Silver Reviewed by Alex van Kaam Silver was a game I did not really want to buy, I had a bad taste left over from Final Fantasy VII and Silver seemed to be very close to this game... but I gave in, maybe I was bored and needed a game to play... who knows Anyway let's start with the requirements: Minimum configuration Intel Pentium 166 32MB RAM 8x CD-ROM 160 MB free drive space DirectX-compatible video with (minimum) 2MB RAM DirectX-compatible sound card Windows 95 or Windows 98 Windows-compatible keyboard Windows-compatible mouse Installation was/is easy but after that I got into problems as the game would not start, reinstalling DirectX 6 did not work, but downloading the latest drivers for my video card did. The introduction movie you get to see once the game starts is by far the best I have ever seen, a pure art piece, it lasts a long time but I have watched it several times by now.....brilliant!!! This movie tells you about Silver, a Tiran who killed his wife and anybody else who gets in his way. You also learn about his only true enemy called Nemisis and how Nemisis got killed. As you start the game you find you are David, a local guy who lives in a cabin with his wife and his grandfather, but soon after you start warriors of Silver come to your town and take all the females away to Silver. You control your hero David using the mouse, you fight in real time using the keyboard and moving your mouse, it's a bit tricky at first but once you get used to it it works quite nicely. Of course there is magic in the game, in this case it's in the form of orbs you find, if you for example find the Fire Orb you can equip one of your party member with this orb and he will be able to cast fireballs. The better he gets with it the stronger they will become as each orb has 3 levels. Anyway, you get eased into controlling David step by step and this is a good thing because it can become a bit complicated. There are loads of keyboard shortcuts you should really learn to make life easier. Once you can control David you and your grandfather will go after the soldiers, it's here that you do your first fights and the fun of these is that again you have the time to learn to control David as the fights are easy and your grandfather can't really be killed so you have nothing to worry about. As the game proceeds you will come to meet new people and places. Some will join you others will have info or items for you. Once you are a member of the rebellion you will get a map, using this makes it very easy to instantly go to places you already visited, this way you don't have to travel through the same areas again and again. The story unfolds very nicely and makes sense. Your main goal is to collect 8 orbs, (or was it 9 ?? ), each orb will lead you to the next, either via a clue or via a key you find near it that will open a gate or door that was closed previously. You save at set points, which is really a good idea otherwise the game would be too easy, it can also be a bit frustrating since you might have to do several areas a few times. But all in all it is the best way for this kind of game. There is only one 'but'... it took me about 45 minutes to kill Silver, after this there was no save point and I got transported directly to Silver's Master and of course I got killed in no time ... this was very very frustrating as I had to kill Silver several times before I found the best tactic to destroy his master ... a shame. The graphics of the game are superb, almost each scene/area is a small masterpiece and a lot of time and effort went into each of them. Controlling as I said can be hard but you get eased into it very nicely. You can control David but you can also control each of your party member separately if needed. In most combats I selected all 3 party members and linked them together so they would all attack the same target, if you don't link them you'll find that while you're fighting for your life the other 2 might just be standing around doing nothing. Sound again is of a very very high standard, the background music is perfect and the character voices are really well done. They sound correct and fit with the characters. The story is also well thought out, not as complex as FF7 but still very good. I only found 3 bad points: 1- no save after Silver 2- crashing, I played the game for hours with no crash and then suddenly I reached an area and it crashed every single time, the only solution I found was reinstalling over your previous install, this would not affect the save games but did fix the crashes. I then could play for another long time (a few days sometimes) and then the crashing started again... this might be related to my PC or not... just happened. 3- in big fights it's hard to control your party members, but then come to think of it, if they would fight better the game would probably become too easy So all in all it's a good game, visually, sound wise and story wise it's very good. Control wise it could be better but it's manageable. So if you enjoyed FF7 then you will like this, if you did not enjoy FF7 then you might still like this but maybe better to check it out first. - o -