Game News Silent Storm dubbed GameSpot's Best Game No One Played

[Spazmo]

Tags: Nival Interactive; Silent Storm

In their <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/index.html>2004 Game of the Year feature</a>, <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc">Gamespot PC</a> have named Nival Interactive's Silent Storm as their <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/gamespot/features/all/bestof2004/day3w_20.html>Best Game No One Played</a>, an award reserved for great games that don't sell like they ought to.<blockquote>What makes the commercial failure of Silent Storm so disheartening isn't so much the fact that it's a great game--although it certainly is that--but rather that it likely represents the dying gasp of a style of gameplay that many PC gaming grognards remember fondly. Anyone who played PC games in the early '90s likely has fond memories of X-COM, one of the many classic titles that MicroProse put out. In it, you commanded small squads of soldiers in turn-based tactical combat battles that mixed destructible buildings and true line-of-sight modeling with a creepy alien-invasion storyline to create a game that caused many an all-night gaming session--"Just one more mission!" was a popular refrain for its many addicts. Unfortunately, the tactical combat featured in X-COM never quite took off, and in the end, the real-time strategy of games like Syndicate became the gold standard for tactical combat games.</blockquote>I'd lament the lackluster sales with everyone else, but... *cough* I haven't actually bought it myself.

 

[DemonKing]

I thought it was ok - but it got a bit silly with all the Sci-fi elements and Panzerkleins later on. Frankly it would have worked fantastically well as a straight WW2 game.

Also there were some silly missions towards the end, where you could fail a mission because somone accidentally hit an innocent who then slunk into a corner and bled to death, or you destroyed so much of the environment that you couldn't actually progress any further.

Overall it was good, but somewhat flawed.

Oh...and the voice acting was horrible.

 

[Trash]

Heh, was just reading that gamespot piece. Sure was a shame that S2 sold that bad, somehow I thought it sold well in Russia though? The whole article brought another question to my head, how well is spiderweb software doing?
They made quite some good games (avernum 1-3, geneforge 1 and 2) and recently came up with that blades of avernum game. I remember there being a shitload of scenarios for blades of exile, yet boa still has about 5 decent scens out there. Are most people busy with morrowind and nwn mods or is the game just not selling? I'd hate to see Jeff Vogel disappear from the allready way to barren shareware rpg scene.

 

[Spazmo]

Vogel does well enough to support himself (I think his games are his only source of income) and to keep making games, so there you are.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Geneforge 3 is coming this summer. Avernum 4 is in development. There are a few BoA scenarios, but I haven't tried any, so no comments.

 

[Whipporowill]

Perfect Forest was pretty much ok, although not on Jeff's level.

 

[LlamaGod]

Bah, Evil Genius is the best Unknown of the year, those morons. Not even Gamespot remembered it.

 

[HanoverF]

I think everyones trying to forget it

 

[Spazmo]

Evil Genius was cool at first, but it eventually got old. Too much waiting around for stuff to happen. You'd send out like twenty guys on a mission and half would die, so you'd sit around waiting for your guys to train back up. Then, some soldiers would show up on the island and kill half your workforce before going down, so you have to wait around for THOSE to train up again. Repeat ad nauseum.

 

[Jinsai]

Playing S3 now

Everyone should go get Silent Storm if you haven't yet.

S3's "ethnic" voice acting is still so over-the-top I can't decide if it's offensive or hilarious. The choices for your main character's voice, sadly, are "bad" and "worse". The missions? Backstory? Whatever. It's all pretty much the same. There are enough variations to keep it interesting at least.

I agree the PKs suck. But having just fired up the expansion this weekend, I remember how amazing, fun, and challenging the combat is, and dream of a world where we get a Fallout game that has at least this level of graphical detail.

Silent Storm - It ain't perfect, but it is very, very good.

 

[JanC]

Was this game ever released in the shops? I have never even seen it for sale. This could explain why it did badly.

 

[dipdipdip]

Yes. It had crappy, generic box art. Maybe that's a reason. It did Battlezone in.

 

[dunduks]

Sure was a shame that S2 sold that bad, somehow I thought it sold well in Russia though?

It was successful in Russia - hence the expansion and the voice acting was quite good, I dont know how bad it was in english version, but the russian one was ok at the sound department.

 

[Jinxed]

I loved silent storm. Finished it a couple of times, but the addon had me going only once.

 

[Sol Invictus]

I didn't know you had to be a fucking grognard to enjoy turn based games.

 

[triCritical]

Silent Storm was great. I did not know it did poorly. However, what it really lacked was polish, and I don't even mean in an expansion pack kind of way. What it lacked was more design on just about everything to make the game more fluid strategically from mission to mission to mission. Not to mention have the different mission actually have an impact at the top level from begiinning to end.

 

[Flarnet]

Does anyone know of a website that covers games with combat of the turn based variety? 'Cause I'd sure like to play one right fucking now and I can't recall reading about any since the Silent Storm expansion (and TOEE before that).

Or has the world gone so completely down the shitter that there simply are no games like that anymore? Hell I'd settle for something like Incubation just to quench this thirst.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I would recommend RPG Codex, but you are already here. I don't think there is such a website what's with turn-based games being all the rage right now and all. Anyway, if you do find it or some cool turn-based games, post some links here.

Edit: Did you try Gearhead?

 

[Sol Invictus]

We are the only popular community on the internet that places a strong emphisis turn-based games. You're already here.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yes. It had crappy, generic box art. Maybe that's a reason. It did Battlezone in.

The box art was rather silly, and it really didn't make much sense considering the game itself. It was a black and white picture of a couple of WW2 soldiers running through some mud screaming.

They probably should have gone the Fallout route and just put the Panzerklien on the cover.

 

[Circuitbreaker]

I recently bought Silent Storm together with the add-on. Although it's not perfect (like so many of today's games), it is excellent for fans of X-Com but especially Jagged Alliance.

 

[Sol Invictus]

Silent Storm doesn't hold a candle to Jagged Alliance 2. I'm still playing JA2 with the 800x600 resolution mod.

 

[Astromarine]

well, there's www.wargamer.com, but maybe that's too niche.

 

[Jinxed]

Silent Storm doesn't hold a candle to Jagged Alliance 2. I'm still playing JA2 with the 800x600 resolution mod.

I played both a lot. JA 2 more by a year to be exact, and the only gripe I found was that the allowed range for granades was not reflecting reality in comparison to the amount of equipment you could carry. Oh yeah, and JA 2 let you spread the full auto attacks over an area while SS did not.

Something like spectra shields with added magic +2 glue for uber body protection or weapon modifications that composing of a spring and pipe are not something that make JA 2 better. Motionless tanks don't either. Mechanics wise I find the games equal.

 

[Flarnet]

Well I'm generally not interested in large scale battles. Large scale conflicts with smaller battles (think HOMM) is ok, but I care little for huge battles. Combine that with zero historical interest and/or fascination for those times, equipment and people and you have me.

I just want something like Space Hulk with a bit of character development to tie things together across the game. Nothing fancy. I've played those open source Space Hulk board game releases and I can't for the love of me understand how that kind of computer gaming ever fell out of favor.

The problem with Silent Storm is that it forgets that what their customers is REALLY after is not the flashy graphics or the crude rpg system, but the combat tactics. And no amount of destroyable geometry is gonna make up for the fact that SS is quite often a snipe-fest with little tactics at all.