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  Preview: Silent Storm
On 09/25/03 by James 'Sweetjimmy' Long

Developer: Nival Interactive
Publisher: Encore Software, INc.
Release Date: TBA
ESRB: Rating Pending
Official Website: www.nival.com/eng/s2_info.html
Platform: PC

Before I get started, let?s set one thing straight: I loved X-com: UFO Defense.

When I talk about X-com, I?m not just throwing praise at a good game. I?m paying tribute to the title that made me notice computer gaming. X-com is the title by which I judge all other strategy titles. Why is that? It?s because X-com featured a deep, compelling turn-based strategy component (among many other things). Turn based strategy (TBS) provides a level of precision and control over the battlefield that is unattainable with modern day real-time strategy titles. TBS, to many, may be slow and boring. On the flip side, however, TBS allows the gamer to take his time and plan his moves without the frantic management of multiple units and resource gatherers.

So a long time ago X-com was THE strategy title for the computer. Then the big, bad Warcraft 2 came along and stole the show with its flashy graphics and humorous voiceovers. Since then, game developers have shied away from the old turn based systems in favor of Blizzard?s approach. In fact, even the great X-com franchise switched to a real-time system in its third installment.

There have been a few turn-based jewels developed since the mid-1990?s real-time gold rush. Fallout Tactics and Jagged Alliance 2, for instance, were turn- based games that gained the appreciation of critics and
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gamers alike. These two titles garnered so much positive feedback it?s surprising that the TBS genre hasn?t been exploited to the extreme that other genres have seen.

Enter the next great ?turn-based-strategy? game: Silent Storm.

Silent Storm (S2) places you in charge of a highly specialized squad of commandos during the height of World War 2. The game gives you two different campaigns, allowing you to play as either the axis or the allies. As you first start out you?re able to choose our team leader from 6 different character types: Soldier, Medic, Engineer, Scout, Sniper, and Grenadier. If you like, you can even custom-build your main soldier with a surprisingly decent character creation tool.

After you?ve selected your Nazi stomping badass, you?ll start out on the first mission that introduces you to the game. It is by no means nearly as instructive as the game?s included tutorial. I advise everyone to play through the tutorial, especially if you?re new to TBS systems. That said, the first mission is fairly easy and you?ll blow past it in short order. Soon enough you end up in your mission headquarters where you?re able to choose from a sizable pool of commando candidates, select missions, and re-supply.

To get back into the action, you have to simply leave the base. This will enter you into a map mode where points of interest are highlighted. Maneuvering around the whole of Europe basically involves clicking the spot where you want to end up. As you trek along, random encounters will appear on the map and you have the option of taking a quick detour to dispatch more bad guys. The random encounter maps aren?t nearly as fun as the scenario maps, but they still allow you to take out some enemies and pick up some extra weapons and bonus experience.

Have I not yet mentioned experience? Whoops! Well, as your commandos fight they are able to level up and develop skills. The skill tree for each troop is slightly similar to the skill tree in Diablo 2, but with much more in depth and usefulness. In addition to that, your soldiers will gain medals as they complete missions. The more you use a particular character, the more valuable he or she becomes.

When you set out for a mission, you are able to take up to 5 soldiers along with your main trooper. This is all quite convenient since there are 6 character classes to choose from. Each type of character is pretty necessary, too. For instance, if you need to get through a door you can just dump an entire clip into it to destroy the thing but if you have an engineer it?s much easier (and quieter) to simply pick the lock and move on. Group diversification is pretty important in fact. You certainly wouldn?t want to have a group of 6 snipers in a close quarter combat sequence.

Each of the commandos you use has individual stats. These stats included become so detailed that it borders on ridiculous. Sneaking, aiming, medical treatment, and everything else done in the game are all based on the character?s skill levels and these levels all improve with experience. After a specific commando has gone on a few missions he becomes much more important to you because of his skills.

