Silent Storm Review
As it pertains to cRPG Design, Silent Storm is rated as Above Average. Silent Storm is ranked 2nd in cRPG combat, 2nd in turn-based cRPGs and 7th in party-based cRPGs. It is ranked as the 10th best cRPG of all-time.
The following comments and criticisms pertain to v1.2 of Silent Storm; that is, the original version patched to its final, official state. Silent Storm has been installed from original optical media purchased when the game came out.
I have tweaked my configuration files in order to disable dynamic camera angles and empower camera tilting, trucking, zooming and rotation. My reasoning is: it's a tactics game so let's make the cam as tactical as possible, and remove cutscene fluff.
I have tweaked my configuration files in order to disable dynamic camera angles and empower camera tilting, trucking, zooming and rotation. My reasoning is: it's a tactics game so let's make the cam as tactical as possible, and remove cutscene fluff.
Silent Storm Setting
Silent Storm is set in Europe and Russia during World War II. Weapons research in the early 1940s could tip the balance of the war, and so the Allied and Axis powers assembled special forces squads for intelligence-gathering purposes (think commandos).
In Silent Storm, the player assumes the role of squad leader for either an Allied or Axis special forces squad. This squad conducts a series of missions that stretch from the U.K to Russia.
Through their investigations in manors, towns and military facilities, the squad uncovers a third power working behind the scenes that threatens the world like the Cold War was to do 20 years subsequent: an advanced terrorist organization known as Thor's Hammer or THO for short.
As it turns out, THO acquired cutting edge beam-weapon technology from leading researcher, Schteinberg, with an intent to launch a doomsday beam-weapon into orbit. During the campaign, THO are hellbent on acquiring the propulsion technology required for the launch of the payload. In order to facilitate its acquisition, they are aggressively infiltrating the British and German ranks, kidnapping and assassinating key figures, and trading their own panzerklein technology with both Allied and Axis forces.
This aggressive activity has precipitated Operation Silent Storm: it is the squad's mission to uncover and then foil their master plan.
Silent Storm Chargen
Once a power has been chosen (Allied or Axis), the player creates one character to lead their six-strong special forces squad. For the Allies, this character is known as Squad Leader: Special Operations: SE2.
Unlike the I.M.P in Jagged Alliance 2 [pic], this character is a protagonist. As such, it is game over if we are K.I.A. Thus, it is best to make a strong, useful character.
The choice of power, gender and nationality is unimportant. What is important is the choice of military profession: Soldier, Sniper, Scout, Grenadier, Engineer and Medic.
Why? Because the choice of profession governs which skilltree we have access to for character-building purposes. Each profession has its own skilltree and there is some cross-over of skills between professions though each one is unique enough. Posted below is an annotated screencap I whipped up showing the skilltrees for all six professions. When we mouse-over the icons, a window pops up with the name and description of the special ability.
Unlike JA2, when we gain a level we can assign a new skillpoint to our skilltree. Thus, proper builds are possible. Some special abilities are ho-hum, others represent clear breakpoints, and others yet are ho-hum yet are prerequisites to the breakpoints. Only through experimentation can we work out which ones are best for us, as the mouse-over descriptions don't always make it crystal clear.
One criticism I have is that skilltrees cannot be browsed in chargen -- we have to wait until we are in-game. What the devs should have done is let the player assign one skillpoint in chargen, thereby showing the skilltree. In that way, we could gain a better understanding of the potential of professions before we commit to one.
Profession also governs our starting level of proficiency in various skills (how many ranks we have in each skill). While that can give us a headstart in the early going (which can be quite difficult), it is not so important as any profession can advance in almost any skill providing they work at it.
Next, we assign our attributes. There are three attributes and these govern our skillranks: Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. Attributes can be maxed to 10 or dumped to 2. We only have a pool of 14 points to spend so we can't be good at everything. As we assign points we can look below the attribute panel and see how secondary attributes and skills are being affected. For example, if we want the potential for "best sniper" we should choose the sniper profession and crank Dexterity and Intelligence, like so:
We can see that Shooting and Snipe are quite strong but Burst is low. That's fine because snipers don't wield SMGs and machineguns (though there is one burst-capable rifle). Clearly, Dexterity followed by Intelligence are the most important stats for a sniper. But both Dexterity and Intelligence are important for all professions because their scores govern our action point pool and our experience point acquisition (similar to Agility and Wisdom in JA2). Note that attributes and secondary attributes increase much more slowly than skills. That said, my character started off with 57 action points and by end-game she had 77. Action points are increased by moving about and most people will favor their created character, so that's why.
As in JA2, attributes, secondary attributes and skills increase through use. The more we do something the better we become at it. The difference is that such increases do not contribute to leveling: only killing enemies, obtaining hints and clues and fulfilling mission objectives do. We receive an experience point bomb for fulfilling primary and optional missions.
Once the tutorial mission is completed, we can gain access to our base of operations. The bases for Allies and Axis are visually different but functionally identical. It is at the base that we gain access to an armory, a sickbay, and a recruitment office (and eventually a panzerklein hangar).
