Silent Storm is the world's spiritual successor to the Fallout series; I mean, c'mon, let's face facts: Fallout Tactics was a horrible excuse for a sequel. I mean, sure, it had Fallout's trademark combat, but, somehow, it made the combat engine *less* detailed then either Fallout 1 or Fallout 2. Silent Storm, on the other hand, has a combat system with so much depth that it will make your brain explode (it has the Fallout-style AP system too!). The only thing keeping Silent Storm from being called Fallout 3 is the lessened "adventure" elements of the game (though, unlike Fallout Tactics, there is still adventure in the game; just a bit less than that of Fallout 1/2), and the fact that the game is based on World War 2.

Now, some of the gameplay basics: you have a whole lot of character customization options (the game's character creator *far* outshines the character creator in a lot of the MMORPGs I've played, like Final Fantasy XI and Asheron's Call 2... And MMORPGs should have the most detailed character creators of any genre), and you begin the game with a simple-ass solo mission. You then can pick your party from a set of 40 other characters (all with unique voices, backgrounds, nationalities, looks, etc.) to comprise your 6-person party (that includes your main character). The game has a very deep character customization system, with a *LOT* of different stat fields, and a massive ability set. The stats seem to increase over-time, depending on what weapons/skills your characters use, and then you can select a new ability (or two) with each level-up. I don't know if there's much of a story to the game yet (I'm on the third real mission in the game, random encounters aside, but more on that in a second), but there are two different compaigns, axis and allies, which I hear are completely different. There are also three different difficulty levels, normal, hard and impossible. Normal makes game progression easy, but with hard/impossible, you have to find clues scattered throughout the mission maps to help you advance. Now, a word about the difficulty level: the game is really, really fucking tough. I'm playing on normal, and I've played through this third mission about 4-5 times (and I'm a pretty damn good turn-based strategy player), and still have yet to beat it. Granted, I lust over games with a tough difficulty level (push-over games really piss me off, which was one of my complaints about Final Fantasy Tactics Advance), but this may turn some people off.

Now, it's time to discuss two of the coolest things about the Silent Storm (which also happens to directly correspond to its biggest fault): the graphics and physics. Both of these go hand-in-hand in the game, as the game's environments are INCREDIBLY detailed; the game has some very lush and colorful 3D graphics which far surpess any game that's been released thus far. The physics in this game are also TOTALLY AMAZING. The game incorporates the industry's latest "techno-trend:" ragdoll physics. And they are used extensively, and with amazing success. The game's environment's are also completely dynamic. If there's a wooden wall, you can shoot through it to attempt to hit a guy hiding behind a door (yet, if it's a metal wall, good fucking luck). After enough hits, certain areas of the wall/door will crumble to the ground, and if an enemy falls on the door, his corpse will conform with the brekas/holes in the (I have a bunch of screenshots to show this off, which I'll post below this review). The game's graphics use shadows extensively, amazing lighting, bump-mapping, lots of shaders, and particles up the wazoo. Without a doubt, this is the best-looking game I've played in a long time (I'm not comparing it to future games like Doom 3 or Half-Life 2, as they have yet to be released).

The downside to the amazing graphics and physics engines, is that they take a MASSIVE toll on the game's performance. On my Athlon XP 2200+, 1gb DDR333 and Radeon 9800 Pro, the game, with all graphics options maxed out, and at a 1024x768x32 resolution, will produce a lightning speed of about 4fps (you can turn on graphical stats in-game with ease). This may be the fault of something I tend to notice with my radeon card though: it hates shadows. No matter what game I play, any game with lots of shadows brings it to a screeching halt. The minute I turned off Silent Storm's shadows, I was getting a solid 120+fps. Unfortunately, you can't have the cool-ass bumpmapping and such enabled without shadows, so I opt to leave all the badass lighting effects on, and sacrifice my antialiasing and overall detail in the game. I believe all the performance woes I'm experiencing are a result of the graphics engine, as the game performs at 120+fps, with full physics (and all lighting off) on. In fact, you can't really turn the physics off anyway, since the physics engine is an integral part of the gameplay.

Overall, I'd give Silent Storm a 9.8 out of 10 points. It's one of the best games I've ever played; and if you're especially a fan of Fallout, Jagged Alliance and/or X-COM, then this amazing game will be absolutely perfect for you.


As you can see from this image, you can even pump innocent German civilians full of lead. Yes, it's just as fun as it sounds.


I had a problem, I couldn't see my enemy, I could just "hear" him (so the game approximates the enemy's position with a translucent red body, which may or may not be the enemy's actual position), so I just took a wild guess, and shot all around the door with my machine gun. I hit him a few times, and blew some holes in the door to make it easier for next time.


mmm... Allied and German corpse goodness.


Same problem as before, I could only hear the enemy, so I decided just to shoot him from below. Of course, he then proceeded to jump down and confront me face-to-face (next picture).




Fuck the door, just blow it away!