SimHQ.com - Naval Combat Zone - Review: Silent Hunter III

My retail DVD copy of Silent Hunter III (supplied by Ubisoft France) allows for unlimited installs on as many computers as you wish. To play the game the Silent Hunter III DVD requires being in that computers' DVD drive. The DVD key is linked to the install DVD.

StarForce is present in both the Retail and Electronic versions of Silent Hunter III. You do not have a choice regarding its installation, nor are you advised on the packaging or during the installation of Silent Hunter III of its use. Ubisoft really should mention this on the packaging and in the download information under the requirements. To quote the makers of this product:

"StarForce is a powerful multi-level CD-ROM, DVD-ROM copy protection system designed for developers and publishers who wish to protect their applications and files against professional software piracy."

Once installed, StarForce does not show any indication of being installed, nor will you find it in add/remove. You will only find StarForce by enabling 'show hidden devices' in the device manager. The 'hidden' installation does little to inspire trust between the community and StarForce.

StarForce is causing much controversy in gaming circles with DVD drive incompatibility issues and by denying the end user a backup copy of the software. Silent Hunter III is among several new titles that are impacted by it's presence. Time will tell if this is a passing fancy of publishers or a beginning for all PC game titles.

The downloadable electronic format of Silent Hunter III is said to be limited to five installations.

The installation process is very straight forward taking less than ten minutes. There is no choice of installation size, which is just over 2Gb.

As is the standard for today, the required version of DirectX, Adobe Reader and any required Codecs are included in the install process.

Ubisoft have included a 'free' 30 day subscription to GameShadow. Where the Silent Hunter III installation ends and the GameShadow installtion starts is very ambiguous and I can only imagine the amount of people who have installed this application without realising it. Should you not wish to install GameShadow you can simply select "cancel".

Installation and setup screens. Click on a thumbnail for the enlarged image.

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