Once the tutorial mission is completed, we can gain access to our base of operations. The bases for Allies and Axis are visually different but functionally identical. It is at the base that we gain access to an armory, a sickbay, and a recruitment office (and eventually a panzerklein hangar).
cf. Squad Composition.
I recently conducted an Allied replay of Silent Storm on Normal difficulty mode. I was quite rusty but managed to get through the campaign without any major issues. I recommend that all squads, regardless of composition, primarily wield rifles and employ Careful Shot in the early going. Pistols can also be very useful in close-quarters combat. One can train the Shooting skill very quickly with pistols due to their rate of fire and clip-size; it's broken because even if we miss we gain a skillup. So we can just force-attack (A-key) and shoot the ground repeatedly in order to become crackshots. That is, of course, utter nonsense and I don't recommend engaging in such: the devs should have granted skillups only when we genuinely aim and fire at hostiles in gunfights.
Not once during my replay did the game hang, crash or glitch out, and no quests bugged out. I thoroughly enjoyed the week-long playthrough. There were moments of intense frustration, and there were moments when I questioned design decisions, but these were far outweighed by an overall sense of satisfaction, and even a sense of awe.
Yes, at times I was awestruck by Silent Storm. This is one slickly coded, stylish and sexy game. I'm not just talking about the tactics, the visuals, the ragdoll physics and the destructibility of the environments for which it is well-known, but also of the pathfinding routine, the emphasis on verticality in area design, and the powerful, flexible and easy-to-use camera which I tweaked. I've talked a lot about those three things on this blog so I obviously appreciate it when games get them right. Well, Silent Storm does.
Note the bullet in mid-flight:
Angles. The game is all about tactics and angles:
Yep, there's nothing wrong with the graphics:
Silent Storm is famous for its verticality, demolitions and destructibility. Almost everything that can be seen can be destroyed. The screencap below depicts a devastating laser-beam fired at an enemy standing in front of gas cylinders stacked on a forklift:
A massive explosion rips though an entire wing of a sprawling facility. Chunks of concrete rain down and choking dust fills the air:
Aftermath: It wiped out sections of the upper storeys and blew off part of the roof as well:
Epic. cf. JA2 destructibility [pic].
As the reader has already noticed, in writing a retrospective for Silent Storm comparisons with Jagged Alliance 2 are inevitable. This is because Silent Storm is the spiritual successor to Sir-Tech's immortal masterpiece.
So how does it stack up? Well, I've said it before and this won't be the last time I'll say it either: in respect to tactics, only Silent Storm can stand alongside JA2 without being laughed, booed and egged off-stage. But JA2 still towers above it; it's an almost perfect game whereas Silent Storm exhibits flaws so blatant that we find ourselves scratching our heads, asking, "Why? Why would they do that?"
For those familiar with the game, I'm of course speaking of panzerkleins aka PKs. Straight out of Science Fiction, PKs are hulking armored suits wearable by Allied, Axis and Thor's Hammer combat units.
Some PKs are profession-specific, others are faction-specific (Allies or Axis) and others yet are custom-made for Thor's Hammer agents though wearable by Allied or Axis characters. Some PKs can be fitted with conventional weapons such as giant sabres, sniper rifles, machineguns, cannons and rocket launchers; others are permanently fixed with cutting-edge laser-beam weapons that glide through walls of concrete like a hot knife through butter. Sounds cool, right?
Well, they are, indeed, a cool concept, but the problem with PKs is twofold. First, they are overpowered due to their damage reduction that borders on immunity versus most conventional weapons. Burst-firing machineguns from point blank inflicts no damage, for example. Plus, PKs bestow an extremely high Evade score (think 3.x dodge). Second, they are itemized too early in the campaign. Just when our squad members are hitting their stride, just when we, as players, are getting used to specific tactics and combat roles of our squad members, the developers throw in these supertankers to trivialize combat encounters and dumb down employable tactics.
The guys on the left can't put a dent into that PK. The guy on the right can, though, because laser-beam.
How do PKs dumb down employable tactics? First of all, being large and bulky, they move painfully slowly, they limit vision radius, and they make lots of noise as they lumber about (only some professions can reduce these issues through their skillsets). Secondly, mobility is hindered due to the fact that we can't crouch, go prone, climb a ladder or spring up onto a ledge. Weaponization of PKs is also comparatively limited. Overall, I just feel stuck and relatively useless when piloting them.
Upon acquiring just one PK, we can tank armies of conventional soldiers during the approach phase to, say, a factory or facility, and pick off the aggro that is focused on the PK with our non-PK units, who are positioned safely behind. Then, usually, we hop out in order to storm the buildings themselves.
The screencap below depicts an example of a disabled PK hindering exploration (disabled means we have killed the pilot). We can't even get into the PK in order to move it because it's too close to the wall (there's no path). So we hop into another one, arm it with a rocket launcher, and fire a rocket into the metal railing in order to open up a path. We can now hop out of the PK and climb the concrete wall onto that previously inaccessible platform.
