Hammer & Sickle - surprisngly good RPG

Coldcall

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Yes Hammer & Sickle is an RPG. After playing it with some reservations becuase of how badly panned it was with reviews, i am totally bemused by its poor ratings.

All i can say is if folks want a proper old-school RPG along the lines of Fallout 1 & 2, though not as large or polished, with some seriously hard tactical squad TB combat (as in the UFO EU, and TFTD) try this game.

I got it still sealed for £2 off an play.com trader. Its built on the Silent Storm engine but tries to be much more of an RPG, and succeeds pretty well. Its not perfect by any stretch as the localisation is pretty daft and makes the game quite cryptic.

Patch it to 1.15. Its an unoffocial patch made by the main developer and can be found at Strategy Core, under the H&S forum.

This game might not be for everybody, but if like me, you are sick of the spoon-fed idiocy of most modern RPgs. and you miss the old school danger and difficulty of older RPgs, and you like tactical combat which is very challenging then really try this game.

Some of you will really love it.
 
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Sounds interesting... Will check it out, definitely.

I enjoyed Silent Storm, though it too was far from perfect.

Thanks for the heads up!
 
Sounds interesting… Will check it out, definitely.

I enjoyed Silent Storm, though it too was far from perfect.

Thanks for the heads up!

Whats interesting is the guy who made H&S with Nival first created a mod for SS, and then i guess they decided to make it a proper stand alone game.

Whats really sad is the SS editor is hard to use which has stopped many modders using the engine, a pity because i think it could be a brilliant RPG engine for Fallout 1 & 2 style games.

Just one word of caution. Save alot because the poor localisation means very few clues as to what you are supposed to do next.

Also the first map is probably the hardest to complete and i think many gamers gave up. So its probably worth reading the walkthrough for that first map if you are getting frustrated and want to throw the game out the window :)

Im going to do a "let's play" soon for this game as i think it needs way more PR.
 
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I reviewed it here about 4 years ago, and here are some thoughts:

The game seems like a dream come true for those who loved the Fallout role-playing games and strategy games such as Silent Storm. It features branching plotlines, skill specialization based on your character type, and even significant dialogue options that only open up under certain conditions. It has tons of potential replayability and completely destructible environments that can be strategically exploited by you or your opponent. However, the technical issues outweigh any other positive aspects.

I have played bits of it since then and still agree with my 3/5 star score - potential hamstrung by technical issues. For the cheap price I'm sure you can grab it for, it is worth a shot. Don't expect *any* polish, reasonable translations or dialogue, or it too run well on moderate hardware and you'll be all set - the star of the show is the turn-based combat.

My fave SS-based RPG is still Night Watch, though.
 
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I reviewed it here about 4 years ago, and here are some thoughts:


I have played bits of it since then and still agree with my 3/5 star score - potential hamstrung by technical issues. For the cheap price I'm sure you can grab it for, it is worth a shot. Don't expect *any* polish, reasonable translations or dialogue, or it too run well on moderate hardware and you'll be all set - the star of the show is the turn-based combat.

My fave SS-based RPG is still Night Watch, though.

Well I'll try Nightwatch as it also got totally panned by critics :)

But yes i agree there are some obvious failings to H&S. However, at least the RP choices actually diverge the game as opposed to most modern RPGs where choices make little impact.

My biggest criticism would be the poor localisation, especially in the journal which has some entries that would be more appropriate for the Times cryptic crossword :)

Still i think your 3/5 is more reasonable than many of the scores given to this game. I think computer game world called it worse game of 2006, which is just ridiculous considering how much crap is released every year.

By the way, on the hardware side:

Im running a 2007 PC, duo core 2.30 ghz, 3 gigs ram, and have no problems. Im patched to 1.15 and i think this ironed out some of the more serious tech problems as ive had literally none so far.

However the install takes a really long time. Reminds me of the Total War - Mediaval install seems to take almost 45 minutes. I would suggest people to start the install and then come back in 30 minutes.
 
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I had one playthrough that lasted only about an hour because choices I made completely screwed up the world! What a cool option!

Now I need to replay ... and have no time ...
 
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I had one playthrough that lasted only about an hour because choices I made completely screwed up the world! What a cool option!

Now I need to replay … and have no time …

You've been trained to hold onto the quest compasses hand! That's too bad, because exploring the world of story development is far more amusing than climbing the ladder of generic, linear epic stories.

You didn't screw anything up, you were just phobic from being able to make choices that had consequences. Shame, shame...
 
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You've been trained to hold onto the quest compasses hand! That's too bad, because exploring the world of story development is far more amusing than climbing the ladder of generic, linear epic stories.

You didn't screw anything up, you were just phobic from being able to make choices that had consequences. Shame, shame…

Nah ... it wasn't even my first playthrough! I decided to ignore all of the advice and warnings and go for the 'kill everything' option ... which had consequences ;)
 
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Well Im nearing the end of the game but i have to admit I've needed to once in a while peek at walkthroughs so i did not do anything which ended the game early.

Even though i like this game alot i do feel a few of the paths were a little too nebulous.

For instance after stealing some important documents there is no clue whatsoever as to how to progress the plot, and i finally gave up and peeked at the walktrhough, but i am happy i did because the only way to progress at that point is to be carrying the document when entering into converstaion with a specific NPC. The only way someone who had not read the walkthrough would be able to progress would be by checking every NPC in the gameworld in trial and error.

I can understand some people dont have time for it.
 
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