Review Silent Storm weighed in the balance at GameSpot and not found wanting

[Spazmo]

Tags: Nival Interactive; Silent Storm

<a href="http://www.gamespot.com/pc">Gamespot PC</a> have their <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/silentstorm/review.html>review</a> of <a href=http://www.nival.com/eng/s2_info.html>Silent Storm</a> up. The tactical WWII CRPG scores <b>8.2 out of 10</b> for it's manyfold TB goodness.
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<blockquote>The game seamlessly switches between real-time and turn-based modes depending on whether or not your characters are engaged in battle. All combat is turn-based, and the real-time mode is conveniently there for when no opposition is present. The game's pacing would be excellent were it not for significantly long AI phases both for enemies and any computer-controlled allied characters in the area. <u>Turn-based games, by their nature, are best suited for patient players</u>, but Silent Storm definitely would have had a better feel to it if its turns didn't take so long to resolve. It can be pretty frustrating when your main character gets smoked right at the end of an enemy phase, thus forcing you to reload, retry that part again, and hope the enemy misses the next time around. Partly because of the length of the AI turns, and also because many of the maps are quite big and feature multistory buildings that must be carefully explored, individual missions in Silent Storm can easily last a couple of hours.</blockquote>
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There are some grave misconceptions about TB gameplay that need to be dispelled. Someone ought to produce a sort of after school special kind of deal where the children are told that TB is only slow and tedious if the design is badly done, just like RT.

 

[triCritical]

SS's TB is slow, but not for the same reaaons as the other tedious games like Wiz8 and PoR2 were slow. Instead its slow because the computer is just crunching way doing calculations. SS brings a level of gameplay that would be impossible in RT. There is no way you could do what SS physics engine and AI do in RT it just would be such a strain on the system that the game would just not work well at all. Not to mention the game would be pretty much impossible to play.

Its kind of interesting, but the review of Conquest does not mention that the WW2 campaign can take a half an hour a turn on some machines. I am sure that if integrity of the combat was poor as KotOR the turns would only last a couple seconds.

 

[disc]

Heh reload...

I played it (still am) at the hard difficulty and there you cant just save whenever you want, there cant be any enemies visible.

Imagine the frustration when spotted there... I wonder if the reviewer gets that his characters arent killed and only incapacitated when he is playing


I am awaiting the mission pack sentinels with high hopes that it will have even more great stuff.


Btw. Wouldnt it be nice to have the physics and destruction of the environment in more games?

 

[Voss]

Of course, they could not use the player's character as a point man... which would significantly help not getting smoked. As would hiding and not using all APs up, so they can move back into cover...

Personally I don't find the AI turns all that long or that jarring. Strangely I keep track of enemy movement and plan where I'm going to move my people as the computer churns away.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I just got the game, and I'm enjoying the combat very much actually.