SS is to realism as Liberace is to manlove. Bullets of various sizes will penetrate or ricochet depending upon what they hit and how powerful the round is. The environments are totally destructible, too. If a Nazi is hiding behind a brick wall, toss a high-explosive grenade and take the wall out. At one point, I had my scout moving through a building I had not yet cleared. I commanded her to open the door to a long hallway and immediately noticed a
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Nazi down at the other end of the corridor. During his turn, he came toward me and fired. On my turn, I backed up to take cover and tossed a grenade into the hallway. The explosive went off instantly and took out the surrounding walls and floor. I later found the Nazi?s carcass in the basement where it had landed? too cool!

The best parts of this game are the combat sequences. Before you fire upon an enemy, or become fired upon by an enemy, the game runs in real-time. If you click on a piece of the map, your selected character will walk to that point, no matter how far away it is. Once you fire at a bad guy, though, the game enters the turn-based mode.

Each side takes turns during combat. During the player?s turn, you cycle through each of your commandos and issue orders. Every soldier has a number of ?AP?s, or action points, that they can use each turn. Certain actions require a certain amount of AP?s to accomplish. For instance, placing a well-aimed shot takes more AP?s than just firing a snapshot, but is more accurate. Climbing a fence requires more AP?s than opening a door and walking through, but climbing may get you to your destination faster. Crawling on your belly requires more AP?s than running from point A to point B, but makes you harder to hit. Once a soldier has used up his AP?s he cannot take any more action that turn. AP?s are a cornerstone of all TBS games and they are well implemented in Silent Storm.

Included in S2 are myriad realistic weapons. You don?t have to be a World War 2 buff to see the authenticity behind this game?s weapon selection, either: Lugars, Colt .45?s, M1 carbines, Stens, Tommies, MP40?s, MP38?s, and Brownings (and more) all make an appearance.

Graphics:
S2 features a totally scalable engine with everything from resolution settings to Ansiotropic Filtering and Anti-Aliasing settings right there in the GUI. The lighting and physics engine are marvelous! S2 is totally 3D rendered, too, and this allows for an excellent architectural damage model. When a wall is blown open, you?ll be able to see the jagged hole in the wall with blocks of brick realistically (and haphazardly) jutting out. The maps are quite colorful and believable. Weather effects, as well as day and night effects, are all included. Buildings look great and the insides are well detailed. Foliage can be destroyed, revealing hidden units. Backdrops can quickly become riddled (or even destroyed) with bullet holes.

S2 offers rag-doll physics with dead bodies. Needless to say it?s quite comical to unload a full round-long burst from a stationary machine gun straight into a bad guy at point blank (that poor Nazi must have flew back at least 20 feet). Another plus: a well-placed grenade will ?gib? your target. Is it wrong to giggle with glee when you violently transform your assailant into a grease stain on the wall?

Sound:
In this beta release of S2 the voice acting is probably the most noticeable problem. I?m confident that the current voices are merely ?placeholders? for real voice actors, though. Honestly this particular aspect is really the only thing that feels incomplete with this non-gold preview version, so I figure it?s safe to say that S2 will be a well-polished title once it hits shelves. Every other sound effect in this game just oozes with awesome. The gunfire sounds almost as cool as bullets destroying wooden objects. Explosions are great, as are the ambient sounds.

Summary:
Even in its current unfinished state it?s easy to see that S2 is going to be an immediate favorite among strategy game fans. If you?re an old school X-com buff like myself, you definitely need to check this game out. I can easily see S2 being the game to that makes real-time gamers change their stripes.


