if you are viewing an old film... similar to the grainy look of the opening SH3 movie.

You are right in pretty much every respect

all of the sounds or... almost all of the sounds... are borrowed from stock SH3!!!

the background graphic to every one of the pages to the manual fro SH4 was even borrowed from SH3 - nothing new there either. the manual has several typos and errors that are not consistant with game play. My manual says that u can access the american version of the UZO by clicking on it or pushing the U key on the key board - of course nothing on the sub is interactive at all.

This would be the perfect sub sim if they would have included better sounds, and modeled several compartments of the sub IF NOT ALL of the compartments of the sub. now you only have access to the command room and the conning tower but thats it and its not "free roam".

the learning curve for SH3 to SH4 is pretty easy in some areas and horrible in others.

for example all of the SH4 key commands are the same as SH3... BUT all of the on screen interfaces are different.

Ubi has all but eliminated the need for the player to manage the crew, and damage control. it all seems automated to me and im not even sure how to use it as there is no real explaination.

there is no verbal warning that you are approaching crush depth... your just suddenly dead or taking damage and you wouldnt know it unless you were in the command room view!!! no verbal warning "we are closing to critical depth sir" - no color coded band on the depth guage, not even any reliable technical data on the subs other than lenght height width tonnage and speed and a picture of it. LAME

on a scale of 1 to 10 i give sh4 a....

GRAPHICS.....8 (do away with the grainy look and we will talk higher nubers here)

GAME PLAY.....6 (poor interface)

CUSTOM SETTINGS..... 5 (you either play in historical accuracy or arcade easy)

total is about a 7

SH3 wins the day - the modders have their work cut out for them as far as SH4 goes. good luck.
i think the attitude from a lot of these game producers like ubi is "well lets turn out a mediocre game that we know will sell... the mod community will make it a great game"

Dont get me wrong, i like the game, but if you have SH3 with a bunch of mods, its better than SH4.

There are redeaming qualities about SH4... for example:

The map is greatly improved with oceanic features, names of the seas and oceans printed on the map, with better map graphics over SH3 stock.

You can dock at any friendly port and re-arm and refuel your sub without interrupting the mission. If you dock at any base in SH3 the mission is over and you cant continue the same mission from another port.

The sea floor is 100 times better in SH4 over sh3 with moving grass and algea, and large rocks (it looks very aquarium like)

When you attack a ship they will sound their distress alarms like you hear in the ww2 sub movies "Whooop whoop WHOOOOOP" (you know the one)

When destroyers are hunting you you can see them flashing moors code through their signal lamps to one another.

Crew fatigue is a thing of the past. SH4 offers something else SH3 doesnt - the ability to assign your crew to "shifts" the watch crew, engine rooms, torpedo rooms etc will all change shifts every 8 hours.

In SH4 if you stalk in close enough to a ship you can see men walking around on the deck going about their duties... you dont get that in SH3. When the ship is under attack these little men duck for cover, and even die.

Most times in SH4 when a ship sinks any number of life boats are launched with 4 or 5 survivors in the boat.

When you see an allied airplane get shot down the pilot will parachute out... keep track of where he lands you can now surface and pick him up. cant do that in SH3

the "insertion missions" are fun. Insert a special agent deep into the Japanese home islands or insert commandos into a remote jungle island. these are fun "cloak and dagger" type missions to play.

The graphics in SH4 are 10 times better than the graphics of SH3... and SH3 looks great.

the bad news is: (My main gripes being a hard core SH3 fan)

almost all of the sounds in SH4 including the voices are "borrowed" from stock SH3 which is pretty lazy... nothing was remade for SH4 except for the diving alarms, and a few general quarters alarms and whistles like you hear on US navy ships.

The command room, sonar room, captains quarters and watch tower and conning tower compartment views that made SH3 so cool are all but eliminated from SH4. You get the command room, the conning tower and watch tower but thats it. You cannot "free move" around the rooms but you CAN "free look".

SH4 offers very little crew management or interaction like you would find in SH3.

no technical data available on the subs and NO warning that you are about to exceed any depth limitations.

if you liked playing SH3 you will like playing SH4, just be aware that you shouldnt listen to all of the hype... they have included some really cool stuff into SH4 but they really slacked off in other departments of the game.