Silver

Let�s not beat around the proverbial bush, here. The moment you lay your eyes on Silver, an action/RPG from the Infogrames design team in the U.K., you�ll immediately recognize strong similarities to Squaresoft�s Final Fantasy VII: an epic story with plenty of dialogue, anime-like characters with weapons way too big for their bodies and a party-based combat system. This isn�t necessarily a bad thing, as there hasn�t been a good console-esque RPG for the PC in a while, but the game falls short in a few critical areas that tend to add up in the end.

In Silver, the player assumes the role of David, a warrior in the land of Jarrah, who must rescue his kidnapped wife from the clutches of the malevolent and powerful mage, named Silver. After murdering his own adulteress wife, Silver orders his son Fuge and other henchmen to round-up the rest of the women in the land so he can choose a new bride. OK, so it�s not too terribly original, but it gets better, as David soon realizes he�s somewhat linked to all this disturbing bedlam.

In true RPG fashion, David can swap members of his posse, each with their own unique attributes, upgrade his armor and weapons, and use magic and potions to fight or heal, respectively. Just don�t expect to be bogged down with varied stats or hundreds of non-linear side-quests as in the Might and Magic or Baldur�s Gate series.

Gameplay involves exploring the vast lands, interacting with characters, collecting objects and of course, cunning combat. Prior to the many fight sequences, however, the player must become familiar with adventure game-like icons when the mouse is placed over various objects or characters, such as �talk to�, �walk to�, �pick up�, �open�, etc. Later on in the game, you can control up to three players in the game independently, instead of them simply following David�s lead.

The mouse-based interface during melee combat works for the most part, though it�s a bit awkward since you�re character will likely be challenging many creatures at once, in real-time. Fighting begins with mastering the sword (with various moves like side-to-side slices, 180 degree backlashes and forward lunges) and also includes using arrows, throwing knives, bombs and even magic. The gamer must access the pie-shaped character menu with the right mouse button to change spells or weapons during real-time combat. Magic in the game is based on eight properties, such as Fire, Ice, Earth, Light, and so forth, each containing three levels of intensity.

Another problem with the combat is that the fixed camera perspectives often zoom out so far to envelop the gamer in the overall environment that it�s possible to lose sight of where the characters are.

Visually, Silver is a mixed bag. While the animated pre-rendered backdrops in the game are absolutely stunning, the 3D polygonal characters are blocky and noticeably inferior to the environment. While support for Direct3D-compliant video cards has been recently implemented in the North American version of this game (unlike the European version), they�re still not as impressive as its current RPG competitors, with resolutions fixed at 640 x 480.

The sound in the game is one of its biggest strengths, with crisp sound-effects, excellent voice-over acting and over two hours of killer music. In some of the cut-scene sequences, I literally looked over my shoulder to see if flames were erupting in my room or if water was gushing down the walls, due to the high audio production values (and my Creative Labs 5.1 desktop speaker set!).

Though far from perfect and not ideal for hardcore role-playing fans, Silver does make for a well-balanced combination of action, adventure and RPG elements that should satisfy many casual players looking for an entertaining role-playing game, albeit a lite one.

Pros

Cons

Bottom Line