#1 - sweetjimmy - 09/25/03 @ 11:46 PM EST
If you have any questions about S2, please ask. I'm sure there are things that I didn't cover in the preview. I am very excited about this game (if you didn't happen to catch that from my article).
#2 - NecroSavanT - 09/26/03 @ 02:26 AM EST
If you have any questions about S2, please ask :). I've played the full version, 'cause it's already been released in our country. So, if you want I'd be glad to answer your questions.
#3 - Ray Ban - 09/26/03 @ 08:47 AM EST
I played through the demo. Great stuff! I'm sure this thing will take some 50+ hours to complete :)
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#4 - Anon@212.205.226.58 - 09/26/03 @ 09:44 AM EST
Can you change team members in between missions?
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#5 - sweetjimmy - 09/26/03 @ 10:33 AM EST
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yes. but i never really did because I got attached to the guys ('n gals) I was using.Last Edited on 09/26/03 @ 10:50 AM EST
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#6 - sweetjimmy - 09/26/03 @ 10:36 AM EST
Necro,
what country are you in? I'm pretty sure it's not available in the states yet...

if you have an english version, did they fix the voice acting?
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#7 - Anon@24.27.47.67 - 09/26/03 @ 11:13 AM EST

The question is , what about patches and the English version release for the the Western World?

/ A note on the demo, your one scout with a few borrowed grenades can win the Axis or Allied scenario all by her self handily.
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#8 - NecroSavanT - 09/26/03 @ 01:21 PM EST
/
what country are you in? I'm pretty sure it's not available in the states yet...

I'm from Russia, and you know, it looks like 1C is making a wide beta-testing on us :)/y bugy, and on big maps it works really slowly even at high end systems. And map editor doesn't work, etc. But I'm sure all these problems will be solved in english release. It just happens with almost every game, made here, 'cause our developers don't think that they can make good money here, because you know, we have some problems with illegal software and our legal market is pretty small. So they out a game in Russia, then fix all bugs found by our players and release it in other countries :).

if you have an english version, did they fix the voice acting?

No, I don't have an english version. But in our Russian version voices are terrible too. It's the second big problem of Russian games :). And I don't think something's gonna change in a full english version.

The game is out in Russia and only costs about $17 there.

No, it doesn't cost $17 here. I guess you'll be stunned when you know how much it costs. I spent $6 to buy a legal version. By the way if you don't know the game occupies to CD's. The price is so low 'cause our illegal soft costs ~$3 for a CD. So if our developers want to sell something they have to sell it with this price.

PS: Umm.. sorry for my english if I made a lot of mistakes.Last Edited on 09/26/03 @ 01:24 PM EST
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#9 - sweetjimmy - 09/26/03 @ 01:27 PM EST
thanks for the heads-up, Necro. Very interesting information.

don't worry about your english, It's about 10,000% better than my russian. :)
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#10 - Anon@24.27.47.67 - 09/26/03 @ 02:41 PM EST
Soory Necro, tat proves how bad my surfing Bolero.ru is on the price.

As for buddy. the English S^2 forum on nival.com does not seem list any bugs in the game. Would you please point to a URL that lists the problems found in Silent Storm so far.

Thanks
Therel Moore
Austin, TX
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#11 - Anon@24.27.47.67 - 09/26/03 @ 02:44 PM EST

--Sorry NecroSaVant, that proves how bad my surfing www.Bolero.ru is on the price.

/ As for buggy. the English S^2 forum on nival.com does not seem list any bugs in the game. Would you please point to a URL that lists the problems found in Silent Storm so far.

Thanks
/ Therel Moore
Austin, TX
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#12 - Bulldog - 09/26/03 @ 03:10 PM EST
No edit button unless you register.
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#13 - NecroSavanT - 09/27/03 @ 01:44 AM EST
Well, there's no bug list so far. I can point to the URL for the thread on our forum (www.kamrad.ru) where you'd be able to read about all the bugs found by players. But I guess it'll be useless for you since you can't understand Russian language.

However, Nival is working under a patch. If you want then when they release it I'll translate you major bug fixes. By the way, Nival has already released an unofficial patch, fixing minor problems. It's pretty big - about 17MB, so I think the final patch will be even bigger.