Stupid PKs, seriously. I can't tell you how much this tiny, specific problem annoyed me. If the environments weren't destructible, we'd literally be stuck. Stupid PKs. Hate.
Couldn't we just blow up the PK? No, they are indestructible. They can only be disabled through ray-beam mega-damage or by slaying the person inside with a headshot.
A second major problem is the skill progression of our squad members -- especially that of utility professions such as engineers and medics. The skills of engineering and medicine level at a snail's pace in comparison to pure combat skills. Now, obviously we pick locks and treat injuries less often than we fire our weapons, but come on. Just increase their per-usage affect on skills; how hard is it?
Compounding that, lockpicks, mines and expert mechanical and medical equipment are stingely itemized; thus, opportunities to train the skills is limited (and conversely, the lack of skillranks prevents us from using such equipment).
There are, of course, many ways to deal with locked doors, lockers and footlockers, but bullets, rockets and grenades or mines are inelegant, noisy and dangerous: three-quarters of a building gets blown apart as we loot and explore? Dear me. I just want to pick the lock or disarm the bomb while under cover of stealth.
In regard to skill progression, the problem doesn't end there. Having levelled my squad to tenth, I headed back to base to check out the squad pool:
"That's right!", I exclaimed. "The characters in the pool scale to squad level".
I checked my engineer's score in engineering: a pathetic 40 points. Then I checked the skillranks of the engineers in the pool: both greater than 110 points! What the hell?
Keeping in mind the issues I mentioned above, there is no way in the world that my engineer could have increased his skill in engineering that much, in-game. Not a snowball's chance.
Some may say the solution is simple: sub-out the engineer for one from the pool. But the point is, I didn't painstakingly build that character and watch them grow. Moreover, while the new recruit's skillranks are where they should be, their skilltrees certainly are not. And skilltrees are a big part of the build, too. So yeah, the choice is therefore between a skilled engineer with a shitty skilltree that I didn't build, and an unskilled engineer with a good skilltree that I did build. And since destructibility allows me to bypass locks and mines (just blow whatever they're connected to sky-high), I roll with the latter. But I'm still not happy because it shouldn't be like that. When we really think about this, we realize that part of the game has been ruined.
There are mods that address both panzerkleins and skill progression, but I'm not commentating on mods in a retrospective. They don't fix the problem properly anyway.
Possibly considered a minor issue by others, but it's important to me, is the distinct lack of sector inventory management in Silent Storm. In JA2, once a sector has been cleared of hostiles, we can access all of the loot from a sector inventory panel [pic]. That means we can transfer loot from the sector to our inventory through the UI instead of running about like headless chickens, picking all the shit up from where it literally dropped. Very, very convenient. But in Silent Storm, when we hit the Alt-key to highlight loot, we are presented with this nightmare:
I won't lie. I've actually left sectors without picking stuff up because of that. Even though the pathfinding routine is second-to-none, I am not going to click on those words and wait for my characters to navigate a complex, half-demolished, multi-storeyed sector in order to pick them up. It's ok the first time but by the second it's getting old already. And by the tenth -- no. Get me out of here.
Bearing in mind that clearing one sector of hostiles can take upwards of an hour due to the turn-based combat, it is unlikely that players will want to spend another 15 minutes picking up non-essentials. But we don't know what's good until we gain knowledge of itemization. Inventory management is an absolute nightmare even though we have auto-sorting that ensures we maximize our space. There is just too much shit to sift through.
Another minor issue I have is with the characters in the squad pool: they lack personality, charm and wit. None of them are funny, none of them are interesting, and I didn't care for any of them outside of their build. Also, the voicesets are horribly acted, highly annoying and many of the accents are inauthentic, which is offensive; I muted them. In contrast, JA2 mercs exude personality. We grow to love, hate or be indifferent to them. The animated, talking-head portraits and voicesets are superb, too.
To say something nice at this point, the orchestral and solo pieces in Silent Storm are well-composed. At least, they never annoyed me.
In some ways, Silent Storm represents an evolution on JA2; in others, a devolution. Most apparent is that Silent Storm employs a full-blown 3D graphics engine whereas JA2 employs a 2D isometric one. 3D means we have a powerful, flexible and easy-to-use camera whereas 2D means we scroll the viewport while locked into a static three-quarter top-down angle. Which is better and why?
In terms of simply playing the game, we could argue that isometric viewports are easier to handle and more efficient in that no time is wasted manipulating a camera. We can always see the field of play clearly in JA2 even though our combat unit may find themselves behind a wall. Nagivation of zones is also easier because we don't get confused in terms of which direction we're facing or where we're heading. In tactical 3D engines, all it takes is one error of mouse movement and suddenly we are lost and need to regain our bearings by resetting the cam. This isn't a big deal but it is noticeable.
In addition, 2D does not preclude tactics that take into account elevation and verticality: in JA2, thanks to Sir-Tech's coding wizardry, we can climb onto a roof and snipe at the enemies below in order to gain to-hit advantages [pic].
