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Silverfall (PC DVD)

Competent Diablo 2 clone, 2008-01-11
First of all, I'm giving this 4 stars but only because I can't give it 3.5 stars. Using percentages I'd rate it a 70-75% action RPG.

Secondly, when I bought it it was under seven quid and at any price under a tenner I'd recommend it to an ation RPG junkie but at full price? Not so much.

It ran great on my system (C2D E4750, 2GB, 8800GT) and I love the cel-shaded graphics. In fact the whole art direction is some of the best I've seen in a game of this type and you really get to appreciate it in a flyby of all the zones later in the game. Controls are simple and pretty intuitive, although default binding health and mana to 9 and 0 isn't the best idea.

Finding your way about the map can be tricky. Overall the map is pretty bad and you have to watch out like crazy for the mere hints of suggestions of a path that'll take you to the next zone. Miss a slightly snowier path or a darker piece of rock, suggesting a bridge, and you'll be left wandering around for ages.

You know the routine, start with nothing but a rusty spoon and kill increasingly harder enemies who drop phat loot until you're a whirling dervish of destruction. It's a quickish runthrough first time, probably around the 25-30 hour mark on normal if you do most of the side-quests.

It's hard at the start but honestly not that hard. If you're getting beaten - RUN AWAY. The real problem is balancing. I played a pure warrior (with a little healing at the start) and while I died 4 or 5 times in quick succession at the very start, once I had it sussed I didn't die again until I beat the end-boss with 5 or 6 double-whacks of my twin swords. And then it was over, but with the option to run through again at higher levels. But once you beat the game on normal there's virtually no point trying to play on difficult because it'll be too easy, you need to go to very difficult to challenge your character in the starter zones. Except by then you've seen all the zones (which aren't randomized like D2) and done all the quests.

There's a nature vs technology sub-plot running through the game but it's just fluff, in my opinion, and made no real difference to me except for the armour I got to wear or the weapons I could use. There are spells available and you could opt to play as a nature druid or technology engineer type character but I didn't really explore that end of things. The nature vs technology sub-plots have zero bearing on the main quests.

So if my rating is a little high the tone of the review may seem a little low but I actually really enjoyed myself but just not enough to want to run through it again, hence my suggestion that you buy this a cheap as possible and certainly not at full price.