Silent Storm
Saving Private Ryan, starring Gomer Pyle
Tags: Silent Storm Categories: PC Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Mar 25th, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Silent Storm (title page) | |||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Action | No | ||
At first glance, S2: Silent Storm is nothing but pure joy of a videogame. It’s unique and original, it’s deep, it has a decent number of options, it’s graphically impressive, and it boasts some wonderful detail in the most unexpected places. However, more and more small problems start to emerge that bog down the game as a whole.
 |
I’ve heard many people compare this game to a title called X-Com, but I haven’t had the good fortune to have played X-Com, so you’ll have to settle for me describing the game on its own merits. Silent Storm is a tactical strat-RPG set in World War II (with some sci-fi twists tossed in later on). Actual gameplay takes place in real-time up until you engage the enemy or the enemy spots you. Every character is alotted a certain number of AP, or action points, to use every turn, with every action from using a weapon to walking using up these points. As a result, it’s important to coordinate attacks to make sure that your characters are not only positioned to cover each other, but also have enough AP to act accordingly.
 |
Beginning the game by choosing to play as either the Axis or Allies, players create their soldier and follow them through a story unique to the side of battle they chose to fight for. The story itself is told mostly through reading mission breifings and breif chats between characters in the heat of battle, and even before some of the more extravagant plot twists later in the game, there are some fairly interesting plot devices. Renegade officers, hidden plots and secret facilities abound, and it seems like no facility is truly safe from surprise attacks. If nothing else, it manages to be varied and interesting enough to not leave you with with the stale “been there, done that” taste that so many WW2 games reek of.
After your tutorial mission, you’re given the ability to command a team of a half dozen or so soldiers, ranging from more specialized units like mechanics and medics to those with more directly applicable skills ranging from “Killin’”, “‘Killin’ from far away”, “Killin’ all sneaky-like”, and “Killin’ with things that go ‘Boom’”. Instead of creating these soldiers, you recruit them from a list at your HQ, but more on this later.
 |
Anyways, after assembing your crew, you can start accepting missions that pop up on the area maps, or just go out and pick a fight with enemy troops if you so choose. In battle, it quickly becomes apparent that stealth is one of the biggest factors in the game, and effectively catching your enemies off guard, evading battle when vulnerable, or scouting out a territory before moving through it can make the difference between victory and defeat. Of course, the “effectively” can be a bit of a tricky thing, but more on this in a bit.
 |
Graphically, the game really does shine, with excellent character animation, ragdoll physics, and detailed environments, all of which can be destroyed either in part or as a whole. This isn’t just window dressing either, but can be a very important strategy element. A soldier barracading himself behind a door and lying in wait for anyone to come through can make it very difficult to proceed normally, but blasting a hole in a nearby wall, floor, or ceiling can make you a nice alternate entrance. I can’t describe the joy of tossing a grenade into a room full of boxes and soldiers, and watching the soldiers’ bodies fly up against the walls while all the boxes shatter. Oh, and then there was the time where an extremely heated battle in a multi-story house took its toll on the building and the floor collapsed underneath everyone in the room.
 |
The sound is a bit of a mixed bag. The game’s soundtrack and sound effects are fantastic, and the resulting overall presentation is just as immersive as games like Medal of Honor. Character voices, on the other hand, are extremely annoying at best. Just about every character in the game is poorly acted, has a terrible fake accent, and the writing is equally awful. To add to this, characters yak on incessently, even when they’re not doing anything. I begin to move my sniper into position, and my aging grenadier says “Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” for the fiftieth time. If it weren’t for the game’s option to mute the characters, I’d be reccomending players to unplug their speakers while playing, despite the fact that everything else about the game’s sound is fantastic. However, thankfully you can shut them up, although their pointless messages still pop up in battle. Oh well.
