Silent Gear Review

Hosted Games
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Silent Gear Review

Silent Gear is an interactive text based game by Lee Yuan. You play as a newly graduated AROC agent, an elite solider in the not too distant future. The story starts with you having to fight Todd, another graduate from the AROC academy, in a graduation match. From the very beginning you feel a sensation of adventure and curiosity. One of the things that the author did really well is that he created a living, breathing world. Rather than shoving backstory down your throat, the game’s setting and story are neatly dispersed throughout game. Right after the match you’re told the basic backstory to the game: after the economic collapse in the US, Russia has united with china and Isis has become its own independent country. You get to learn more about the game’s history before each of your missions. You get to check your computer where you can read about you upcoming mission, learn about your weapons, and learn about you opponent. The gaming design is absolutely brilliant. Apart from the computer, the game is filled with mini games, boss fights, and timers that are also amazingly designed.
My only disappointments were that the game focused on the human story too much, it seemed that the possibilities were narrow and that there was only one ending (or at least only one that I could find). A good story develops characters, has them interact amongst each other and has some drama in between them however I’ve personally found that Silent Gear focuses too much on the romantic story between your character and Selena, a scientist who used to work for Isis. Another character that your character may become interested in is Catherine. However despite your choices your character inevitably falls in love with Selena, leading to here betrayal and an attack on the AROC base despite that over time your character has acuminated enough evidence to be able to conclude that Selena is an enemy spy. Although most of your decisions come back to bite you in the ass (like who dies on your mission) they do not influence the ending. It appears that no matter what you do in the end, on your last mission to retrieve an alien artifact capable of time travel, you encounter Selena and if you join her or choose to kill her, you eventually end up traveling back in time to your graduation where all your friends are alive and you still have the artifact in your hand.
Since this game primarily focused on romance I would have liked to seen a way for your character to develop a relationship with either Catherine or Selena. I also would have liked to see multiple endings that depended on your early choices yet I still find this game enjoyable and fun. I would like to point out that this game focuses on the journey, not the destination and the destination was a hell of a bumpy ride. I haven’t covered some of the aspects of the game like the augmentations and dialogue so I highly recommend for you to check it out.
In conclusion the game’s aspects and concepts were well structured and organized. Most of them were brilliant and brought new possibilities to choice, text based games. The backstory is unique and brilliantly explained. The choices are somewhat narrow however this doesn’t influence the game’s quality too much. This game deserves a 8 out of 10 rating.

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An 8 out of 10 are you serious! This is one of the worst hosted games out there nearly as bad as sword of the elements and that game was unplayable, the choices had no impact, stats where pointless, mini games where random and needlessly difficult and the writing especially around the “romance part” was down right dreadfull, and I say “romance” in quotations because there isn’t any you get 2 pages of steamrolled dialogue where your mc is forced to fall in love with an obvious and unlink able bad guy

Over all this games gets a 1/10 the one point is for the interesting concept art

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it was horrible and and compered to somme trench it was really easy which one of them to buy and really hated the random generator. on the positive note it could have been worse.

2/10 for me thank god for the cancel buy feature on chrome

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sorry to disappoint you guys, it was my first game ever on hosted game, and it was my first time writing a short story. (I’m an electrical engineer with no professional writing background). Despite such criticisms, I will continue to improve my writing and continue to work hard. But I think just like everything, there will always be people who like it and people who hate it, I am receiving personal fan emails regarding the game, so I’m glad some people do enjoy it.

@ChoiceOfGaming, thanks for the review Nick, its people like you who inspires new young writers like myself to keep going.

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Wish they had that on iTunes but I buy all coc games just to support the medium

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Honestly the two things I disliked the most were the combat system(relies too much on luck), and the forced romance with Selina. I chose to be interested in Catherine and the mc immediately said nope, just kidding, I like you. The option should have either not existed or make it legitimate.

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Most of us HG authors don’t have any professional experience, either. The only writing experience I have is the one I’ve gained through writing CS novels.

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there are methods of beating both bosses 100% of the time, i’ve tested out, so its not all random. But you don’t have to know those strategy to get past it, for some people who figured it out said the boss battles were way too easy. As for the choosing catherine as partner, i have considered it making it a completely new path, its something i may put in on a future update :slight_smile: thanks for playing by the way.

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Will there be a sequel to this? Big cliffhanger and time travel can hopefully make you return to this with better writing skills and actual choices.

