S2: Silent Storm Gold Edition

Seeing as most review I've read focus on praising this title, I'll bring up some of it's flaws. Though don't get me wrong, it's one of my favorite games and fully deserves 5 stars. On to the flaws: *The astonishing bullet sponges and worthless weapons, especially in the beggining. Seeing as this game has some quite intricate difficulty settings, I don't see why they've decided to balance weapons like this, ending with some weapons becoming worthless damage wise, even when they're using the same bullet. Though this can be remedied with mods, the only ones I've been able to find are a littly dodgy and for example do away with hollow point ammo and AP rockets. Never went into the Russian territory to search for mods though, there might be better alternatives. *The incredible quicksave/quickload fest. If you've got an iron will and ballz of steel, you can play iron man mode. But let me tell you, this is not iron man as it is in JA2. That's because accuracy mechanics in this game are suspicious to say the least. For example, even with a pretty high level soldier you can completely miss a target 10 feet away when using full auto fire or score one hit out of 15 shots. But it gets better, you can stand right behind an enemy, stick the barrel of your gun into his ayuss and still miss when going full auto. AT weapons like bazookas are even worse, though IMO more reliable then full auto fire. That said, it can happen in JA2 as well, and often does, but it's far easier to recover, in SS you can recover, but it often means tedious random encounter hunting. *AI. While overall it's quite good, they often get locked, for example, you're standing hidden behing an enemy, end your turn, he starts turning around, notices you and instead of filling you with holes, he starts dancing, changing stances and so on. This always makes me laugh. IMO panzerkleins are fine, they make good enemies and if you don't like them you can mod them out. Besides, you too can use them.

By and large, Silent Storm (S²) is quite similar to a game like Jagged Alliance 2. You have a team of six soldiers, and need to duke it out with enemy soldiers in round-based combat, where every action costs action points. There are six character classes, each with different abilities and their own skill tree, and experience is gathered mostly through killing enemies. What makes S² special is its scenario and level of detail. While set in a World War 2 scenario, S² is only partially authentic. The weapons and their ammunition have historic counterparts, but you also have armored body suits and beam weapons, so the game isn't realistic in that regard. Rather, realism is present in how the game world functions, as everything in the game is physicalized. When you drop a weapon, it'll move according to gravity, ballistics and bullet penetration are simulated, and with enough firepower, entire buildings may be leveled. When handling explosives, you may even blast a hole in the ground, and be required to traverse through the cellar. Accordingly, the game always feels dynamic and thrilling, even though you're essentially doing the same thing for dozens of hours. That said, S² requires patience. When your enemies or allies perform their actions, all you can do is watch, and early on, you'll have a hard time hitting enemies point blank, prolonging engagements even further. The expansion, Sentinels (S³), does a lot to fix many of the flaws of S²: turns are shorter, you're able to exit round-based combat more quickly, missions are more compact, and there is also a loot screen at the end of each mission, so you don't have to go around to pick up things yourself. In S³, everything has a price, including weapons and soldiers, which adds an additional layer of motivation. Hence, even if you don't like S², S³ might interest you nonetheless. Lastly, you may find S² crashing occasionally, which is solved by lowering graphics quality to medium.

I loved this game. Think Close Combat with better graphics and a much deeper RPG aspect. I recall it being a bit frustrating at first, but that was probably because I was standing in the middle of a road trying to engage a squad armed with MP-40s with my standard-issue Webley or some-such. Learning to use cover and stealth, and the gradual acquisition of increasingly better weapons (your first MG34 will be well-remembered) was a LOT of fun. Thaaat's right, you Nazi SOB... you just keep charging ahead toward that irritating sniper up on the rise. Pay no mind to the Bren muzzle in the bush just ahead of you... It gets pretty ... weird ... about halfway through; the GOG screenshots give away some of it. But it stays fun, and the weird parts mean that eventually even "Maggie", your beloved MG42, gets swapped out for something, uh, "beefier". I think the only disappointment was feeling I wasted time trying to develop something useful with land mine skills on one character? Mines just ended up using up inventory space for me. Definitely going to pick it up and replay. It's been long enough that I expect it to still hold surprises. If you played it before, I think you'll agree. If you have not - buy it!

I've played this game when I was a little kid. It was very difficult for me, but still I enjoyed it very much. The thought I had when I played it, and I remember this very vividly, "this is the game of the future". I thought so, because physics and mechanics of this game are amazing. Fully destructuble environment, freedom for strategic thinking, thousands of ways to complete a mission, strong RPG element, and a very solid storyline, if you care. Unfortunately, "games of the future" turned out to be much different. Easy, with reduced gameplay, and almost linear. If you like strategies, or RPG, if you like thinking for yourself and make complex decisions: this is a game for you. Even if you don't particularly like WW2 settings (which I don't). Have fun!

This was absolutely brilliant until the 'plot twist.' Having a meticulously crafted squad bristling with historically accurate weapons was incredibly satisfying until they introduced the Panzerkliens and tossed all of my hard work out the window and transformed the game into a turn-based low-tech Mech Commander.