Hammer And Sickle

[burrie]

Bought the game a few days back, only played it for about 2-3 hours and I have to say that I'm intrigued with the concept so far. Story/dialogue-wise, I am somewhat getting into it, even though some of the text feels oddly translated at times. There seems to be a healthy dose of choice/consequence, the Cold War makes for a nice different setting than ye usual fantasy/sci-fi fare, and I'm really enjoying the turn-based combat.

I haven't played enough yet to get a proper 'feel' of the game, but there's definately something interesting hidden in it. The combat is bloody brutal at times, and I've heard that one misstep can doom the campaign 2 hours later into the game. Not sure how I feel about that, but all-in-all... so far, the game has an interesting premise. I hope it manages to keep my interest.

Overall, I don't think that this is a mainstream game that everyone can enjoy, but definately the type of game I like. Anyone care to share any feedback/opinions about this game?


Ach, and please... no spoilers.

 

[sabishii]

It was really buggy when I played it and then I got annoyed at this one part where it seemed like I had to run through an entire tunnel system full of enemies. I liked the actual C&C part, you see, so having to sit through an hour of combat wasn't really appealing.

 

[adron]

its fucking hard but good.

 

[sabishii]

its fucking hard but good.

That's what she said.

 

[Ion Flux]

its fucking hard but good.

That's what she said.

Does laughing out loud at that mean that I'm as immature as I think I am? Oh dear.

BTW, by Gatornation, do you mean Gainesville, by chance?

 

[sabishii]

its fucking hard but good.

That's what she said.

Does laughing out loud at that mean that I'm as immature as I think I am? Oh dear.

BTW, by Gatornation, do you mean Gainesville, by chance?

Yes'm.

 

[Ion Flux]

Man, I miss the crap out of Gainesville.

 

[Gnidrologist]

H&S was awesome. I replayed it about 3 times completely and started anew a few more times without finishing. And not only because it has orgasmic tb combat ala JA, which is challanging and entertaining, but also because of the C&C through out the whole game. Not only there were about 4 or five different endings, but also you could success/fail in various dialogue checks, choose the different allies and different approaches to the tasks. :fapfapfap:
Only weak aspect of this HEAVANLY game is it's lenght. Not surprising, though, as it's basicly a fan made mod.

 

[Shagnak]

Anyone care to share any feedback/opinions about this game?

TCancer review and feedback:

http://www.tacticularcancer.com/content.php?id=5

 

[adron]

wish there was bigger moding community for both h&s and silent storm.. some kind of non linear conversion would be wonderful.

 

[someone else]

This thread made me buy SS, S3 and H&S.

First off, they have Starforce, SS & S3 work fine, H&S couldn't work. I emailed Starforce but they haven't replied. The series is published by CDV and they have drop Starforce. I decided to go with the no-cd crack.

I played all 3 of them halfway and S3 is my favourite.

S3 fixed some of the things I hate about SS which are:

1) Broken level up and skills
2) uncustomable difficulty level
3) no money management

Hands up those of you who won the game without saving and reloading.

I can win JA2 without losing a single merc if I'm careful enough but I lose soldiers in S3 and H&S too often. Troops can be replaced in SS and S3 but H&S is unforgiving.

Its either:

1)reload and lose the challenge
2)don't reload and never go far

I chose 1. Though I'm thinking of doing 2 with S3 with enemy never hides and me doing the same.

Usually I play strategy games without reloading once I get the hand of it eg.

Civilisations
X-Com
UFO Afterlight
Europa Universalis
Medieval Total War

Anyone here does the same?

 

[Fez]

Playing without abusing the save function does add the fun of playing against temporary set backs. As long as the game allows recovery from them and feels fair throughout it's a good option to try out.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

I would like to reinstall and play this game again but, y'know... Starforce.

 

[Balor]

Well, my difficulty level included 'no saving in combat', and with overall 'above average' difficulty.
I still completed the game, and I cannot say it was all THAT difficult.

 

[Texas Red]

People here seem to have enjoyed Hammer but why was it so mercilessly raped by reviews?

 

[DarkSign]

Surely with over 3k posts on this forum you can answer your own question about that.

 

[Texas Red]

Surely with over 3k posts on this forum you can answer your own question about that.

I'm lazy

 

[Zyrxil]

The first mission (after the intro mission in which you cross the border) comes to mind: After a cutscene, you end up (solo) 10 feet away from 5 guys with SMGs. You either make a good nade throw or die immediately. Who the hell thought that would be good design? The whole game is like that. I mean, it's not impossible hard, just unfair-hard, and not even intentionally unfair hard, it feels like the devs just didn't think about difficulty and it just wound up that way.

Plus, the journal just isn't enough. You spend half the time with no fucking clue about what you should be doing. Bad dialogue, possibly due to translation issues, doesn't help.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Yeah, fair points. But these, as well as many other legitimate faults wasn't the main reasons why the game was universally dissed at all. Reviewers usually wouldn't go to sutch ''depts'' of analysis.
It mainly boiled down to LOL TURN BAESD OLD, NEED MOAR GRAFFIX WHERES BLOOM?!!1

 

[Zyrxil]

You can't blame bad reviewers for low scores when the graphics and mechanics are Silent Storm's, and Silent Storm received much higher ratings.

 

[Dhruin]

The first mission (after the intro mission in which you cross the border) comes to mind: After a cutscene, you end up (solo) 10 feet away from 5 guys with SMGs. You either make a good nade throw or die immediately. Who the hell thought that would be good design? The whole game is like that. I mean, it's not impossible hard, just unfair-hard, and not even intentionally unfair hard, it feels like the devs just didn't think about difficulty and it just wound up that way.

Plus, the journal just isn't enough. You spend half the time with no fucking clue about what you should be doing. Bad dialogue, possibly due to translation issues, doesn't help.

This is exactly my experience. Straight after that (if I recall - it's been a while), a guy says he'll help with the inevitable upcoming battle if I get them some weapons. I can't get to recognise the weapons and I'm stuck. Eventually I figure out I can't collect all the weapons from the previous battle - I have to leave some lying on the ground.

I'm sure plenty of reviewers were incompetent but there's also the matter that they took an excellent engine and filled it with bad design, crap scripting and poor translations.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Weird, I liked H&S mutch better than the original SS, which i never finished as it got boring after 5/6th mission or so. I finished H&S 3 times and would play it even more, if i didn't land it to a friend, who hasn't returned it yet.
Branching story and the fact, that you had to use your head sometimes was a nice breath of fresh air. Yes, i agree that there are some design issues, especially with how enemies are positioned in the levels. As for the things like making you NOT greedily loot every single rifle from the dead nazis, so that resistance could actually use some of them to help you with the counter attack - i find sutch little things as nice design details. Admittedly, i acted like your usual greedy asshole the first time, looting everything and boy was i in for surprise when it was like ''oh snap, should've left some of that firepower to the comrad commies''. It actually made me think twice before acting like usual loot-level-monger most rpgs ecourage.

 

[Dhruin]

I like how picking up the weapons lying around (and I thought that's exactly what the resistance wanted) makes me a greedy asshole.

Good design would be a simple dialogue: "hey, just drop some of those weapons here if you expect us to use them". Good design isn't expecting the player to anticipate the crappy script triggers.

 

[DarkSign]

You guys want things too easy. This isn't a crap game - it's a very good one.

 

[Ladonna]

One more vote for this being a good game. I think the reviewers canned it because of the 'bad' ending. Just so the OP knows, there are a number of 'good' endings. I wish there were more HnS game.