In August 2023, Operation Silent Storm will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Despite its age, it is in many ways superior to modern tactical games! This is one of those projects that allowed us to look at the genre from a different angle, surprising with its innovation, and therefore deserves to be remembered! I really want this game to get a remake, but only the collective cry of the fans can be heard by the developers…

My acquaintance with tactical role-playing games began with such projects as Final Fantasy Tactics and Jagged Alliance 2 (I plan to do a separate review about the latter). However, after turning on Operation Silent Storm, I was quite surprised at how different it played.

What started it all

Somehow an article I saw in one of the gaming magazines not only aroused interest in “Operation”, but literally ignited in me the desire to find it! But here’s the problem: at that time I was still a schoolboy, so I didn’t have much money to buy games, and Silent Storm was nowhere to be found in my city. So I just regularly went to all the stores, hoping that somehow they would bring it and I would somehow manage to buy it!

But time passed, and this moment never came. Until one fine day, almost resigned and having lost all hope, I saw “Operation Silent Storm: Guardians” on the counter. A little surprised by the inscription “Watches” (at that time I had not heard anything about them), I asked my parents for money for a treasured box and happily ran to play my old dream. As it turned out, this was a new game in the series, but what I saw didn’t impress me at all. Yes, I perfectly understand that the second part is a good continuation. A lot of people like her and she has high ratings, but I didn’t get in for many reasons.

After this disappointment, I calmed down and forgot about the game for about a year, until I saw the same, the first part in one of the stores in my city. As I said, at that time I was still a schoolboy, and there was almost always no money for games, so I had to do something pretty ugly. My friend’s birthday was coming up and I convinced my parents that this would be a great gift for him. I decided to keep quiet about the fact that my friend doesn’t play games much, and he didn’t like it too much in the store.

Many years have passed, and I am still deeply ashamed of this act, and I have never told anyone about it. A kind of confession came out.

Who

The creators of the game – the Nival company – are known to a wide range of gamers, which caught the industry at the turn of the century, when the company was one of the most iconic for CIS game developers. After all, these guys are the authors of such cool games as “Allody: Print of Secrets” and “Allody: Lord of Souls”; “Cursed lands”; “Demiurges” 1 and 2; “Blitzkrieg” 1, 2 and 3; “Operation Silent Storm” and its sequels, such as “Hammer and Sickle”; “Night’s Watch” and, of course, “Heroes of Sword and Magic 5”. We should not forget about the World of Warcraft killer (as it was called then) – Allody Online.

Almost every oldfag has a Nival studio game that he remembers with warmth in his heart!

Plot

First, we are offered to choose which side to play for – for the Allied countries (USSR, America, Britain, etc.) or for the Axis countries (Germany, Italy, Japan). This choice will not affect the plot, but the missions and their order will be slightly modified. For example, playing as allies, your task is to protect someone. Located in a small village with a detachment of British troops, you need to survive the onslaught of a powerful enemy detachment. While completing the same mission for the Axis, you must capture this person by taking part in the assault on this settlement.

The events of the game take place in 1943 at the height of the war, where your brave squad performs secret reconnaissance and sabotage missions. Since the Second World War is in the yard, your main opponent will be the opposing block of countries. Eventually, he will be joined by a mysterious terrorist organization called Thor’s Hammer, which threatens the world’s balance of power. Your squad will have to find out about the new enemy and his plans, unraveling a tangle of intrigue and betrayal one by one, interrogating “languages”, seizing secret documents and gradually getting closer to the truth.

The plot does not shine with uniqueness, and it opens not in the format of beautiful videos, but in the form of scenes on the game engine, through dialogues, or through found documents. But despite this, it can boast of a certain non-linearity, even if it does not fundamentally change anything. For example, by not completing an additional goal in the mission, you will not learn some small piece of history that would lead to an additional task.

I like that each new game is unique, because the developers have invented many missions, each of which is included randomly. They may have the same circumstantial evidence, which is a connecting link for further assignments.

Gameplay

Operation Silent Storm is a tactical role-playing game set in World War II.

As in any tactical game, it is necessary to create a combat unit, preferably maintaining a balance by classes. In hindsight, choosing 5 medics is not a good idea. But personally, I often played without a team at all, and in solo – a lone sniper who imperceptibly eliminates enemies (I repent, I often had to use Save/Load =)).

You will see a map of Europe divided into regions. After choosing a certain zone, the player will get to the regional map, traveling through which he will be able to find “random battles” (where you can get not only loot and experience, but also unique samples of weapons that cannot be found in other ways), as well as story tasks.

Once on a mission or into a random battle, the squad travels in real time. As soon as the combat phase begins, the characters begin to move and attack strictly in turn, depending on their skill scores and characteristics. Each soldier has Action Points (AP) that they spend on each activity in combat, whether it’s moving, shooting, or using items. Thanks to the correct pumping, you can reduce the consumption of AP (for example, by investing in glasses to be able to look around without spending AP) and increase their total number.