 |
Generally, this game does a lot of truly tremendous stuff and really holds some fantastic gameplay in the midst of it all, but it’s also speckled with problems. First off, a lot of how the game works is a bit poorly explained, and sometimes doesn’t seem to make sense. Of particular mention is the “stealth” thing. Remember that soldier barracading himself behind the door? If I open up that door, he has the option of interrupting my turn to blast the crap out of whoever’s trying to invade his personal bubble. However, if my character was in plain sight the whole time, he couldn’t. Huh? What’s more, it doesn’t even always work that way, as I’ve been in situations where my team members didn’t see an enemy who was walking right in front of them. I suppose this probably goes back to characters’ stealth ratings and stuff, but it still could have done with better explanation. Even now, it always seems tricky trying to figure out what will happen if I round a corner that I know enemies are on the other side of. Will I see them first? Will they see me first? Which factors in more importantly: Line of sight, cover, or stealth rating? This is a life-or-death kind of thing, and the lack of clarity surrounding it causes all kinds of prolems.
 |
 |
It’s also disheartening to see that this game has no multiplayer option. As previously stated, while the game lets you create your main character, you’re limited to selecting the rest of your crew from a mere few dozen pre-made characters. Had the game given you the option to create your entire team, this game would have had tremendous potential as a competitive multiplayer game. My team of scouts and explosives experts versus your team of soldiers and snipers… oh, the potential… the missed potential.
 |
In addition, it’s incredibly frustrating to have to wait through not only the enemies’ turn, but the turns of potentially dozens of friendly NPCs as well, especially as the computer cycles through the NPCs to have them do things that are either pretty pointless or just plain stupid. Joe Blo wants to rush into that gang of five Germans, armed only with a pistol? Fine, his funeral. But do I really have to wait as it happens to every single character on the map? To make things worse, when it’s not your turn, you’re often unable to change the floor you’re viewing like you can do on your turn. That means if you’re looking at the third story of a house at the end of your turn, and the enemies begin their turn by attacking a character on the first floor, you won’t be able to see any of what’s going on.
 |
Also frustrating is the controls’ constant refusal to act the way they should. Sometimes, a click of the mouse won’t register, and the action will have to be repeated until it does. Other times, the computer misinterprets what you’re clicking on, which can cause serious problems. One game I played, I had two commandos headed slowly towards a staircase to head downstairs and kill an enemy in the basement. In my attempt to click the space just next to the staircase, the game seemed to be under the impression that I didn’t want to move my first character there like I intended, but rather, shoot through the ground beneath the second character’s feet to try and hit the enemy through the floor. As crazy and cool as that may have been if it worked, it didn’t work, and instead of simply walking over to the stairs like I wanted him to, he’d instead made my second commando fall to his death through a new hole in the floor. Moron.
 |
It seems that the game’s occasionally wonky controls cause this to happen far more often than it should. Another time, in an attempt to toss a grenade into the window of a second-story room, my grenadier apparently thought I was telling him to try and get it on the roof, which it bounced off only to land right back next to him. To be fair, moronic accidents like these are extremely funny, and I occasionally grow to think of my crew in the same light as those cartoon characters who pull the pin from the grenade and throw the pin instead of the grenade. However, after I’ve had my good laugh at my Darwin Award-winning platoon, I have to sigh and restart the battle all over again.
It’s a shame too. If this game were cleaned up a bit, it would have easily been the surprise hit of the year. The core gameplay, graphics, and game physics are outright fantastic, and have so much potential. Most of the time, this is a truly awesome game, but then every now and then something stupid happens that makes it just that much less enjoyable. Overall, it’s still a strong title, and I hope and pray that we’ll see a sequel (and one that remedies this game’s flaws), but for now it’s a shame that these flaws keep this game from true greatness.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Great graphics and physics engine + Deep, varied, and entertaining gameplay + The ability to destroy just about anything is incredibly cool |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Gameplay elements are often poorly under-explained - Controls often act very wonky - You may as well go and watch an episode of the Simpsons while the NPCs take their turn - No multiplayer? |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| S2: Silent Storm is a truly great game marred by numerous problems. Incredibly awesome when it works, extremely frustrating when it doesn't. | |
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: Silent Storm
Posted by Jake McNeill on Mar 25th, 2004 and is filed under PC Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