The three-segment screencap depicts a mine-rigged door. An engineer could disable it but that's risky because we don't have the skill because the game totally stuffed up utility skill progression. So instead, a soldier steps back and fires a round into the barrel of fuel. Not only does the resultant explosion blow open the door and much of the surrounding concrete wall it was fitted into, but it also rips a gaping hole in the concrete floor, exposing hostiles camped on the storey below.
Thus, in terms of raw game-play and tactics, there are advantages to Silent Storm's employment of three dimensions. The cam's tilting, trucking, zooming and rotation presents us with the optimal tactical angle at all times. After tweaking the relevant config files, I was never unable to get the exact angle I wanted. In conclusion, best 3D cam ever.
The screencap below depicts an early-game, super-basic sniping scenario in Silent Storm. Under cover of stealth, the crouched sniper has positioned herself within the house on the left. She has opened the window to get a good view on the enemy in the adjacent home, and has taken her time getting him into her sights. The opposite window is closed, but the bullet will easily penetate and its impact will send the victim crashing through furniture in the room.
A sniper in sniper-fitted PK shoots a hapless hostile in the back. The impact of the shot sends the victim flying from the balcony and through the air before plummeting to the ground.
Yes, he sort of died.
Sniping is very powerful in Silent Storm. It's also powerful in JA2 but Silent Storm's sniping mechanics are more complex and satisfying: only snipers can expend extra action points in order to hit far-off targets right between the eyes. This goes far beyond the Careful Shot available to all professions which, however, is also very useful. Snipers only require a scout to spot a target for them. Then, that target is going to get its head blown clean off.
In JA2, buildings can only have ground and first floors. In Silent Storm, buildings can be several storeys high with seamless transition from rooftop to basement (no area-loading). In order to see inside each floor, each layer of the building can be peeled off and stacked back on by the player, at-will and at any time.
Most impressive. The building is entirely destructible though we'll need some serious explosives. Note the sniper towers on the left and right as well as the steam train in the background.
Now, imagine being in the basement and then clicking somewhere on the top floor. No matter the complexity of the architecture, its deformation or the density of placeables, the entire squad of six will smoothy run, climb ladders, crawl through tiny gaps and ascend stairwells in order to reach the destination. We can click once and follow the characters the entire way by virtue of that above-depicted layering. I couldn't help but be thoroughly impressed with the pathfinding routine; it's matched only by JA2 in terms of precision. JA2 doesn't have the deformation complexity but its sectors are much, much larger and we're not talking about a squad of 6, but of 18. It's amazing to me that most other RPGs have such difficulty with pathfinding when their sectors are so simplistic. Lrn2code, fools.
If it isn't clear already, we can shoot through concrete walls if our weapon and ammo are powerful enough. In JA2, we can fire a bullet through multiple panes of glass; we can fire a light anti-tank weapon into concrete walls in order to destroy them and light up the enemy inside (perhaps also hitting fuel supplies and setting off a chain reaction); we can also pull off similar stunts by virtue of demolitions through plastic explosives such as C4, but none of our 7.62mm assault rifles can penetrate so much as a wooden door, even in burst-mode. That's the difference.
JA2 also employs pseudo-ragdoll physics for its sprites but Silent Storm's implementations are much more advanced and impressive. Victims will slide down staircases and crash through windows and furniture after being shot; it's a delight to watch.
A nice selection of arsenal from Silent Storm:
cf. Best Silent Storm Weapons.
I'm not going to criticize Silent Storm's lack of a seamlessly integrated strategic mode, contiguous non-linear overworld and role-playing reactivity; while it would have been nice, it wouldn't be fair: on the whole, JA2 is an immortal masterpiece and the scope of its vision is infinitely broader than Silent Storm's.
Overall, Silent Storm is a good game with grave flaws that can't be overlooked. Nevertheless, I recommend it to all JA2 and ToEE fans because it's not like there are many RPGs that have good combat.
Here, my Soldier surprises some British agents at the top of some stairs, switches on full burst mode, and lets it rip:
What you don't see are the three guys flying backwards into the cabinet, shards of glass and splinters of wood going everywhere. So cool.
A tough low-level encounter at the German manor (Axis run):
There is an ambush after we are double-crossed.
Snipers perched up high, several soldiers in doorways and in the courtyard, and no fewer than five soldiers on the ground floor, inside, wielding machineguns such as Brens, MG 34s and ZB 26-30s.
We took out the snipers and courtyard guys first; the former with rifles and the latter with a combo of pistols and rifles.
Then we came under heavy fire from the machinegunners. One of my guys punches through the brickwall with a rocket. Then, he pushes a second rocket inside to blow three of the machine-gunners away.
The best part was that one guy flew back, crashed through a window and landed on the lawn outside, as fertilizer.
Ever the subtle tactician, I pushed a rocket through one of the manor's towers as well, in order to better expose a sniper. Then we hunted down the four soldiers in the backyard.
