I've had this game just sitting around for over 12 years. Finally i actually played it! For some reason I just had forgotten all about it... and this is a true shame because this is a pretty amazing turn based game. But does have a few things that really hold it back from being a true classic.
Ok i'm gonna throw out some things i really hate about this game. Late in the game you end up having to fight these god awful mechsuits, they are almost impossible to kill unless you also have a mech suit. The expansion of Silent Storm gave you a slightly better chance in dealing damage to them with standard weapons but even with that this was game breaking for me. When the mech suits show up the game takes a painful downturn and just isn't fun from that point forward. It's actually game breaking, my admiration and excitement for this game quickly turned to frustration and a bit of angry after things took this turn. It's a weird turn for the game to take and i rather have had just regular combat encounters without this cheap crap. I just can't imagine why they would ruin a great game up to this point, i keep trying to think about why they did it but i just can't understand it.
Also, compared to Jagged Alliance 2, the map size for each encounter is extremely small. Some were so small they made it almost impossible to move the camera around. Another thing, the team members you pick have a lot less personality then Jagged Alliance mercs, also there are very few to pick from compared to JA2. Another thing Jagged Alliance 2 does better is the fluid nature of the map in JA2... Silent Storm unfortunately you just go from mission to mission and you don't actually take over sectors in JA2, so there isn't as much fun in the way the game plays out because its very story and mission driven. Also... you can't go back into an area you did already to loot more items you forgot, once you leave an area, that is it. And whats worse, if you are able to re-enter an area, all the enemy bodies just disappear... umm why?
Theres a fair bit of little glitches also, sometimes it would take me several tries to select the squad members i wanted, also sometimes my guys would run or do an action when i wasn't wanting them to. The camera is good, but also sometimes really bad in some cases, luckily you can edit a config file and improve the camera zoom and angles... but problems still happen. Also there was one level i had to redo because a pathway to the exit was blown up, but this was a really rare odd mistake and for the most part you can get around most of the broken floors you may cause.
Theres two so called campaigns, but actually the only one you should play is the Axis one. The allies one is virtually the same but lacking a lot of missions the axis one has. Im not sure why its even in the game because if you played only the allies campaign, you would be very disappointed in the length of the game and theres some good missions missing also. Bascially don't play the allies campaign, its a mirror of the german one but lacking a lot of missions. (before they got shitty with the mech crap)
I can't believe how great the combat is here. Almost every object and building, trees and anything can be destroyed, even with regular weapons. If you have enough bullets you can take down an entire building, wall by wall. You can use this to pull off some interesting tactics... why bother even going in a building... just toss on your machine guns and blast down the building wall by wall. Not only that, your bullets can penetrate walls after you shoot them enough, so you can kill enemies even inside a building if your using a powerful enough gun. It works really well, you can select your entire squad and have them fire at the press of a button all at once, making taking down a building pretty easy work. Also i remember doing same things that the mercs in Predator did in this game. Sometimes the enemy would hide out in the bush, and i'd just line all my guys up and machine gun down every bit of cover until there wasnt anything left. I can't even describe how fun this is being able to completely change the battle dynamic with the amazing physics and destructable environments here. Most games have static cover and layout, this games combat changes each move you make.
There's also a lot of inventory space in this game so you can go into battle heavily armed and ready to have a lot of fun by blasting stuff apart. Its not like JA2 where you have limited inventory space and every bullet you have to use wisely. This game gives you tons of resources and can experiment and have as much fun as you want... also if your team members get hurt, you can heal them up easily, and they usually don't die to quickly. You can restock ammo for certain guns at the end of each mission, some guns don't have auto resupply of ammo so it makes them fairly useless to use since you will be hunting for ammo constantly. But there is some things lacking here, there is no armor to use on your characters (there is in expansion though).
And the way your characters gain skills is amazing also, every action you take will improve your characters, even if your just walking around your characters are improving. Every shot will increase their skill real time... a huge improvement over JA2 which had very limited skill gains.
Graphically this game is good for the date it was made. And its destructable environments are insane. I can't think of many games with this kind of destruction. Another thing about the graphics which is impressive... is the fact every single bullet hole is remembered. I've not seen this in many games. Its very gratifying to see your carnage after a huge battle, buildings half destroyed, every bullet hole telling a story of what happened.
This reviews getting long and i'm rambling on, but i also have to mention the physics. They just don't compare to anything i've seen and add extra thrill to every action in the game. Even if you simply drop some ammo, that ammo clip will roll around on the ground in a certain way. Every item is its own graphic and you can see it, its not just an icon, it'll move around if you drop it on a hill. Just so much attention to detail you just don't see in any game. Sometimes you shoot an enemy and they'll go flying down stairs, or through a window, or down a hill or into another enemy, its just unlimited to what could happen or what you will see during combat.
If you look at a much newer games like the laughable JA2 remake "Jagged Alliance Back in Action", that game is a joke compared to Silent storm. If you shoot a wall, the bullet damage disappears afer 2 seconds, also you can't even destroy buildings or even damage them. The physics in JA:BiA is pure garbage and non existant also, Silent Storm is light years ahead of this. I'll have to write a hate filled review of JA:BiA, the game is a fail on every level compared to Silent Storm... the fact Silent Storm can blow away a game over 12 years newer shows how amazing it really is. Everything that is impressive in Silent Storm is just lacking in other newer games. Its too bad there are a few really game breaking things in Silent Storm that ruin the overall experience for me. The garbage mech suits they put in the game at the end just ruin the combat after that, also there is a timed mission that is broken also... but up to that point the game is crazy fun.
This is a superior game engine to JA2, there is no doubt about it. Its destructable environments, its graphics etc. If you were to remake JA2 with this game engine you would have something amazing here. Its frustrating to see how bad Jagged Alliance Back in Action was. Silent Storm is a rare game and there just aren't many like it. I don't think its better then JA2 though, JA2 is just filled with so much more personality. I'm really glad I finally played this game. I'm not sure if we will ever get a turn based tactical game like this again any time soon.
So i'm not sure what else to add. Maybe one other negative thing is both this game and the expansion has a crappy "boss" battle at the end. That also ruined the game for me.... i really didn't like the extreme difficulty of this and the odd place it had in a ww2 game.
I guess for anyone thinking of playing this game, you will probably have a blast playing the Axis campaign for about 3/4 of the game, but after that the funs kinda over unfortunately. I'll mention yet again the cheapness and lack of fun the mech suit junk adds to this game. Its like they added because if they hadn't, they may have made a perfect game, and the universe as we know it may have imploded.