The game has a lot of different weapons: from pistols to machine guns, from knives to grenade launchers. In order not to spoil it, I will only say that near the end of the game you will be given something very destructive and unusual. It cannot be said that depending on the equipped weapon, different shooting modes are available. Using submachine guns or submachine guns, you can fire singles, bursts, or fire the entire clip. And for rifles, one of the shooting modes is a sniper shot, thanks to which the more AR is spent on aiming, the higher the final accuracy will be.

A fairly significant factor is the ability to shoot at specific parts of the body (this is very useful for snipers who take critical headshots). Also, in certain situations, shooting by ear would be a good choice. For example, being in a building, you hear someone’s steps on the floor above – the best solution would be to put a line in the ceiling – maybe you will get there. Well, or you shoot so much that part of the ceiling will simply fall, and you can throw a grenade there for reliability. After that, you can jump to this floor without climbing the stairs, and continue the battle there.

With total destructiveness, you have a huge number of tactical options! All calculations of destruction, as well as tracing the flight of the bullet (taking into account penetrating materials) take place in real time. So the bullet can ricochet off the concrete floor and, breaking through the nearby door, injure the “lucky guy” standing behind it. And what cool animations of deaths were at that time! The murdered will hang on the railings, plunge headlong down the stairs, fall from the balconies and freeze in the most unusual poses.

Role system

When starting the game, you can choose both a ready-made soldier and create your own in the character editor. Indicate for which block of countries you want to act, give a name and call sign, choose one of six classes (recon, sniper, grenadier, soldier, medic, engineer) and allocate characteristics depending on your preferences (strength, agility, intelligence). Next, you can adjust your appearance and voice, and then go into battle! Almost immediately following the plot, you will be able to recruit other soldiers into the squad.

The role-playing system of the game is a mixture of Diablo 2 with its skills and The Elder Scrolls with the gradual leveling of skills as they are used. By completing tasks or encountering random encounters, your wards gain experience, which helps them level up. This allows you to put one point into a sprawling and unique skill tree for each class. Each class has its favorite skills that grow at an increased rate. I think it will be obvious to everyone that a scout’s stealth skill will improve much faster than an engineering skill, and a medic’s medicine will improve faster than shooting.

Sound accompaniment

The music is created only to sound good in the background and not bore you with what it does. The main melody is really pleasant and suitable for the mood, but I remembered the voices of the characters much more. I still remember many phrases, after a little less than two dozen years! They always seemed very successful and appropriate, contributing their part to the atmosphere of the game.

What to play for?

Interesting, well-voiced characters, good physics and phenomenal destructibility of everything on location – all this is surprising even now, and in 2003, seeing this was a real headache. Variations of combat capabilities are simply amazing.

This is a nice lamp tactic that will definitely captivate you with its gameplay!

Cons

• Sometimes the game slows down with complex engine miscalculations. For example, when there is a large explosion that wears out the floor of a building, the game can think about it while digesting the changes.

• The movement phase of allies and enemies is delayed.

StarForce

I can’t help but say a few words about StarForce (game protection system against copying), which at one time was terribly hated by players, much like Denuvo is now. It was often buggy and did not launch the game, despite the inserted license disk. Patches were released for it to fix flaws, but the essence remained – it only annoyed the majority of players, preventing them from playing their favorite product. Using the example of Silent Storm, I can say that I, as the owner of the license, could not run my honestly purchased game for a dozen years simply because StarForce was outdated and did not work on the current Windows at that time. Therefore, in order to play, I had to download crack to bypass the protection.

Running on modern systems

At first, the game wouldn’t start, but after installing Windows 98 compatibility mode, everything went fine. Silent Storm works well, although without support for widescreen screens, due to which black bars appear on the sides. But a small fix helps to cope with this. It’s true, personally, after it, the fonts ran a little, but I think this is not a problem.

For those who want to try this great game, in my Telegram channel I have posted a game with a fix for widescreen monitors and instructions for setting it up.

Result

Silent Storm is the same Jagged Alliance 2, but more beautiful, more modern, brighter, with a more interesting role system. However, “Operation” feels completely different. Probably because they are similar only in idea and not in essence.

The key difference between Silent Storm and other similar games for me is the variability of the mission. Well, if you don’t want to go through the door, hit the wall with a bazooka and go through the opening. This mechanic was also present in JA2, but there it was not so ubiquitous and everyday. All this, in combination with good graphics and the ability to pump characters, good voice acting and an interesting plot makes this game worthy of your attention! Eh, now it would be a remake, but in modern graphics…

I’ve been playing games for over 25 years, and I remember them as just that: soulful and addictive, with engaging mechanics and interactivity, no in-game currency, and no attempt to be anything but a game. In my Telegram channel, you will find not only reviews of games, but also current news, as well as thoughts about game developers. Subscribe, it will be interesting!