Silent Storm: X-COM meets Medal of Honor/RTCW
 

Homepage: http://www.nival.com/eng/s2_info.html
English Demo Download: http://www.3dgamers.com/dl/games/sil...moeng.exe.html

Mini-review:

I've played the English demo for only a couple of days, but I have already noticed several things about this awesome game.

First, despite the pretty 3d graphics and the WW2 setting, its got classic X-COM flowing through its veins. If you are familiar with the turn-based demigod of tactical gaming, you will feel right at home with Silent Storm.

Second, it takes what X-COM built, and builds it higher, better, faster, and stronger. This does present some challenges for those of us used to the rather simple alien-hunting games. It does take a bit of getting used to the 3d camera tilting and panning, as well as to the much more complex tactical rules (ie: different body positions, using scenery as cover, etc.).

Third, you are facing Nazis this time. They are many, and will not sit quietly in their space ships waiting for you to come a knocking. They patrol, investigate noises, and are really quite dangerous.

Fourth, there are skill trees - your soldiers improve and level up over time, and you get to pick where points are spent. I doubt I'll get to make my crew of frightened newbies into a team of hardcore specialized super-soldiers, but its sure fun to try.

In conclusion, I am SO buying this game when its out (should be very soon, if not already). It has everything I've ever wanted in a game!

My ears perk up when someone mentions the holiest of holys. I'll try anything compared or related to X-Com once, no matter how many times I am burned by an inapt comparison or poor followup.(oh, X-Com:Apocalypse. I so wanted to like you...)

My only annoyance with the demo was the voices. It only occured after I uninstalled it that I could have zeroed out voice in the options menu.

But it was great. My eyes are on a game called UFO: Aftermath which isn't JA2, but Silent Storm brought back the X-Com memories, namely the anticipation of watching the enemy turn bar spin up whilst hoping the enemies did their darndest to mow down my troops.

ive been having problems with the demo at the beginning the opening menu is all messed up. i haven't messed with it yet. If its similar to Xcom I'll have to :)

whoo
 

i will check it out later :)

Damn, that game is a blast.

Anybody know if it will be as free form in terms of mission assignments as JA2 and X-Com? It would be a shame if this game was tacked to a completely linear storyline.

is now retail in europe :)

anyone played it yet ?

Oh yes. That made my day.

But have you seen the US release date? I've seen it range from January 2004 to November 2003. Whats the deal?

I want my X-COM tactical action fix and I want it NOW :D

Looks nice, downloading the demo right now.

I've been waiting for this game for a few months now, I haven't played the demo though since I'm on dialup and it's pretty damn large.
Isn't it supposed to be out Jan 2004?

I've read bad reviews about UFO Aftermath (anyone played that yet and can give a personal review?), but everything I've read about about Silent Storm seems positive.
Have to download the demo and ty it out. But expect that it'll be pushing the limit of my computer as it's quite old. But should that matter for a turn-based game?

This X-Com of which you speak, pray tell. I have never heard of this game, could someone fill me in. Much obliged.

X-Com is classic gaming royalty. Search for it on Abandonware websites. It was basically a tactical turn-based strategy game, with base management - a sort of precursor to Jagged Alliance and its ilk.

You equip your squad, board a ship, and wait for a UFO to appear on radar. Then you launch your interceptors, and take the aliens down, send your squad transport to the crash site, and the turn-based fun begins! Each soldier has a certain amount of action points in each turn, you can spend them on movement, shooting, and other stuff. Meeting face-to-face with an armed alien, just when you realize you've got no more action points left is quite a feeling....

When you are done killing or disabling all the aliens, you bring them and their artifacts back to the base. There you can research them, and other technologies, and equip your squad with even deadlier tools. Soldiers also get better with every mission they live through.

Aah X-Com... I am glad to have had the privilege of beating both X-Com games, on machines that they were made for. Good luck getting it to play nice with your too-fast CPU :)

Wow, X-COM, that brings back A Lot of good memories. What a good series that was!

Nefir,

I've tried to do a search on this topic, but couldn't find the answers that i need.

do you know if it's possible to get the original X-com running on windows 98?
I've tried installing the game on my main comp that's running XP and that didn't work of course.
My older machine has a Voodoo3 videocard and 800mhz athlon and the game isn't working on that one either.

should I maybe build a simple mini tower just for that game? If so, what parts would it require?

thanks

You can get X-Com running on XP by using VDMSound (a very nice hardware emulator for these old games) - http://ntvdm.cjb.net/ (as far as I know, its not designed to run on 98).

BUT... its still not perfect. The game is just not made for these super-fast CPUs we have today. From what I can tell, there is no software timer to control the speed, so the game will run WAY too fast, unless you have a P133 or something. There are programs to limit CPU speed, but I find that they only make things even worse (ie: lockups, etc.)...

With 98, you can try to install a DOS driver for your sound card, and boot to DOS. That should work too...

X-com rules. I had it for my playstation for a while, and beat it on there. You can get it off of Kazaa now as well. I got a fix from somewhere that made it slow to a workable level, so it's great fun.

Once you get the blaster launchers it's kinda dumb though.

Thanks, Nefir, i'll check it out.

and yea, the blaster launchers are not much fun. welll...sometimes they are :D.

I personally like the Rifles b/c they look cool and are more realistic. Also, the Autocannon with HE rounds is fun as hell.