Wait. Why didn't the blast into the wall impact the sniper who can be seen training his gun on us? Because the sniper wasn't near the wall at the time of the blast. He was quite mobile, and a crackshot.
This combat encounter pitted our six-strong squad against 30 hostiles, all told. It was a marathon.
See also: Silent Storm Weapons, Silent Storm Best Squad.
Silent Storm Walkthrough
I recently conducted an Allied replay of Silent Storm on Normal difficulty mode. I was quite rusty but managed to get through the campaign without any major issues. I recommend that all squads, regardless of composition, primarily wield rifles and employ Careful Shot in the early going. Pistols can also be very useful in close-quarters combat. One can train the Shooting skill very quickly with pistols due to their rate of fire and clip-size; it's broken because even if we miss we gain a skillup. So we can just force-attack (A-key) and shoot the ground repeatedly in order to become crackshots. That is, of course, utter nonsense and I don't recommend engaging in such: the devs should have granted skillups only when we genuinely aim and fire at hostiles in gunfights.
Not once during my replay did the game hang, crash or glitch out, and no quests bugged out. I thoroughly enjoyed the week-long playthrough. There were moments of intense frustration, and there were moments when I questioned design decisions, but these were far outweighed by an overall sense of satisfaction, and even a sense of awe.
Yes, at times I was awestruck by Silent Storm. This is one slickly coded, stylish and sexy game. I'm not just talking about the tactics, the visuals, the ragdoll physics and the destructibility of the environments for which it is well-known, but also of the pathfinding routine, the emphasis on verticality in area design, and the powerful, flexible and easy-to-use camera which I tweaked. I've talked a lot about those three things on this blog so I obviously appreciate it when games get them right. Well, Silent Storm does.
Note the bullet in mid-flight:
Angles. The game is all about tactics and angles:
Yep, there's nothing wrong with the graphics:
Silent Storm Destructibility
Silent Storm is famous for its verticality, demolitions and destructibility. Almost everything that can be seen can be destroyed. The screencap below depicts a devastating laser-beam fired at an enemy standing in front of gas cylinders stacked on a forklift:
A massive explosion rips though an entire wing of a sprawling facility. Chunks of concrete rain down and choking dust fills the air:
Aftermath: It wiped out sections of the upper storeys and blew off part of the roof as well:
Epic. cf. JA2 destructibility [pic].
As the reader has already noticed, in writing a retrospective for Silent Storm comparisons with Jagged Alliance 2 are inevitable. This is because Silent Storm is the spiritual successor to Sir-Tech's immortal masterpiece.
So how does it stack up? Well, I've said it before and this won't be the last time I'll say it either: in respect to tactics, only Silent Storm can stand alongside JA2 without being laughed, booed and egged off-stage. But JA2 still towers above it; it's an almost perfect game whereas Silent Storm exhibits flaws so blatant that we find ourselves scratching our heads, asking, "Why? Why would they do that?"
Silent Storm Panzerkleins
For those familiar with the game, I'm of course speaking of panzerkleins aka PKs. Straight out of Science Fiction, PKs are hulking armored suits wearable by Allied, Axis and Thor's Hammer combat units.
Some PKs are profession-specific, others are faction-specific (Allies or Axis) and others yet are custom-made for Thor's Hammer agents though wearable by Allied or Axis characters. Some PKs can be fitted with conventional weapons such as giant sabres, sniper rifles, machineguns, cannons and rocket launchers; others are permanently fixed with cutting-edge laser-beam weapons that glide through walls of concrete like a hot knife through butter. Sounds cool, right?
Well, they are, indeed, a cool concept, but the problem with PKs is twofold. First, they are overpowered due to their damage reduction that borders on immunity versus most conventional weapons. Burst-firing machineguns from point blank inflicts no damage, for example. Plus, PKs bestow an extremely high Evade score (think 3.x dodge). Second, they are itemized too early in the campaign. Just when our squad members are hitting their stride, just when we, as players, are getting used to specific tactics and combat roles of our squad members, the developers throw in these supertankers to trivialize combat encounters and dumb down employable tactics.
The guys on the left can't put a dent into that PK. The guy on the right can, though, because laser-beam.
How do PKs dumb down employable tactics? First of all, being large and bulky, they move painfully slowly, they limit vision radius, and they make lots of noise as they lumber about (only some professions can reduce these issues through their skillsets). Secondly, mobility is hindered due to the fact that we can't crouch, go prone, climb a ladder or spring up onto a ledge. Weaponization of PKs is also comparatively limited. Overall, I just feel stuck and relatively useless when piloting them.
Upon acquiring just one PK, we can tank armies of conventional soldiers during the approach phase to, say, a factory or facility, and pick off the aggro that is focused on the PK with our non-PK units, who are positioned safely behind. Then, usually, we hop out in order to storm the buildings themselves.