PS: When I said that the game occupies to CD's I meant two, not "to". Sorry, I misprinted.
PPS: If you want to know the game needs 2.7GB for the full install.

sweetjimmy , does your preview version of the game consist sci-fi weapons such a laser?Last Edited on 09/27/03 @ 01:46 AM EST
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#14 - Anon@80.74.197.91 - 09/27/03 @ 09:26 AM EST
I don't agree with the opinion about a big amount of bugs. IMHO game is really stable and has very little bugs. Sure there is a lot of bug-reports on official forum but the majority of them are same(people just don't want to read what was wrote before them) and then another big part of thread ends with "Ok, I reintalled newest drivers and problems are gone". :)

I also disagree with NecroSavanT's opinion: "I'm from Russia, and you know, it looks like 1C is making a wide beta-testing on us :). I mean the game is pretty bugy, and on big maps it works really slowly even at high end systems. And map editor doesn't work, etc. But I'm sure all these problems will be solved in english release. It just happens with almost every game, made here, 'cause our developers don't think that they can make good money here, because you know, we have some problems with illegal software and our legal market is pretty small. So they out a game in Russia, then fix all bugs found by our players and release it in other countries :)."

If games released in Russia before the West-countries then russian players are talking about "they are beta-testing the games on us!".

But if games are released in West before the Russia, then players are whining about "Developers don't respect Russia and evil-West has bought them!". :))

AFAIK your version of the game has the final voice-acting. Actually many enjoyed of them. I guess it's about the people's preferences once again. :)

/ mixer
#15 - sweetjimmy - 09/27/03 @ 11:16 AM EST
Necro
I don't know if there are laser weapons or not. I did not finish the game due to time restrictions. I've played for at least 20 hours and never came across any 'laser' weapons, though.

/ 14-
I don't consider the version I got as 'buggy'. It was only a press beta, but I never ran into any showstoppers. The game never crashed on me once.
HOWEVER.
/ The voice acting was very bad in a number of ways. Most noticably, sometimes my main character had an american accent, and sometimes he had a russian accent. L.A, my american engineer (at least I'm fairly sure she was supposed to be american) carries a very thick monotone russian accent.

Lastly, Nessie (a big black badass) sounds like a 15 year old white boy from tennesee.

I didn't play with every character on the roster, but out of my original team, only half of them seemed to have finished voices.

I didn't write all of this in the preview because I figured it would be taken care of by the time the english version of S2 went gold (And I'm confident that it will be taken care of). But it's better for people to know than to fear the worst, especially with the rumor of huge bugs floating around.

Performance wise, I can see where necro is coming from. On larger maps with lots of enemies performance started to really suck while moving the camera around. Again: more stuff that will be addressed once the game goes gold.
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#16 - Anon@80.74.197.91 - 09/27/03 @ 01:08 PM EST
>sweetjimmy
The voice acting was very bad in a number of ways. Most noticably, sometimes my main character had an american accent, and sometimes he had a russian accent. L.A, my american engineer (at least I'm fairly sure she was supposed to be american) carries a very thick monotone russian accent.

Lastly, Nessie (a big black badass) sounds like a 15 year old white boy from tennesee.

I didn't play with every character on the roster, but out of my original team, only half of them seemed to have finished voices.
Hmm... Then you have to have the unfinished version of voices! :) Because all english voices where recorded in Canada, so there shouldn't be any russian accent. :) AFAIK released demo-version has the final voices. So if you have opportunity - you can compare them.

Yeah, performance is the problem... But I don't consider it as a bug. People buy their computers and can't believe that they can't set S^2 options to the "very high". But "very high" is using cool shadows (same technology as Doom3...), objects are very detailed etc. So if you want to get your 60fps then you should wait for the future to bring up even faster CPUs etc... Game looks extremely cool even on "high", "medium" and "low", so everybody can choose the best settings. No problem here, imho. :)

mixer
/r>
#17 - sweetjimmy - 09/27/03 @ 01:44 PM EST
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mixer

that's what I figured but I just wanted to clarify for everyone here.

thanks!
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#18Warlogis - 10/03/03 @ 07:26 AM EST
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Really lovely game, but AI sux :( This is a major problem for me - all other aspects of the game almost perfect. But so far I didnt reach "futuristic" part of campaing.
Bought official version of the game for 35 grivnya (I'm from Ukraine, Kiev), this price in $ will be near $6,25.
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