Silent Storm: Sentinels

[Jason Lutes]

I was really impressed with Silent Storm up until Panzerkleins came on the scene, but I'm hoping the sequel will be balanced better. Here's some newish info for anyone else who's interested:

http://www.nival.com/eng/sa_info.html

[balut]

Wow, that's starting to sound more and more like Jagged Alliance.

[Woolen Horde]

I just wish they'd patch the original game so I can play it. I was having a lot of fun, but the game has major stability issues, and the voices crap out all the time.

[Merakon]

The graphics and sound are really choppy on my system, just enough to be too annoying to play. I do have a pathetically old computer, but I was surprised; I didn't expect a strategy game like this to push my system beyond its limits.

[Lake]

Sounds good, so far.

[Sam Jones]

I've had Silent Storm in shrinkwrap since last October, since it arrived a week or two after UFO Aftermath and I sort of overdosed on that and couldn't face another month of tactical squad stuff, so I went back to shooters for a bit. How is it now it's been patched? And how close to the original XCOM do the missions feel in terms of gameplay?

ATM, SS is a couple of titles behind Spellforce in the "to play" hopper. Should I promote it? The only thing that really enthuses me about it is the destructible terrain, since so few squad based games have done it at all, let alone well.

[Veefy]

I've had Silent Storm in shrinkwrap since last October, since it arrived a week or two after UFO Aftermath and I sort of overdosed on that and couldn't face another month of tactical squad stuff, so I went back to shooters for a bit. How is it now it's been patched? And how close to the original XCOM do the missions feel in terms of gameplay?

ATM, SS is a couple of titles behind Spellforce in the "to play" hopper. Should I promote it? The only thing that really enthuses me about it is the destructible terrain, since so few squad based games have done it at all, let alone well.

I'd promote it. I'd say the game is reasonably stable now with patches. Quite a few people had issues with the editor so if you don't plan on mucking around with modding I wouldn't install that part of it.

The back at the base managment stuff is very minimal. The core of the game is combat.

[Peter Frazier]

It has some great features but I feel that they dropped the ball with the panzerkleins. It's like they didn't have enough confidence in creating a squad based WW2 game without incorporating sci-fi elements.

[Gendal]

It has some great features but I feel that they dropped the ball with the panzerkleins. It's like they didn't have enough confidence in creating a squad based WW2 game without incorporating sci-fi elements.

It's not the scifi elements that bothered me, it's how boring the panzerkleins where. Once they entered the game I just lost all desire to play it. They move too slow to be of any use to me, I would rather grind my teeth down to a nub with a rusty file than watch them plod around inbetween turns. Taking them out is little fun too, just tedious.

Other than that the game was very close to being my game of the year.

[Mike Hussey]

The back at the base managment stuff is very minimal. The core of the game is combat.

Yes I'd compare it with Jagged Alliance 2, rather than X-Com. Whilst I agree with the others about the Panzerkleins, I must say I enjoyed it more than UFO:Aftermath; partly, admittedly, because it doesn't crash to the desk top every fifteen minutes.

[Veefy]

http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1082464941/

Nival Interactive has released a Russian playable demo of Silent Storm: Sentinels, offering the first opportunity to try out their 3D turn-based strategy expansion. Details on the massive demo's contents are sketchy as it's entirely in Russian (so be prepared for some guesswork if you don't command the language beyond 'da' and 'njet')

This thread might be of interest as well, if you are trying to work out what the objectives are:
http://forum.nival.com/showthread.php?s=c82430ef061f19512c30338bd70341d1&threadid=26057

Sounds like they've made some interesting tweaks.

[Incendiary Lemon]

http://forum.nival.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26072

Menu translations, only the first few screens though. You'll need to have a account there to download.

