Silverfall - Review @ IGN

[txa1265]

1Up has posted a scathing review (http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3158256) of Silverfall, with a score of 3/10 and an assessment of 'Bad'. Here is a quote: Half the time, the game stops working altogether. Critical buttons disappear from the interface bar and take a reload to fix, items inexplicably vanish from your inventory, clicking on inaccessible areas makes you bolt in the opposite direction, and -- not a bug, but annoying -- vegetation occasionally "blocks" your hits so you'll waste several precious clicks hitting nothing (and, joy of joys, dying). Diablo clone? Don't flatter it. The review is from Matt Peckham, who gained infamy from the NWN2 review editorial imbroglio last fall.More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=4448)

[txa1265]

That was a pretty crappy review, and I wonder how much of the game Matt played. Half the stuff he mentions didn't happen to me in the *preview* build of the game, let alone the retail copy! Previously he would discuss stuff on Qt3 but since the NWN2 thing he is gone from there.

The vegetation thing is there as he mentions, but it is something you learn in the first 30 minutes! When you get close to a tree it 'disappears' but can still block some actions. C'mon, you switch weapons / spells, which is simple enough and you move on.

[Dhruin]

I'm not very far in, but I'm rather enjoying Silverfall. It's a bit rough in a few places and the story is never as innovative as they claim, but somehow it's rather addictive.

Perhaps I should just invert Peckham's scores and rush out post-haste to buy whatever he pans.

[karka]

IGN or 1up?

[txa1265]

IGN or 1up?

1Up - thanks for noticing!

Dhruin, I've put in enough hours on the preview and retail versions that my enthusiasm has waned considerably, but this is not a 3/10 game by any reasonable measure I can come up with ... and I have submitted 5 reviews with 4/10 or below scores in the past month, so I know that territory pretty well!

[cutterjohn]

Personally, I just think that this guy does NOT like RPGs, and should NOT ever be assigned/allowed to review them. His original NWN2 review that appeared there was just as poorly "researched" and "written", and IIRC a slightly modified version of that review showed up on another site with a similarly low overall score. IIRC it was a scifi site review.

All of the above said, from anecdotal evidence it would appear(to me) that Silverfall has a mildly interesting "skill" system, but isn't that great of a game overall, so I'll be waiting for bargain binning personally... yet it also sounds like it merit much more than a 3/10.

[Gorath]

Maybe we should give Peckham´s reviews less coverage. Reporting them yes, but what about leaving out the quote?

[Gorath]

All of the above said, from anecdotal evidence it would appear(to me) that Silverfall has a mildly interesting "skill" system, but isn't that great of a game overall, so I'll be waiting for bargain binning personally... yet it also sounds like it merit much more than a 3/10.

Silverfall has been released in Germany and France some time ago. Reviews here tend to classify it as a solid Diablo clone in pretty good technical condition. Some details are nice, others problematic, but overall it seems to be a game which can be played without blowing up your PC or puking over your keyboard. So maybe it should be a 6-8 / 10, depending on the reviewer´s impression. 3/10 sounds far off.

[crpgnut]

Well, I've spent over 50 hours in Silverfall, and it's a mediocre game. It's a game that had GREAT potential, but the devs didn't polish up enough to realize it. The skill system is the primary draw. It's a blast to mix and match skills and it's quite simple to switch focus anytime you want.
Outside of skills though, the rest of the game feels tacked on. There are huge maps that are empty of anything but clusters of 3-4 monsters. The monsters are spread so that if you clear all of them, the map will be revealed in its entirety. Unfortunately, they forgot to put anything in the maps to make this clearing relevant. If they would have done a Might and Magic trick and had chests of varying LOOTNESS, that would have gone a LONG way to removing the tedium of cartography. If I was guaranteed to find a chest with an Orange or Red treasure, I'd clear every map for sure. I'll never forget finding Black Chests in Might and Magic :)

The quests are all forgettable. The companions don't have enough dialogue to matter. They're just a quicker way to clear maps. For most folks, you could just keep the first two you find and ignore the rest. The writing for the main quest is
atrocious. You're supposed to care about the son/daughter of the Archmage but
they didn't bother to write the backstory for it.

The final problem is bugginess. While I personally didn't run into any major bugs. The various Silverfall forums (Atari, Deepsilver, Gamespot, etc) are full of folks who can't get the game to run at all. When you read a forum and 90% of the posts on the front page are about bugs, the game has issues.

