Game News Silent Storm English demo finally

[Saint_Proverbius]

Tags: Nival Interactive; Silent Storm

Since our pal <b>Garrett</b> over at <a href="http://www.rpgdot.com">RPGDot</a> posted this, and since it's <i>turn based</i> and has multiple methods through a scenario, and since it has character development, I figured I'd mention that the <a href="http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=12420">English version demo</a> of <A href="http://www.nival.com/eng/s2_info.html">Silent Storm</a> has been released and is available over at <a href="http://www.worthplaying.com/">WorthPlaying</a>. It's a whopping <b>200MB</b>, but that ain't bad for a turn based dungeon crawler set in WW2. Here's a clip from the site about the game for more hype than I can muster:
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<blockquote>Silent Storm is a true 3D game combining turn-based tactical combats and role-playing set against the background of the WWII. As the war rages on, you will lead a squad of elite troopers deep behind enemy lines to perform secret missions and prevent a disaster the true scale of which could be fully appreciated by neither of the involved parties. Pick your mercenaries from a pool of more than 40 elite soldiers of 30 different nationalities. Equip your squad with over 75 authentic WWII weapons ranging from commando daggers to hand-held rocket launchers, including experimental and rare models. Be sure to assess your troopers' skills adequately before you embark on a mission: you'll only be able to take five of them with you. Your objective is sabotage with no holds barred.
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For the first time ever in a 3D tactical game: choose any game style and difficulty level without any restrictions! Non-linear campaign structure allows to prepare your squad for the main mission by taking on an unlimited number of automatically generated missions in any way you like: attack your enemy head-on or use stealth and guile. Almost any mission has multiple paths to completion. </blockquote>
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Not to mention that it's just plain fun killing nazis. Who can't get enough of that nazi killin'?
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<b>Spazmo</b> told me about this.
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[Ibbz]

You can actually play as the Nazi's aswell i believe.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Yeah, you can be Axis or Allies.

I've only played the tutorial so far, but it looks pretty nice. It doesn't look like there's much if any talking like JA2, but there's a nice ability tree. Only problem so far seems to be collecting loot. When you open chests, lockers, and the like, the items just sit there, and it can be a chore to get the camera positioned to pick them up while you're standing there (since if the items aren't in sight you can't pick them up). You sometimes have to shuffle corpses around when they're lying on stuff, too. Holding down ALT to show everything helps a little, but it's overall rather clumsy. Other than that, it's pretty good. I like how burst fire and aimed shots are handled, and there's actually a reason to use a pistol instead of a rifle at point-blank, unlike JA2.

 

[Voss]

Its fun. The camera is rather annoying though.
The allied mission in the demo is something of a kick in the pants. I ended up having to take cover in a nearby building (while still clearing it out) to hold off the initial wave. I did enjoy sending someone up to the second level and dropping a grenade on the pair that decided they could try to sneak in the building.

Also took off some poor shlub's head on the third floor as he was climbing over a wall to get into a firing position.

There is some voice-acting, and it reminded me a great deal of JA2. Particularly the women in the allied squad. (which reminds me, why are there women on an WWII infantry squad?). Though I did get a little tired of dying Nazi's crying for their mommies.

 

[EEVIAC]

Which reminds me, why are there women on an WWII infantry squad?

You mean when they should be at home cooking dinner for the men!!! (I'm just teasing... :wink: )

I'm interested to see how the turn-based plays, do they use grids, how do you know if you're in weapon range, etc.

 

[protobob]

Voss, that allied mission is pretty cool, if not hard as hell.

I love the machine guns. One time I had my machine gunner aim for some people he could hear on the other side of the wall. He go's full auto, blow's a chunk out of the wall, nails three nazi's dead (they were standing behind each other).

Of course then you have to worry about the germans seeing you through that hole in the wall you made (opps!!).

Nazi's wiped me out in the end.

 

[Voss]

EEVIAC, well not exactly. Its just a matter of liking explanations for historical changes.