[Veefy]

The english demo is now available.
http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1087471508/

[olaf]

Are the PKs gone in the expansion? They completely ruined the game for me in SS. It was almost like the rest of the game was designed by a regular team, and then the bosses son got to add a feature of his choice and it totally fucked the whole feel and balance of the game up.

olaf

[Brian Rucker]

Oddly enough I'd gotten onto a WWII jones a while back. Picked up GURPs excellent WWII series and OD'd on it. If anyone needs a resource for the point of view of the soldiers, in a broad sense, on either side this is something to pick up. GURPs historical supplements are generally well researched and written by amateur historian-gamers with personal interest in the subjects. Lots of little gritty details and turns of phrase, in addition to the broader strokes of history, that add life to a roleplaying game.

The detail reminded me of what I liked about Silent Storm - the character biographies. Seriously. Complain all you like about unrealistic units of international composition but the actual historical references are accurate and, more importantly, interesting. It opens up the scope of the war a great deal when you understand that it wasn't just G.I. Joe and Tommy against the dirty Ratzi's and Nips. There was a good deal more ambiguity and complexity to the saga and the potential for some very good stories...

Which is what brings me to what I didn't like about Silent Storm. Why the hell didn't they actually use some of that detail, scope and nuance in creating the scenarios, missions and campaign structures? Why generic towns, crossroads and outposts? Why just in the major theaters? Why stock, generic, foes or absolutely insanely sci-fi threats?

One problem I think is that the only guy from Jagged Alliance who worked on Silent Storm (by different developers) was the fellow who developed the characters. He's a guy who can develop facial animations, redundant expressions and vivid histories for his NPCs (which can't be easy) so that they mostly stand out from each other. And that's that. Then it's on to a pretty fun tactical game with terrain that blows up. This is fine until the sci-fi crap intrudes and, in clear desperation because they probably couldn't figure out to work real vehicles into the engine, you see human size AFVs with human type animations called Panzerkliens show up.

Personality and dash is good. Realism is good (and there could be more of it including dramatic morale modelling but you have to ask yourself why the obvious research that went into, say, historically accurate weaponry if you're not going to bother to employ it in the way it really was?). Sci-fi as a copout is crappy. Even the illustration on the cover of the box clearly shows a tank. Do I need tanks in a game about man-to-man combat? No. But what I really don't need are Panzerkliens and laserguns. Balanced or not, there are much better stories to tell and settings to use than these: If they don't believe me they should ask the guy who wrote the character biographies to show them where the really exciting stories are to be found in WWII. They're there.

[Moore]

Wow, that's starting to sound more and more like Jagged Alliance.

?!?! I thought the first one was roughly 4000x better than any of te JA's, much less the first JA...

[Reed]

Wow, that's starting to sound more and more like Jagged Alliance.

?!?! I thought the first one was roughly 4000x better than any of te JA's, much less the first JA...
Surely ye jest.

[Moore]

Not at all. And I really really liked JA2.

[MattKeil]

I just wish they'd patch the original game...the voices crap out all the time.

I don't see this as a negative.

"I get better with each battle!"

[Alan Au]

It has some great features but I feel that they dropped the ball with the panzerkleins. It's like they didn't have enough confidence in creating a squad based WW2 game without incorporating sci-fi elements.
At least JA2 had the good sense to allow the player to exclude the sci-fi elements via a checkbox at the start of the game. Well, except that the the "rocket rifles" were still in the non-sci-fi version, although they were not as aggregious as, say, powered armor or lasers.

All this talk of squad-tactical games makes me wish I could get Shadow Watch running under WinXP. :(

- Alan

[EDIT] Apparently it works if you replace the contents of the "JRE" directory with the contents of the "1.1" directory from an older version of Java (http://java.sun.com/products/archive/jdk/1.1.8_010/jre/index.html).

[Jason Lutes]

All this talk of squad-tactical games makes me wish I could get Shadow Watch running under WinXP. :(

Ouch! Makes me glad I'm still hanging on to 98SE.

In other Sentinels news, there's an English demo out now (http://www.avault.com/pcrl/demo_temp.asp?game=sstormsent). After giving it a whirl, I must say that I'm really looking forward to the game.

