This year's Titan Quest? Pretty much.
Overall, it's certainly not going to win any game of the year awards. It feels a little rushed - or perhaps just not quite as thought out as some of the big dogs in the genre. But the fun factor is there, and you can tell that the developers tried very hard to offer up a good experience with Silverfall, even if it didn't quite turn out to be the best entry the genre has seen.
Let's start out with what makes this game really good.
Firstly, the graphics are gorgeous. Typically when you see action RPGs, they're isometric with a fairly fixed screen - you usually dont get to alter the viewing angle too drastically. (Diablo is 2D, Titan Quest and Dungeon Siege offer little more than the ability to zoom in and out.) While you don't have a full range of camera options that a first person shooter would have, you certainly have a good deal of options. Zoomed out the game resembles Titan Quest, but you can zoom in and play the game more like typical MMOs like World of Warcraft - sort of over the shoulder. And when you're zoomed in close like that, the details really shine - while some of the environments can get repetitive if you've been there too long, i just love zooming in and looking at my enemies off in the distance, and checking out my character's shiny new armor, or generally cool demeanor.
And that leads me into one of the other features i liked about the game, the character customization. Action RPGs tend to do a good job of allowing you to customize your character, and Silverfall is no different. You get to choose from one of four races, gender, and have four sliders to make finer adjustments. Now there aren't hundreds of possibilities here - but there are at least a few dozen different looks possible for each race and gender combination, which isn't bad at all considering every Titan Quest character starts out looking exactly the same. Of course, the fun doesn't stop there - you still get to outfit your character as you play the game, and like other entries in the genre, basically everything you equip can be seen on your player. You have about six armor slots and three weapon slots to fill out, and a couple slots for jewelery. While all those parts don't necessarily fit well together when you mix and match armor types, it gives you a lot of possibilities to mess around with, and there are plenty of different things to equip, which gives you a truly unique feeling character, even when you're playing multiplayer.
Unfortunately, that's really the end of the stand-out portions of the game.
Now, I'll move onto the downers.
Firstly, the games storyline is abysmally dull. I won't go into any detail, but it is honestly one of the most generic plots i have ever seen. Now, this isn't a huge problem for me - i mean, i loved Diablo and it had virtually no plot - so this, in my opinion, was fairly easy to dismiss - while an engaging storyline can easily make or break a game, i feel that it really plays second fiddle to the action in action RPGs.
Secondly, the user interface is equally as uninspired. After getting used to easy to pick up and play action RPGs like the constantly referenced in this review Diablo and Titan Quest, it becomes considerably more difficult to recommend this game to a genre newbie. Personally, it only took me about 20 minutes to completely figure out the majority of the interface and in game systems, but when you consider that Titan Quest took me all of 1 minute to figure out, that makes Silverfall's interface quite entangled, jumbled, and unintuitive in comparison. Thirdly, unpatched early versions of Silverfall have some minor instability issues. Occasional crashes to the desktop have popped up, but luckily at this point most of the issues have been worked out, and the U.S. version should already include most of the patching on the retail CD.
So, would i recommend Silverfall to friends? Definitely. It isn't the easiest to learn, but once you do its a solid game. The four playable races, multitude of side quests, and gorgeous graphics really pull you into the world - even if your reminded regularly that the main quest is one of the most generic of all time. I honestly feel that the developers have a solid work on their hands, but Silverfall is certainly a title that will appeal more to action RPG fans than your every day gamer. If you're into the genre, you'll have a good deal of fun with this game. If your a more casual gamer, then keep in mind that this is not a genre defining title, it won't end up going down in history as a classic like the Diablo games and Titan Quest.