PT Boats: Knights of the Sea is on Steam now for £6.99, is it any good? Arcade or simulation or somewhere in the middle?

I saw that too and came here to post that very same question

There is a review here. Rather put me off...

http://www.outofeight.info/2010/01/pt-boats-knights-of-sea-review.html

Though Destraex over at Wargamer (who plays a fair number of sims)did enjoy it:

http://www.wargamer.com/forums/posts.asp?t=581424

I like it a lot.






A British tar is a soaring soul
As free as a mountain bird
His energetic fist should be ready to resist
A dictatorial word
His nose should pant and his lip should curl
His cheeks should flame and his brow should furl
His bosom should heave and his heart should glow
And his fist be ever ready for a knock-down blow

His eyes should flash with an inborn fire
His brow with scorn be wrung
He never should bow down to a domineering frown
Or the tang of a tyrant tongue
His foot should stamp and his throat should growl
His hair should curl and his face should scowl
His eyes should flash and his breast protrude
And this should be his customary attitude

Cheers!

Rick...

Liking it pretty well, myself.

It's no "Silent Hunter" series game, but...heck, for $15, it's pretty awesome.

Certainly very gorgeous!

Can you view stations 1st person or is it just 3rd person like in Sauron's screens?

First person for the entire crew! I'll take some shots of the first person views and get them up.

Cheers!

Rick...

Here you go Mace!



Captain's station.



Torpedo station. Not a lot different than the Captain's station unless you're using the sight.



Torpedo sight in use.



Gun station 1. There's another like it on the other side and you can switch as necessary for target position.



Gun station 2. The heavy hitter. The crewman will change drums for you.



Your crew. Personnel do change. I seem to have drawn the ones whom the surgeon has pumped full of Thorazine.



Gun station in action. Note dead enemy bow gunner lying beneath his weapon.



Scenic view.

I like the title very much. The gameplay is fun, and it's about as pretty as you could ask.

Cheers!

Rick...

Hey that looks nice! I may have to jump in. Have you got the add-on too? Worth getting?

Get the bundle, you want the expansion. South Gambit adds the Med.

There's also tactical mode, where you can command a task force including aircraft and much larger ships, sort of a strategy game to go with the first person aspect.






Cheers!

Rick...

And something else I like, that finds me spending a lot more time in this than SH5 lately...

...no freaking third-party-DRM! Or ANY other system (*cough*YuPlay/UBI.com/etc*cough*) login.

Double-click icon...game screen loads. Hit 'campaign' button...you're in the campaign mission.

You can be sitting at your desktop to shooting up a target in under 2 minutes.

(Compare to SH5, where the game won't even have gotten around to STARTING to load by that time...assuming the auth servers are even up...)

Does anyone know where one can pick up a non-steam copy without onerous DRM (ie. can be activated offline)?

Thanks,

It's a case of coulda-woulda.

Personally, the game was one of the more anticipated titles by myself and I was saddened that it turned out to be less than fantastic.

"PC with internet access (does not have to be the one where the game is installed)"

I'm assuming that means Steam-free? You might want to double check.

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?pag...t&Itemid=26

They'll mail you the bundle game and expansion, for fifty-five bucks. It's fifteen bucks on Steam. I think I can live with Steam.

Cheers!

Rick...

Guys i need some help. I bought the $14.00 package. It installed and started Knights of the Sea, BUT will not install "South Gambit"

The package is supposed to include both titles. Am I missing something? I keep
getting the following " This game is currently unavailable, please try again at another time".
What in the wide wide world of sports is going on?
I have tried "their" trouble shooting guide but, no joy with that.
I need to know if both titles are actually installed under "Knights of the sea"
or am I being short changed?

Thanks

Jaeger

What the...? No joystick?
I shoulda, coulda read the reviews.

Jaeger

Joystick-wise, you may be able to enable it in C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\AppData\Local\Somalian Syndrome\Profile_??????????? in the file "startup_settings.xml" and in "startup.ini" in the game folder at C:\Games\Steam\SteamApps\common\pt boats knights of the sea, or wherever you have Steam installed. Not sure what the command would be, but you can reassign controls.

While you're in that Steam folder, take a look at the folder "pt boats south gambit" which should be in there as well. If it's empty, you don't have the game and need to go here and yell at them:

https://support.steampowered.com/?l=english

You'll have to open a support account, it's not the same as your Steam account. This "not available at this time" crap is a common enough Steam screw-up so they have a drop down for it. Expect slooowww service from support.

You may notice that Shadows can't be enabled. If you add the entry <shadows_enabled val="1" /> to "startup_settings.xml" and "startup.ini" (hit the "Tab" before the entry like the other entries) you'll have shadows in the game even though the interface says they're disabled. Weird, because they worked fine in the demo.

Here's some of the other tweaks you can use:

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=166578

That's not all that's floating around in that .exe, so you may be able to enable a joystick if you dig around in there and find the command.

Anyway, good luck! Let us know what happens. I'd be interested to hear what their excuse is for selling a Gold pack that includes South Gambit and not actually providing the game. Nothing like some nice, intrusive, life controlling DRM, eh? If I ever give up gaming, it will be because of the DRM crap.

Cheers!

Rick...

Hi Rick and Kramer,
it's because of people like you that I always come back to SimHQ.
Thanks for you help.

Jaeger

O.K. I used the joystick programing software to use my joystick within the game.
So, "Houston", I have control.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

I looked in the "profile" file but it gave me no clue as to how keys\mouse are implimented.

Jaeger

Glad to hear you got the joystick working JM!

Cheers!

Rick...

Hrm. Well, I'd bought both games pretty much the day they were released on Steam...and both worked.

But I go in, today, and, indeed, they are...missing, somehow. Have to choose 'Install' for them.

Giving that a shot, but...weird. Something must have changed on Steam in the past 2 weeks.