Thursday, May 22, 2008

Tech & U: Silverfall: Earth Awakening


Original:

There are several reasons why I hate MMORPGs but I'll rant about that in another article. So to say I was not too happy when I realised that my latest game review was one of those instead of a trational RPG was an understatement.

So the Silverfall: Earth Awakening follows on from the original one in terms of story. The side which you chose to fight on you have become ruler of. In my case the character I created was with the technology faction and not the nature one so I started the game at level 45 and the ruler of the city.

That's it, no back more back story. So you have to wonder around the your city until you reach the centre of it to get your first mission. Which is 'some bunch of people are killing another bunch of people' over god knows what issues.

Which you meet your first interesting character for the first mission and the possibility of hope that the rest of the game might get interesting.

Then your off chopping, frying and ventilating enemies as you push forward to stop the great Goblin threat which happens to be an exoskeleton with flamers on it.

So the game features a lot of customisations for your character in terms of items and skills but not really that much for your character's appearance. Which is sad but I guess the logic behind that is since you gonna cover them in all sorts of armour, earrings, etc you really can't see their faces that much.

Items for the game, which there are tons of, has many variables to them that actually lets you cover up certain weakness of your character or in some cases if you keep a bunch of them help exploit certain enemy strengths. For instance the Goblin threat mission you will encounter a lot of enemies that seem to love to use flamers. So donning on armour, boots, gloves and what-nots with fire resistance improves you chances of surviving.

Ok, that being said, there are too many items dropped by the enemies in the game which should not be problem but I have yet found a container or place that I can store my stuff should I want to save it for something. Instead, it's either drop or sell excess items.

And thing about items is that you can create armour and weapons. But you can't combine them with each other or the items that you find.

The game graphics vary very good to average. You got level designs that are plain average and boring, great texture and model designs for objects and character. The saving grace for the graphics has to be really the great character designs. Zoom in and be awed at the details. Although, the black out does give it a be cartoony feel.

The voice acting thankfully is professionally done. And you notice some actors give better more in character performances than others that gives you the feeling that things could get better game-wise.

But overall, I am not impressed with this game. The combat encounters are many and long and have no meaning other than to pick up magical items or cash. There is little back story so you feel connected to any of the characters or the world. All, I can say it is a MMORPG game and if you like those things which I don't you may like Silverfall. Another thing, I tried to play online but only found 4 to 5 servers. Of those servers usually all are locked except for 1 or 2 and then even with those I couldn't seem to connect even though my ping was 155. Not to mention that was only a grand total of no more than 10 players online at any one time.

Title: Silverfall: Earth Awakening
Publisher: MonteCristo
Developer: MonteCristo
Availability: New Era Interactive Software Sdn Bhd
Suite 27-02B, 27th Floor Menara Keck Seng
203 Jalan Bukit Bintang
55100 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: (603) 2143 1332 Fax: (603) 2143 1330
Email: junking.my@neweraint.com
Website: http://www.neweraonline.com
RM109.90

Package: 1 Manual, Game DVD.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
Windows XP with Service Pack 2 or better or Vista 32bit
Athlon XP / 64 3000+ or Pentium IV 2 GHz or better
512 MB RAM
DirectX 9.0c compatible video card with at least 128 MB
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
11 GB free hard drive space
2x DVD ROM

Our Verdict: 2 1/2
Documentation: 4
Graphics: 4
Sound: 3
Replay Value: 1

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