No grids and weapon range seems somewhat hidden- I didn't examine it too closely. I think the weapons have a range stat, and weapons behave noticeably different. Submachineguns are inaccurate at range, machine guns are as well, but the sheer hail of bullets means you have a chance of hitting enemies. Rifles are about the only thing reliable at range, and pistols have low AP costs, but are fairly useless outside of close ranges.

protobob- I finished it with one person standing- the Irish woman, Elf. Had her pick up a fallen Nazi machinegun, since her silenced sub wasn't doing much good. Had about 8 Vitality points left at the end.

Had an impressive moment during the early part of the mission when Nazi's were swarming the house I had taken over. One of the characters had been shot up pretty bad- no one with bandages was close enough and she kept bleeding. She was going to drop in a turn or two as it was. So ran her outside and tossed a grenade at the closest pair. Took them both out, but she couldn't make it back inside. On the Nazi turn, the other four outside on the part of the street opened up on her. First, missed. As did the second. Then the third. The fourth, however, took her down. Very tense, very cool moment.

Between the tactical options and the sheer level of tension, it reminds me of why turned based will always be superior to real time.

 

[Jed]

I've set tomorrow, my one day of the week off, aside for a sit down with the English version of the demo. Man, I can't wait. This really tickles me in all the places the JA games did...

 

[protobob]

Voss, yeah, elf was my last to go down. She was up on the second level. One solider was climbing up the wall to get at her and she took him down. Then she managed to get another one coming through a door, but then a soldier got her from below. She slumped down and fell the first floor, game over.

Heh, next attempt at, had my machine gunner throw a grenade out the door...but it didn't go out the door, instead it bounched off the wall and lands on elf and some other lady and blows them both to hell and back. Sad.

Notice how the enemy doesn't use grenades? Wonder if it's because they are too stupid to do it without killing themselves?

Anyway, I read the demo missions arn't in the full game (or perhaps they are just fragments of in-game missions.

 

[Spazmo]

I've been playing with this a bit, and it's cool and all, but the environment textures appear to be borked for some reason. Too bad, because it's pretty nifty otherwise with the big skill tree thing.

 

[triCritical]

non-llinear and mission based?

Well other then the mission based stuff this game sounds great. After all Nivel is the only compnay that made a Diablo clone that I liked. I really like their games and hope this game turns out good.

 

[triCritical]

I've been playing with this a bit, and it's cool and all, but the environment textures appear to be borked for some reason. Too bad, because it's pretty nifty otherwise with the big skill tree thing.

It could be the demo only. A lot of times they downgrade the textures for demo's for bandwidth reasons. Considering that it was 200 Meg's makes me think they packed a lot of stuff and did not want to create more bandwidth problems with the good textures.

 

[snoek]

It really is a good game.

Got butchered in both missions,the ai can do some great moves

I also took over a house in the allied mission and saw the germans swarming it.Killed a whole lot of them using the grenadier and some smg's to surprise little groups,but then finally i bited the dust. Germans were shooting from nearly everywhere,including holes that were made in the wall by gunfire and grenades,real neat.

 

[Voss]

The AI can be a little odd at times. Killed a group with grenades tossed out the doorway, and then the next turn another pair wanders up to the same door.

Later on, an enemy soldier tossed down his gun and ammo. That was weird. I wanted to see what he would do next, but a grenade bounced to close to him. Bang.

I've noticed the lack of enemy grenadiers- not sure about the lack either, difficulty with AI or difficulty for the player? Given the wide arc of attack they start off with in that mission, adding grenades in as they surround the player would be absolutely lethal.

They are very good about shuffling sideways in and out of cover though.

Had some fun mishaps though:

Did have a bad experience trying to toss a grenade up to a higher level. It bounced. Came back down into the room, which happened to contain half my squad.

Also had a sniper miss badly and plug a friendly in the back of the head.

Couple impressive death scenes (particularly since they aren't scripted)

A machine gun burst tosses an Nazi sideways, and he flops down, sprawled across a bed.
A sniper shot from one of my men in the train mission sends a grunt tumbling down the hill.
And best one yet, the fatal shot staggers a Nazi, sending him sprawling backwards over a window, body over the ledge, with one harm dangling down the other side.
An impressive display of collision detetction on the wall and body.