The screencap below depicts an example of a disabled PK hindering exploration (disabled means we have killed the pilot). We can't even get into the PK in order to move it because it's too close to the wall (there's no path). So we hop into another one, arm it with a rocket launcher, and fire a rocket into the metal railing in order to open up a path. We can now hop out of the PK and climb the concrete wall onto that previously inaccessible platform.
Stupid PKs, seriously. I can't tell you how much this tiny, specific problem annoyed me. If the environments weren't destructible, we'd literally be stuck. Stupid PKs. Hate.
Couldn't we just blow up the PK? No, they are indestructible. They can only be disabled through ray-beam mega-damage or by slaying the person inside with a headshot.
Criticism of Silent Storm Skill Progression
A second major problem is the skill progression of our squad members -- especially that of utility professions such as engineers and medics. The skills of engineering and medicine level at a snail's pace in comparison to pure combat skills. Now, obviously we pick locks and treat injuries less often than we fire our weapons, but come on. Just increase their per-usage affect on skills; how hard is it?
Compounding that, lockpicks, mines and expert mechanical and medical equipment are stingely itemized; thus, opportunities to train the skills is limited (and conversely, the lack of skillranks prevents us from using such equipment).
There are, of course, many ways to deal with locked doors, lockers and footlockers, but bullets, rockets and grenades or mines are inelegant, noisy and dangerous: three-quarters of a building gets blown apart as we loot and explore? Dear me. I just want to pick the lock or disarm the bomb while under cover of stealth.
In regard to skill progression, the problem doesn't end there. Having levelled my squad to tenth, I headed back to base to check out the squad pool:
"That's right!", I exclaimed. "The characters in the pool scale to squad level".
I checked my engineer's score in engineering: a pathetic 40 points. Then I checked the skillranks of the engineers in the pool: both greater than 110 points! What the hell?
Keeping in mind the issues I mentioned above, there is no way in the world that my engineer could have increased his skill in engineering that much, in-game. Not a snowball's chance.
Some may say the solution is simple: sub-out the engineer for one from the pool. But the point is, I didn't painstakingly build that character and watch them grow. Moreover, while the new recruit's skillranks are where they should be, their skilltrees certainly are not. And skilltrees are a big part of the build, too. So yeah, the choice is therefore between a skilled engineer with a shitty skilltree that I didn't build, and an unskilled engineer with a good skilltree that I did build. And since destructibility allows me to bypass locks and mines (just blow whatever they're connected to sky-high), I roll with the latter. But I'm still not happy because it shouldn't be like that. When we really think about this, we realize that part of the game has been ruined.
There are mods that address both panzerkleins and skill progression, but I'm not commentating on mods in a retrospective. They don't fix the problem properly anyway.
Other Virtues & Flaws of Silent Storm
Possibly considered a minor issue by others, but it's important to me, is the distinct lack of sector inventory management in Silent Storm. In JA2, once a sector has been cleared of hostiles, we can access all of the loot from a sector inventory panel [pic]. That means we can transfer loot from the sector to our inventory through the UI instead of running about like headless chickens, picking all the shit up from where it literally dropped. Very, very convenient. But in Silent Storm, when we hit the Alt-key to highlight loot, we are presented with this nightmare:
I won't lie. I've actually left sectors without picking stuff up because of that. Even though the pathfinding routine is second-to-none, I am not going to click on those words and wait for my characters to navigate a complex, half-demolished, multi-storeyed sector in order to pick them up. It's ok the first time but by the second it's getting old already. And by the tenth -- no. Get me out of here.
Bearing in mind that clearing one sector of hostiles can take upwards of an hour due to the turn-based combat, it is unlikely that players will want to spend another 15 minutes picking up non-essentials. But we don't know what's good until we gain knowledge of itemization. Inventory management is an absolute nightmare even though we have auto-sorting that ensures we maximize our space. There is just too much shit to sift through.
Another minor issue I have is with the characters in the squad pool: they lack personality, charm and wit. None of them are funny, none of them are interesting, and I didn't care for any of them outside of their build. Also, the voicesets are horribly acted, highly annoying and many of the accents are inauthentic, which is offensive; I muted them. In contrast, JA2 mercs exude personality. We grow to love, hate or be indifferent to them. The animated, talking-head portraits and voicesets are superb, too.
To say something nice at this point, the orchestral and solo pieces in Silent Storm are well-composed. At least, they never annoyed me.
In some ways, Silent Storm represents an evolution on JA2; in others, a devolution. Most apparent is that Silent Storm employs a full-blown 3D graphics engine whereas JA2 employs a 2D isometric one. 3D means we have a powerful, flexible and easy-to-use camera whereas 2D means we scroll the viewport while locked into a static three-quarter top-down angle. Which is better and why?
In terms of simply playing the game, we could argue that isometric viewports are easier to handle and more efficient in that no time is wasted manipulating a camera. We can always see the field of play clearly in JA2 even though our combat unit may find themselves behind a wall. Nagivation of zones is also easier because we don't get confused in terms of which direction we're facing or where we're heading. In tactical 3D engines, all it takes is one error of mouse movement and suddenly we are lost and need to regain our bearings by resetting the cam. This isn't a big deal but it is noticeable.
