Silverfall: Earth Awakening obtained 15/20 at Jeuxvideo.com review

This article was written by Mr.Pixelpirate on Jeuxvideo french gamer site, published on the 21st of February 2008. Ive translated it by the great help of Altavista's babelfish service. Thank you for reading! Ed

The add on is a current currency in the small world of hack' N slash; they make possible to prolong the pleasure while bringing additional contents. In the case of Silverfall, it is a little bit different: the title of French Monte Cristo had divided crowd at its release, because of its lack of completion. The developers were to thus rectify the mischief several patches and the most recently in this very awaited extension. Successful bet: in addition to a new campaign and improved contents, Silverfall: Earth Awakening offers an experiment of renewed game.

The developers decided that the best way of giving a second chance to Silverfall was to make its extension playable without the original: Earth Awakening thus takes the shape of a stand alone, which with a selling price of 30 euros remains completely reasonable, even if the game does not include the origin campaign. If you already played Silverfall, you can import your hero (attributes and equipment) to launch you in the new environment. If you are a newcomer, you begin the adventure with a character from level 45, for which you must select a profile (berserker, assassin, magus of the shade...). Really it is not a question of a "class", since the game has the merit to let to you develop your character freely, but which are rather like evolution-type of characters, accompanied by the adapted basic equipment. You can also, of course, distribute yourself your competences by choosing the option "specialization free". It is necessary for you also to choose a race among 6 race: Human, Elves, Trolls and Goblins were already present in Silverfall, and from now on two new come. The Dwarves, squat and lucky, who have the possibility of escaping from the critical blows and of improving the effectiveness of their companions; and the Lizardmen, nimble and cheating, which can increase their size to increase their power. Lastly, the game will ask you to choose one of two well-known alignments of the players of the first settings: the way of nature or that of technology.

Silverfall indeed dissociates traditional universes of heroïc-fantasy by locating its history in a context steampunk. Drawing its inspiration as well part of Arcanum as of Thief: The Dark Project, the background offers to the player a world in prey with the conflict between the respect of nature and technological temptation. According to your inclination, the city of Sillverfall on which you reign from now on has paces of industrial megalopolis or harbour of nature. But the recently acquired peace remains precarious and destabilized permanently by the new conflicts which emergent around the capital. From the very start of Earth Awakening, you have challenges to make to preserve this fragile balance, calming the heats of the ones, thwarting the machinations of the others. It is in these circumstances when appear on the premises a much larger threat, orchestrated by the Lord High Admiral Von Skromel, chief of NécroRaiders. The adventure will lead you jungle of the cannibals, wet and choking, until splendours of the air city of Etherea. The new setting, very fascinating, ensures many hours of play, without forgetting the possibility of carrying out many secondary quests.

In spite of its many aspects of a role playing game, Silverfall remains a hack' N slash pure and hard. With each experience level, you distribute the points of characteristics obtained and choose new skills (or improve those you have already). You have a total freedom in the development of your character, whom you can multi-class to vary the pleasures and to multiply the approaches. On a purely personal basis, I like much my berserker dwarf follower of the black magic: he starts by launching curses of weakening, then shifts to his victims on the ground to strike them frantically. The possibilities are quasi-infinite considering Earth Awakening proposes 156 skills, including 20 high level ones. You also preserve the possibility of recruiting mercenaries, who give you an essential support at the time of the well deserved monster bashing. It's a pity that this extension grants you no additional control on their development (apart from the choice of their equipment), and it is also difficult to precisely manage their behavior in combat: the artificial intelligence hardly evolved/moved.

On the other hand, one cannot to be not allured by the considerable improvement of the playability brought by this extension. The developers knew to benefit from the many comments of players on the forums, which mentioned the problems of camera and the imperfect interface. All was thus reconsidered, for a really convincing result which draws the quintessence of praticity and intuitivity. The menu icons are gathered in a retractable panel, the various windows are mobile, the short cuts are more and thought better, and the camera is from now on entirely skeletal. The inventory and the skill windows were also re-worked again. For the remainder, one also can easily assigns primary and secondary skills to the right and left buttons of the mouse. In short, the comfort of play is total. You have even the possibility of controlling your character using the directional keys, with the manner of an FPS. It is regretted however that this last option causes sometimes a bug of rather awkward displacement (the character hops on the spot).

Another innovation, claimed by the fans and included in Earth Awakening: the system of craft industry. You have from now on access to skills which enable you to manufacture your own weapons and armours, like enchanting them to confer various bonuses. The necessary materials you will regularly find (and in sufficient quantity) on the corpse of the monsters, although the rarest must be obtained from PNJs specialist NPCs able to transform certain basic raw materials basic into more refined versions. After several uses, the kraft proves at the same time simple and handy, but one remains wishing for stronger craft items: the objects created have the bad habit to turn out to be equal in power to those which you find in the game. As for the enchantments, they are often way too expensive compared to a random, well muscled up magic items of the category "elite" or "ultimate" result. On another side, Monte Cristo thought of those which would not wish to see this system interfering with their traditional gameplay: a part of the inventory is especially dedicated to the crafting materials, without influencing the remainder of your back bag.

Technically, Silverfall: Earth Awakening moved only little. The graphic style is as always particular: one likes or one does not like, but it is difficult to deny that the concealment shading confers a true personality on the bestiary of the game, very original and rather packed. The light graphic face lift is noticed especially at the time of the combat, which profit from effects of improved particles providing a true visual treat. On the other hand, that harms the legibility of the action somewhat: sometimes one finds oneself to seek his target among this pyrotechnical festival, when it is not straightforwardly the pointer of the mouse which one lost! You will in addition need a good machine to be able to benefit fully from the game. Last reproach, which one would have liked not to have to formulate: in spite of a completion much better than its elder at its release, Earth Awakening is not stripped of bugs. Problems of collision, companions who occasionally do not react any more, impossible quests to finish or which reappear once finished: the list is, alas, not insignificant, even if inevitable updates probably come to rectify the game in the weeks to come.

It remains to be mentioned that Earth Awakening has an multiplayer option in co-operative mode or PvP, that we could not test on this date, for lack of players. And if you still hesitate to acquire of this hack' N slash well sympathetic sequel, there is no doubt that you will be sensitive to this last argument: become lord of Silverfall, your character does not need more to subscribe a life insurance to ensure himself of the respawns downtown. You will thus avoid the memorable races in slipway to your tomb, continued by an army of NecroRaiders!

Thank you for reading, Ed