I set the difficulty to 100% and really enjoyed playing through the first couple of missions. It looks like the financial management and weapon durability aspects will heighten the tension somewhat. Some things I liked:

* Enemy state indicators. Now, the little red enemy icons over visible enemies change to reflect their state: unaware, investigating, alerted, etc.

* Damage effects. I'm not a big fan of gore, but the combination of ragdoll physics, dynamic blood effects, and bullet hole decals really create a vivid sense of destruction. The way a room looks after a firefight seems eerily realistic.

* Customizable difficulty. You can tweak the difficulty level to your heart's content. Especially welcome was a check box for "hidden random encounters," meaning that you won't be able to see and avoid them on the region maps.

* Improved AI. It's not the best ever in a game, but probably the best ever in a turn-based tactical game. At one point I had three soldiers defending from the second floor of a house, and it really felt like the AI was out to get me. Enemies will approach your position with caution and duck in and out of cover.

Looking forward very much to the eventual stateside release.

[Jason Lutes]

Bumping this up because I just discovered the UK import Silent Storm Gold Edition (http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/SESSIONID/Product/View/001SILSG) for sale at GoGamer.

It includes the Sentinels expansion!!!

I just ordered a copy, even though I already own two copies of the original game. I'm dying to get my hands on the expansion, and it's not due for North American release until January '05.

[John Many Jars]

Bumping this up because I just discovered the UK import Silent Storm Gold Edition (http://www.gogamer.com/cgi-bin/GoGamer.storefront/SESSIONID/Product/View/001SILSG) for sale at GoGamer.

It includes the Sentinels expansion!!!

I just ordered a copy, even though I already own two copies of the original game. I'm dying to get my hands on the expansion, and it's not due for North American release until January '05.

Sweet tip, Jason. :D

[Dirt]

I just wish they'd patch the original game so I can play it. I was having a lot of fun, but the game has major stability issues, and the voices crap out all the time.

I wish the enemy moved faster.

[Eduardo X]

While I've played the Sentinals expansion, it was only for a tiny bit because I still want to finish SS.
I never got to the Panzerklein parts of SS, either, so I guess I should feel lucky.

Did anybody ever play the mods that removed the sci-fi elements? I know there are quite a few.
I also know of one mod that speeds up the PKs.
http://www.s2hq.com/
All those mods and more are available here.

[Peter Olafson]

Is there a place I can buy the Sentinels expansion by itself? (I have the original game, and don't feel like buying it twice.)

Same deal with the Hegemonia add-on Solon Heritage. It's available in the gold edition, but I've never seen it for sale separately.

Thanks!

Peter

[Eduardo X]

The Sentinals expansion will not be released stand alone in the US, and browsing the English game sites seems to show that in England, you can only buy the Gold edition.
Kind of sucks for those who bought Silent Storm.

[BobJustBob]

Doesn't the import edition of Silent Storm have Starforce?

[quatoria]

Is there a place I can buy the Sentinels expansion by itself? (I have the original game, and don't feel like buying it twice.)

Same deal with the Hegemonia add-on Solon Heritage. It's available in the gold edition, but I've never seen it for sale separately.

Thanks!

Peter

Woah, Hegemonia has an expansion? I'd never heard that. Is it any good?

[Eduardo X]

Doesn't the import edition of Silent Storm have Starforce?
I think the Russian version does, but not the UK edition.
There was an extensive conversation about this exact matter at Gone Gold, but we all know that place eneded up like that shit-head nazi sniper who lost his head to Viper.

[Sam Jones]

Woah, Hegemonia has an expansion? I'd never heard that. Is it any good?

Not worth buying unless you're a real fan. It's a separate installation (doesn't require the original to be installed to run) and provides a Skirmish mode, Multiplayer and a bunch of maps to support those. There are a couple of new units but they can only be used in the expansion. It adds nothing to the original game.