In addition, 2D does not preclude tactics that take into account elevation and verticality: in JA2, thanks to Sir-Tech's coding wizardry, we can climb onto a roof and snipe at the enemies below in order to gain to-hit advantages [pic].
The three-segment screencap depicts a mine-rigged door. An engineer could disable it but that's risky because we don't have the skill because the game totally stuffed up utility skill progression. So instead, a soldier steps back and fires a round into the barrel of fuel. Not only does the resultant explosion blow open the door and much of the surrounding concrete wall it was fitted into, but it also rips a gaping hole in the concrete floor, exposing hostiles camped on the storey below.
Thus, in terms of raw game-play and tactics, there are advantages to Silent Storm's employment of three dimensions. The cam's tilting, trucking, zooming and rotation presents us with the optimal tactical angle at all times. After tweaking the relevant config files, I was never unable to get the exact angle I wanted. In conclusion, best 3D cam ever.
The screencap below depicts an early-game, super-basic sniping scenario in Silent Storm. Under cover of stealth, the crouched sniper has positioned herself within the house on the left. She has opened the window to get a good view on the enemy in the adjacent home, and has taken her time getting him into her sights. The opposite window is closed, but the bullet will easily penetate and its impact will send the victim crashing through furniture in the room.
A sniper in sniper-fitted PK shoots a hapless hostile in the back. The impact of the shot sends the victim flying from the balcony and through the air before plummeting to the ground.
Yes, he sort of died.
Sniping is very powerful in Silent Storm. It's also powerful in JA2 but Silent Storm's sniping mechanics are more complex and satisfying: only snipers can expend extra action points in order to hit far-off targets right between the eyes. This goes far beyond the Careful Shot available to all professions which, however, is also very useful. Snipers only require a scout to spot a target for them. Then, that target is going to get its head blown clean off.
In JA2, buildings can only have ground and first floors. In Silent Storm, buildings can be several storeys high with seamless transition from rooftop to basement (no area-loading). In order to see inside each floor, each layer of the building can be peeled off and stacked back on by the player, at-will and at any time.
Most impressive. The building is entirely destructible though we'll need some serious explosives. Note the sniper towers on the left and right as well as the steam train in the background.
Now, imagine being in the basement and then clicking somewhere on the top floor. No matter the complexity of the architecture, its deformation or the density of placeables, the entire squad of six will smoothy run, climb ladders, crawl through tiny gaps and ascend stairwells in order to reach the destination. We can click once and follow the characters the entire way by virtue of that above-depicted layering. I couldn't help but be thoroughly impressed with the pathfinding routine; it's matched only by JA2 in terms of precision. JA2 doesn't have the deformation complexity but its sectors are much, much larger and we're not talking about a squad of 6, but of 18. It's amazing to me that most other RPGs have such difficulty with pathfinding when their sectors are so simplistic. Lrn2code, fools.
If it isn't clear already, we can shoot through concrete walls if our weapon and ammo are powerful enough. In JA2, we can fire a bullet through multiple panes of glass; we can fire a light anti-tank weapon into concrete walls in order to destroy them and light up the enemy inside (perhaps also hitting fuel supplies and setting off a chain reaction); we can also pull off similar stunts by virtue of demolitions through plastic explosives such as C4, but none of our 7.62mm assault rifles can penetrate so much as a wooden door, even in burst-mode. That's the difference.
JA2 also employs pseudo-ragdoll physics for its sprites but Silent Storm's implementations are much more advanced and impressive. Victims will slide down staircases and crash through windows and furniture after being shot; it's a delight to watch.
A nice selection of arsenal from Silent Storm:
cf. Best Silent Storm Weapons.
Conclusion
I'm not going to criticize Silent Storm's lack of a seamlessly integrated strategic mode, contiguous non-linear overworld and role-playing reactivity; while it would have been nice, it wouldn't be fair: on the whole, JA2 is an immortal masterpiece and the scope of its vision is infinitely broader than Silent Storm's.
Overall, Silent Storm is a good game with grave flaws that can't be overlooked. Nevertheless, I recommend it to all JA2 and ToEE fans because it's not like there are many RPGs that have good combat.
***
Here, my Soldier surprises some British agents at the top of some stairs, switches on full burst mode, and lets it rip:
What you don't see are the three guys flying backwards into the cabinet, shards of glass and splinters of wood going everywhere. So cool.
A tough low-level encounter at the German manor (Axis run):
There is an ambush after we are double-crossed.
Snipers perched up high, several soldiers in doorways and in the courtyard, and no fewer than five soldiers on the ground floor, inside, wielding machineguns such as Brens, MG 34s and ZB 26-30s.
We took out the snipers and courtyard guys first; the former with rifles and the latter with a combo of pistols and rifles.
Then we came under heavy fire from the machinegunners. One of my guys punches through the brickwall with a rocket. Then, he pushes a second rocket inside to blow three of the machine-gunners away.
