It is becoming increasingly rare to see something in a game that hasn't been done before. Sure, there are some new graphic effects every six months but as far as gameplay goes, things are becoming a bit stale. It seems as if everything that can be done, has been done. Silver is something new, not revolutionary but new. Silver combines RPG with elements from both the action and adventure genres. The outcome is quite pleasing.

The graphics in Silver consist of 3d characters displayed on a rendered background. The characters are colorful and well rendered but have very little texture mapping. The graphics run very smoothly even though they are not 3d accelerated. The backgrounds are absolutely beautiful, each is well rendered and crisp. During conversations, thumbnail portraits appear with each character?s dialog. Each portrait represents the attitude of the character and all of them are drawn quite well. The game also has several nice little details such as moving water and background animations. Fountains and fires are rendered in an unrealistic style but they still feel like they fit into the game. Another great detail is that as you change your character?s weapons, the graphics also change to reflect what he/she is now carrying. What I really found to be amazing was how smoothly the background pans when you scroll around the scene. On my PII 266 it rarely jerked or skipped. Overall, I really like the graphics and the fantasy feel they gave the game.

My feelings on the sounds are mixed. I feel that many of them add to the mood and are appropriate for when they play. I also feel that a lot of them are very poorly recorded. I detected a lot of hiss and popping while playing the game. The sounds are not overdone, which is good. Overall, there isn't really much to say except that I feel the sound could be better. I really like the story in Silver but I find it to be a little bit simple. Your mission is to defeat the evil sorcerer Silver and rescue your wife. In order to defeat him you must collect several magical orbs. Its not very involved but there are several mini-quests along the way to keep you busy and I think the fast gameplay makes up for the extremely linear storyline.

Silver's gameplay is a hybrid of several different genres. It borrows elements from several different genres. On first inspection, it resembles Final Fantasy 7 with the 3rd person RPG perspective. The battles though are a big difference and they really help to keep the game interesting. In order to fight effectively, you must actually control your character instead of just selecting what he is supposed to do. In order to control him/her, you hold the control key and move the mouse in a direction. Each direction causes him to do different fight actions, whether they be overhead swing, lung or side swipe. It's fun when you get in a full on sword fight with a NPC. As far as puzzles go, they aren?t very hard. This is due to the linear nature of the game. It is almost always obvious where you have to go. As I got farther into the game, I found this to change a bit. The puzzles do get harder but still are not at the level of a game such as Grim Fandango. Your fellow companions are very helpful in your quest and do not mill around like they do in many other games. A couple of little things that help in the quest are a map and the character circle. The map allows you to go anywhere that you have been before with a simple click of the mouse. Needless to say, this is a real time saver. The character circle (for lack of a better name) allows you to control your characters weapons, spells and inventory quickly and in the midst of battle. It is an excellent way of implementing the character interface. Overall I found Silver's gameplay to be very good and I had a lot of fun playing this game.

Adventuring doesn't get much better than this. Overall I really liked this game, but it had a couple of quirks to it. The characters are exciting and the story moves quickly enough so that I'm not bored. As I've mentioned before though, the linearity of the story is hard to look past, but the graphics are beautiful and the gameplay is excellent, so it gains points there. I recommend picking up this game for anyone who enjoyed Final Fantasy 7 or any of the Twinsen games. I also think it is a good game for those who like the Alone in the Dark series. Hell, anyone should pick this up. Its one of the few solid titles that has come out in quite some time.