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On my first play through, I thought it was pretty good. But on my second play, it was practically the same, even if I chose other choices (Which always leads to GAME OVER). I also hoped that the other characters could’ve had some impact, like Todd. I thought saving him would give me a chance to get to know him, but in the end he disappears. And is there just one ending? I’ve played it 4 times already, and it’s always the same…

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@Sandstorm Ya, unfortunately, this is my first hosted game, so the story was more linear than I had hoped. I was focusing on the quality of the story and game mechanics. The ending section is quite different in terms of your choice in dealing with Selene, but yes ~spoiler~ all choices goes through the same time travel.

I think even in the future, I will be focusing on short but high quality stories, because I’m just a solo author, I find it difficult to complete huge big projects on my own, so I rather do a short quality story, than quit half way because I try to take on something too difficult and complex.

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What about gender choice? Is it a bug or is it totally irrelevant and the story will still recognise the MC as male?

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I actually liked it. I can think of worse games that charge 5 dollars. I played the first time around I enjoyed the feeling with my comrades. The close tight knit. Where everyone is looking out for each other. I went through the first stage picking my weapon and ammo. Early on I noticed Catherine. I wasn’t able to romance her during my throughways.

Maybe there’s a choice I’m missing. It would been nice to romance a fellow comrade. One of the biggest choices.(One I felt guilty about. Had to replay the entire game) That woman in the lab. You have a choice to kill her or keep her. If you keep her she turns out to be a big pain.

Towards the ending of the game. I felt there was something missing. The ending wasn’t big enough. Based on our choices should been three separate endings. It was the ending so not like it would mattered. I won’t reveal all spoilers. I felt guilty enough about one choice to re-play the entire game. I was let down there wasn’t that big of a difference in ending.

Maybe things would been different had I killed the girl in the lab instead of saving her. I would say only thing missing was a proper ending. Even if you pick to join the said person. It doesn’t make a difference in ending expect a few words. I felt the plane fight was a little unfair. It was similar to playing rock paper scissors. You didn’t know what move they picked, certain moves cancelled theirs etc.

I actually thought it was a good game.

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@Jason_Miller, Thanks man, :slight_smile: i’m really glad you enjoyed it. i know there are faults with the game, it was my first published title, so i will do better next time.

also, please leave a good rating if you can, it means a lot. I really appreciated it.

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Will there ever be a sequel? Because what happens at the end? Time loop?

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There will be a sequel eventually when I have enough story ideas going, as for now, I don’t. So I’m working on other titles that I have a good grasp on ^.^

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The story was great but I found it to be very short, few choices that actually had an impact and it was also very linear.

But then again as I alread said, the concept and story itself was pretty good and has Inspired me to start looking back at my old wip Recon :wink:

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It was good for a first game but i didn’t like being forced into a romance with selene and i didn’t know my team mates well enough to be affected by their death.

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hey dude It wasn’t bad could of bin better but not bad for your first game

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I try my hardest to find at least one good point for every game I play but damn it was very very very difficult for this. But it has potential, a lot of potential.

I never got the chance to know any of the characters, they either died too quickly or barely had any major appearances. I was really getting into Catherine and BAM game is over, felt a bit cheated there.

I felt like I was forced into a romance with Selene, I tried to appear friendly but distant and all of a sudden we’re in love? What? It was something I really didn’t want from her, in fact I was super suspicious of her from the start which is why I was distant.

The one thing that really riled me up about it was the boss battles. Unique and interesting for me… Until ten minutes in. Beating it was damn near impossible for me, I actually spent roughly 50 minutes until I defeated the first boss and sadly that ruined replay value for me because it was so frustrating.

I said it was difficult to find a good point, but not impossible. The story and futuristic element drew me in almost instantly. Cyberware, betrayal, conspiracy and a badass dragon tattoo sniper commander. It’s what kept me going from start to finish. If this was longer and we got to know the NPCs better this would of had some memorable characters, the Sniper boss near the end had the potential of a beautiful rivalry similar to Commander Hawkins from Mecha Ace (one of my favourite characters of all time.)

Although the boss battle was frustrating in the long haul, it was something I never seen before and if it could be made into a more recognisable pattern and smoother journey this would be a masterpiece in boss battles. I say keep this idea for future games if you can fix it up to be easier.

My opinion? A good game for a first attempt which had a few character flaws and an experimental mechanic that could be improved on to make it a greater asset.

My wish for this is to be remade it into a longer and more detailed series of games to expand on the Cyberware, characters, lore on the current war and rebellion and whatever the heavens that cube was in the end.

@Zanity Good show on your first attempt and very creative imagination with your storyline, learn from the cons and turn them into pros. If you ever think of remaking this I will happily throw in my support and encourage others.