The best part was that one guy flew back, crashed through a window and landed on the lawn outside, as fertilizer.
Ever the subtle tactician, I pushed a rocket through one of the manor's towers as well, in order to better expose a sniper. Then we hunted down the four soldiers in the backyard.
Wait. Why didn't the blast into the wall impact the sniper who can be seen training his gun on us? Because the sniper wasn't near the wall at the time of the blast. He was quite mobile, and a crackshot.
This combat encounter pitted our six-strong squad against 30 hostiles, all told. It was a marathon.
See also: Silent Storm Weapons, Silent Storm Best Squad.
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I will cautious in my remarks because my game is usually of high difficulty, so it change the game markedly and differently from your game.
ReplyDeleteI am refering, in particular, PK. PK is not indestructible in high difficulty because it can be blowed up. In fact, it is usually the suit that explode, exposing the nearly unharmed pilot inside. Unless you use high penentration rifle to aim critically at the head, thus harming the pilot inside. Otherwise it's hellish trying to capture a suit to your liking.
The reason of existence for PK is, of course, tank. Once tank appear on the battlefield, tactic become trivialized for one side, unless the other side has antimaterial rifle, antitank mine, rocket grenade launcher aka heavy weaponry. You complain that PK trivialized tactic? EXACTLY.
Want to fight against PK with anything reasonably easy? Use high level ENgineer with advance explosive. ENG class has really high engineer skill which raise damage of explosive (but not grenade). You can bombard its area with several 'plosive and the PK usually blow up. Also, by the time PK appear, your high level Medic can use advance medicine item and can buff your desperado with HP boost, AP boost etc thus raising his survivability much. One reason why easy difficulty is too easy: the medic and engineer is too overpower by half.
Of course, PK has a glaring issue: slow as turtle. You usually have to abandon PK once you move beyond the entry area, since it's too slow to suit your usually-by-now lightning speed squad.
Good to know that PKs can be destroyed! Hate 'em.
DeleteI guess I'll have to try the game again sometime.
The manual describes Impossible Difficulty as follows:
"With Impossible game you won't know where the clues are until you find them; you also will not know the number of mission objectives or have any mission briefings (but you will know the main mission objective). You'll be able to save the game only outside game zones, i.e. at base, on the global map or on region map. Characters whose VP reaches zero faint; if VP drops below zero, the character dies. Unconscious characters need to be carried from the game zone manually. When characters leave the zone, all their wounds will be considered as dressed by the character with the highest medical skills; however, the characters will have to go to hospital at base to recover completely."
For my next run, I'll look into Medic builds as well. I didn't find the Medic OP, but it's not like I knew how to build them either.
A short guide to Medic for your reference. MEDIC is immensely tricky because you can ruin the build so easily.
DeleteAvoid the Wisdom trap~ This would cripple your Medic build. Or Melee trap, since you need to invest your point in INTELLIGENCE or DEXTERITY, not waste it on Strength.
The reason for Medic's place in a team is Know Enemy Health. This allow precise details of enemy, equal to Awareness in Fallout.
You can use low level medicine items to boost VP for team mates since there's plenty of resource. Example: an engineer with beefed up VP will advance to explosive range to bombard targets. or the range of a PIAT, etc... Or a Soldier lugging HMG to that nearby PK. Or a Grenadier.
HIgh level items require [b]perks at level 12 like Perfect Medicine Knowledge, and Prolong Master Medic[/b]. And the items are not that common.
Save perk for late game when you get best sniper gun and choose Force of Habit. it will raise 200 familiarity at half the pace to gain. Early game you can snipe even if that ability is low, use one sniper gun to ensure best 1st shot. At late game Fast Snap Fast Aimed Medic can stand equal to a sniper, because of the fast covering fire she can provide for frontline compared to the deadly sniping.
Yeah, I took Know Enemy Health because I liked Awareness in Fallout (it makes combat more tactical). Not sure what else I took after the basic healbot perks, but I think it was the ranged critical perks along with Wisdom and Faster Skills Growth. Also, I didn't explore the medic buffs much because I was playing on EZ mode.
DeleteFor reference, the skilltrees are here:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zBcpukl_ttc/XVYk1HiWD6I/AAAAAAAAWNE/m2rof8hK1Isv9dKjG1T7yNQCClfi9B48gCLcBGAs/s1600/skilltrees.jpg
I like the logical premise of Weapon Familiarity, but I don't like its strict implementation. What I mean is, for WF to pay off, we're not talking about a weapon type (e.g pistols) or even the make and model (Sauer 38X), but about a specific SauerX. It really should be just the make and model, in my opinion.
Eh, it's the first game in series. They were testing concepts and durability fit the WW2 setting immensely. We dont have the surplus weapons like SSS or HS game, so the game devs theorize that soldiers just have one weapon (in that type) until they can ugrade for something better.
DeleteIt is better than the durability concept in SSS which gamers complaint immensely, though I like that concept.
In particular, SauerX make for some interesting first choice of weapon in game because it's so fast.