Overall impressed with the game- best demo I've seen in a while.

 

[EEVIAC]

Voss - Thanks for the comment about the AP's. I find it interesting that people are commenting so much about the actual game rather than graphics performance or interface issues.

 

[Voss]

There are issues with the graphics and interface?

Apart from annoyances with the camera, I haven't noticed anything. Except twice, I didn't notice a guy standing right in front of me- the model didn't fade from the fuzzy heard/noticed state to actually seen. But other than that...

Anyone know when this will be out in stores in the US?

 

[chiefnewo]

Very nice demo, although I did have a couple of little issues with it. Mainly the camera and it's annoying habit of jumping around during the enemy turn. It may be very dramatic but I prefer to be able to keep tabs on what is happening and who is shooting at me, which I can't do when my view is locked.
Also the enemy turns took a very long time. I'm not sure if I'm just being impatient though.
Otherwise good especially with the environment interaction. I might pick this one up when (if?) it gets released in Australia.

 

[protobob]

Saw on the nival forums how to turn of the computer's control of the camera during enemy turn:

"open config.cfg

Near the bottom, you should see this line

setvar ui_followcamera = 1.00

change the value to 0.00 so it should read

setvar ui_followcamera = 0.00

save and exit"

 

[snoek]

prototob > I had the enemy using grenades in the axis mission.
My machine gunner lied down in the shruberies and had fired a burst,so they knew his position.My scout also sat down in the little bush next to the starting hill. One of the allied soldiers dropped grenades down from the railway,all leaves were blewn away and my scout died because she was hit with a lot of fragments. The machinegunner got severely wounded on a lot of places and was then fired upon by some other machinegun on the hill under the trainrails (his cover was blown).He also passed out.

 

[EEVIAC]

There are issues with the graphics and interface?

Exactly - often when I read about demos or games, the commentary is about performance, graphics, or whether the game is bugged - not about the actual game, what you can do and what its like to play. I just find it a little suprising, not to mention heartening, is all.

 

[chiefnewo]

There are issues with the graphics and interface?

Exactly - often when I read about demos or games, the commentary is about performance, graphics, or whether the game is bugged - not about the actual game, what you can do and what its like to play. I just find it a little suprising, not to mention heartening, is all.

Well if you want a graphics complaint I can oblige. When scrolling the game occasionally pauses for a split second, even though I have the graphics set to the lowest settings and a system that healthily beats the minimum spec.
But in a turn based game I can put up with that, I don't need to be able to scroll the screen uber quick to keep up with the game.

 

[MF]

Holy shit. I just beat both missions on hard. This game is incredible! The sniper mode is excellent. I beat the allied mission with only my sniper left at the end. I used all squad members to their utmost ability leaving the street sprawling with bodies, from which my sniper eventually picked up a heavy machinegun. He went solo and killed the remaining three krauts. The motorcycle in the street is wonderful. (Especially because you can NOT drive it. Those things can't be properly implemented anyway as far as I'm concerned (Not unless you really go out of your way to make it right)) You CAN use its mounted machinegun however.

The controls are great, the camera is easy to control once you get the hang of it. (Right mouse button, mouse wheel and the +/- keys.). Wonderful. The guy playing mouth harp in the main menu screen is a touch I can't help but mention

In conclusion, I love the game. I'm looking forward to the full version.

 

[axel]

Anybody got word on a release date yet?

 

[Jed]

Playing this demo has me inspired to play through JA2 again. I didn't choose "sci-fi" on my first and only play through. Did anyone here choose this option, if so, does it add anything worthwhile to the experience, or is it just cheese?

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Um, spoiler.
















Yeah, in sci-fi mode, you wind up fighting some mutant bugs Deidranna was breeding. Non sci-fi is exactly the same except without them. It's an extra story arc, there's a few more nice things to pick up, and the bugs are fun (and challenging) to fight, so go for it.