All the negatives aside, I've played the game for 50 hours. They must have done something right. I enjoy running around bashing stuff in a variety of ways. The graphics for monsters are really good and so are the spell effects. I just got Shivering Isles, so my time with Silverfall is probably over, but I can say I got good value overall for the product.

[txa1265]

The whole camera / control / compass / map system is a mess, but the degree to which that bugs you impacts how you think of the game. It can be frustrating for me at times, generally when I switch to a game with a better system (namely: any) - but within a few minutes I'm 'back in the saddle'.

[bjon045]

I would give silverfall about 2/10. The gameplay felt like a MMORPG and the translation errors were appalling.

Although in my system a 5 is actually an average game and a 7 is a good one.....

[txa1265]

Although in my system a 5 is actually an average game and a 7 is a good one.....

That is theoretically the scale that 1Up / GfW Mag is trying to use - but it is so spotty to be worse than useless!

[Sir Markus]

Anyone who knows anything about computer gaming, knows that's an incredibly unfair review. I have some major issues with that game, but overall I thought it's nicely done. 7.5 out of 10 in my book.

[bjon045]

Anyone who knows anything about computer gaming, knows that's an incredibly unfair review. I have some major issues with that game, but overall I thought it's nicely done. 7.5 out of 10 in my book.

Unfair review certainly, in fact I think it can hardly even be called a review more like a 4 paragraph rant from what sounds like a disgruntled employee.

I generally agree with the score ultimately given though, and it seems to have an average user rating of 3.5 so far.

[txa1265]

it seems to have an average user rating of 3.5 so far.
It has that view at 1Up - go to MetaCritic and you see an average Pro review of ~6/10 and 7/10 user review. GameRankings has the same pro reviewer score with ~6.5/10 for user reviews.

[cutterjohn]

several points to add to my original posting:
1 - yes I am/was completely aware that it is an A"RPG" or IOW a Diablo clone, ph4t l007

2 - Haven't bothered to try the demo because of 1, but just from looking at other's comments, the 6.5 - 7.5ish/10 sound about right if you like (1).

3 - I really don't care much for (1) although they can be fun for brief periods of SP play, and so I will wait for bargain binning

4 - Why does 1Up even pretend to be anything remotely worthy of publishing? Or if they mean it why haven't they canned the "editors" or at least the "managing" "editor" yet?

[Dhruin]

Silverfall aside, I find 1Up's layout impenetrable. Worst major site on the 'net by a country mile.

[Gorath]

I´m not sure why they´re considered a "major site". Their layout sucks and their articles aren´t better. I can´t remember a single article on 1up I found worth reading.

[txa1265]

I´m not sure why they´re considered a "major site". Their layout sucks and their articles aren´t better. I can´t remember a single article on 1up I found worth reading.

Because they are part of the 1Up network - check out their front page : "
1UP NETWORK: 1UP | EGM | OPM | GFW | Filefront | GameVideos | MyCheats | GameTab"

So the site might be as Dhruin describes (I agree!), but they are the central face of some of the hottest sellig games magazines, all of whom send people back to the site.

[openedge1]

1Up - thanks for noticing!

Dhruin, I've put in enough hours on the preview and retail versions that my enthusiasm has waned considerably, but this is not a 3/10 game by any reasonable measure I can come up with ... and I have submitted 5 reviews with 4/10 or below scores in the past month, so I know that territory pretty well!

I enjoy your reviews TXA...I still remember the Mage Knight fiasco of a game. You were willing to give it a chance. For me, I complained on their forums so much, they kicked me off...that is how bad that game is..(2 patches, and then they all left to never support the game again)
Luckily, Silverfall is slightly better...but not too much...too many issues with death, visuals..(cant find the mouse pointer half the time..lol) bad text..
But, I just think this reviewer has an RPG hate going down in my opinion..

[Lucky Day]

I've enjoyed the game so far. A little tricky with the camera and the map but itspretty good.

I've stopped playing it for now because the game crashed while I was saving. It left me a level 8 character with no skills and the one cheat code out there (for me to try and fix it) was a god mode that no longer works.

There is only one save option. To have multiple saves I believe you'd need multiple characters. I have to agree that I have no interest in the main plot (yet). Restarting the game requires you to wait out hte annoying cinematics and playing the opening character rather than getting to the actual game. At least the demo could start you in the game itself.

[Danicek]

Very bad review. Seems to be based (probably) on the bad luck the reviewer had. However he should check if that means people are really having this type of issuse. Really bad...