Easily one of the best naval combat games available. If you own Jane's Fleet Command, C:MANO or NW:AC and have always wanted to have more direct control over your units, this game is for you. It may not be the best looking game now, 8 years post release, but it allows the player to fully appreciate the dificulties of Anti-Submarine Warfare. It will make you sweat, your brain hurt, and it will be exceptionally frustrating at times. It is very rewarding to finally put weapons on a target. Ant-Air and Anti-Surface warfare is also modeled beyond most other games, but neither of them feel as nuanced as ASW.

There are several great mods available improving the fidelity of various areas, or adding many platforms. There's even a user made campaign to recreate Red Storm Rising!

The learning curve is likely to be exceptionally steep for newcomers, mostly because the tutorial that was present for 688i Hunter-Killer seems to have been removed. Sometimes there are annoying UI and AI glitches, and the lack of a global map is a bit of an annoyance sometimes. However, given that DW does what no other game does, I'm more than willing to look past these issues.

Despite having developped several videogames, Sonalysts is originaly a provider of professionnal softwares and simulators, aimed at training US Navy officers. This is clearly visible, as the gaming experience in Dangerous Waters feels a bit outdated, even for its time of release (2006). The graphics, sound effects, and gameplay possibilities are quite limited, at least compared to Silent Hunter 3, which was released a year before. On these aspects, the game is closer to Silent Hunter 2 (released 6 years prior to Dangerous Waters !), and we feel like commanding a submarine from a distance, rather than fill the shoes of a real navy officer.
That being said, the simulation part is meticulous, and has a great level of depth. We are able to command submarines (and a few other vehicles) with a high degree of realism. The game gives access to many weaponry, instrumentation (namely sonars), and takes into account a lot of physical parameters (force instance, thermal layers in the ocean having an effect on sound speed).
It takes a bit of time to fully master the operating of ships/planes/submarines, but the gaming experience is worth the effort.

Nota : apparently, DW is NOT Windows 8 compatible, and Sonalysts have stopped supporting the game. Therefore no official compatibility patch will be provided. Yet, some unoffical patches found on the subsim website may help resolve theses issue.

ENG:

Steam's one of the best submarine simulation games I have played if not the best! Also supports multi-game and works even further. Referral! :3

FIN:

Steamin yksi parhaita sukellusvene simulaatio peleistä joita olen pelannut ellei paras! Tukee myös monipeliä ja toimii vieläpä edelleen. Suositteluni! :3

Dangerous Waters is a very serious naval warfare simulator with a primary focus on submarines, although other platforms are also controllable, such as the MH-60R and the Oliver Hazard Perry. The game's complexity arises not from navigating within your submarine or from having to press a million buttons -- indeed, these mechanics don't even exist. Instead, the game's interface is surprisingly simple for the most part as you move instantly from one screen to the next, and the graphics are rather bland, even on the highest settings, which is a bit understandable considering the game came out about a decade ago (as of this review year). Instead, the difficulties for the new player will be conceptual, and the learning curve for that will probably feel rather high at first.

For those who master the basic concepts behind Dangerous Waters, this game largely tests your ability to be a decent submarine captain. The primary concepts to master in this game are probably those that have to do with sonar. Once a player knows how to utilize his sonar station, he is in a very good position to begin serious consideration of tactics.

At this point, the player should see Dangerous Waters open up into a very serious cat-and-mouse game of war in which the superior tactician can often seize an advantage. Imagine a scenario in which a a submarine captain notices that he's stumbled onto an enemy submarine. Through Narrowband sonar, he determines that the submarine is a Russian Kilo. The captain knows that the Kilo doesn't have a towed sonar array, making it deaf to anything directly behind it. Accordingly, the captain orders a course change and swings in behind the Kilo. This Kilo's hunt for surface ships will be over soon.

Nothing quite matches the anticipation of watching one's own torpedoes travel at the enemy, or the anxiety caused by listening to the constant pinging of enemy torpedoes as they get closer and closer while actively searching for their target. For those who can put up with the game's graphical shortcomings and high learning curve, this game is definitely an awesome submarine simulator.

CAVEAT: This game does NOT run natively on Windows 8. It will, however, run in a virtual machine. It also reportedly works through WINE on Linux.

Great game by itself but it doesnt become truly epic until you download some mods for it. Id highly recommend this one http://www.ra-dwx.narod.ru/download.htm

Eh. One of the few - if not the only - realistic nowadays naval combat simulators.
Sadly Sonalysts never put the work into it that the community expected and deserved. The choice of units is extremely limited, the scenario editor is overly complicated and a pain to use, the single player experience is unrealistic with AI launching precise shots blindly and other weird things. Multiplayer experience stands out of this and can be an interesting experience since the physical conditions are well represented.
All in all this is a military training simulator designed to prepare submarine and anti-submarine personel in the use of their stations, and Sonalysts did not care much to expand it anywhere beyond that.
3/10

Dangerous Waters is, without doubt, the BEST naval/submarine sim I've ever played, and I've played more than a few in my day. The fine folks at Sonalysts really did their homework when they were creating this game, since nearly every aspect of it oozes a level of realism that you're hard-pressed to find in most other games these days. I truly believe that the gameplay you experience in Dangerous Waters is a very accurate portrayal of actual naval operations and procedures in practice today; every vessel and weapon you will encounter has been meticulously reproduced according to real-life records. Hell, I could probably operate my own Los Angeles or Seawolf-class sub singlehandedly thanks to what I've learned from this game regarding their operation. Let it never be said that videogames don't teach you anything.

This tremendous level of immersion comes at a cost, however. Dangerous Waters is not so much a "game" as it is a genuine training siumlator, and as such has an extraordinarily steep learning curve that simply can't be overcome without first reading the manual and running a few practice missions as tutorials. However, even that won't fully prepare you for what you'll have to deal with once you finally take to the open seas, where even a single torpedo is usually fatal, and a compromise in stealth can ruin an entire mission. Dangerous Waters demands patience, dilligence, and a certain enthusiasm for submarines from its players if they hope to develop any real skill for it.

Dangerous Waters is not for the faint of heart, but it can be a very rewarding experience if you take the time to learn the finer points of its gameplay. You may have to lose a boat or two or a dozen before that finally happens, but that's merely half the fun!

THIS GAME DOES NOT WORK IN WINDOWS 8. THE DEVEL0PER HAS CONFIRMED IT WILL NOT RELEASE A PATCH TO UPDATE THE GAME. DO NOT BUY IF YOU USE WINDOWS 8. If you have an older version of windows this is a good game.

Do not buy if you are on Windows 8. Will not run and the company refuses to patch or support it. (I have never actually been able to play this)

Simply put: This is the greatest modern submarine simulator ever. This game is not for most people, because it is pretty hardcore realistic. The playable submarines are: Akula and Akula Improved, 688(i) Los Angeles Class, Kilo and Kilo Improved. (They also make a MH-60 Seahawk, P-3c patrol plane, and Oliver-Hazard Perry frigate playable, but those aren't nearly as fun or polished) The level of depth they went through to make this as realistic as they could is breathtaking. Going through Sonar to find and classify vessels feels very rewarding. Once classified, you determine the speed through the Demon waterfall. After that, you go to the TMA (Target Motion Analysis) station to put in all the info to fire a weapon at it. All this takes time and a lot of effort, as you have to remain silent yourself because the AI is doing the same thing. If you feel overwhelmed by all this, you can put on auto crew on almost every station, so you don't need to do everything yourself, especially if you're bad at it. (Like me at TMA.) The campaign is very hard, at least for me. But you can train up on quick missions which involve you sinking 1-3 vessels depending on the difficulty you choose. And there is a ten-digit seed generator which makes quick missions infinitely re-playable. Overall, I would give this game a great thumbs up and 10/10 rating. [At the time of this review, I have 37 hours on record.]

do not get this if you have winows 8 or better. it doesnt run and the company "doent support" this game any more.

Awesome simulation for modern naval warfare geeks.
Technical and immersive, endlessly replayable with the random quick missions and many player made scenarios.
Best with Reinforce Alert (RA) mod.

The game does not load in Windows 8.1 Looks like I got taken for $14.99.It would really be nice it the Support folks would indicate that it was not Windows 8.1 compatible.

If you have windows 8 or higher, then you might as well say that the devs can throw a F*** party and only invite themselves. I am just lucky I got this on sale. I only waisted 4 bucks!

as any sub warfare sim, this one, although ancient, is almost immortal, because it does not rely on graphics

steep learning curve if you want to go the long way of realism, yet there are also all the "shortcuts" to have the AI crew render easier the underwater combat

Hands-down the best modern submarine/naval combat simulation I've ever played. If you have any interest whatsoever in the genre, this should be your first and last stop.

This very complicate, be boat airplane underwater thing
I did not know how to work
Follow tutorial but too hard to follow

♥♥♥♥ yeah I recommand this game! Big time! Probably the best SIMULATOR game ever created. The main reason why I hate Windows 8 is because it cannot run D.W. Windows 8 will never touch my PC you can be sure of this.

For those who have WINDOWS 8 and want to play DANGEROUS WATERS here is what you must to do (you will need a copy of Windows XP in cd or in image (iso) ):

1: Download and install Oracle VM VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
2: Install Windows XP on Oracle VM. There are a lot of tutorial. It's not hard but it can take some time doing it. Here is a tuto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwUVen3-wGQ
3: You will have to create what I call a tunnel folder that can pass some files from your actual OS (Windows 8) to Oracle Windows XP. It's an easy job but make sure that the name of this folder is as short as possible. like "VD" for Virtual Disk. Don't forget that XP Oracle will serve you to play a bunch of other games that you cannot run with Win 8 so the job worth it.
4: Install Dangerous waters from your CD or ISO file or even Steam again.
5: Patch it if it's from a CD or .ISO et voila.

Thanks to my friend FPSchazly. If you have any question you can ask me.

By the way guys if you are a fan of Dangerous waters I strongly recommand you the mod RA 1.37

This game is all about being hardcore. Sooo get ready to read.

An excellent, if old Sub sim. GET IT NAOW!