Recent reviews by Timms

Democracy Prevailed, Make sure we fix our Support Soldiers.

This is some general information for people wanting a quick synopsis of what Silica is about, etc, Review is later in the post.

Silica is a crossover of FPS and RTS where up to 3 factions battle for control over the planet of Balterus. Silica’s gameplay is a blend of first-person shooter and real-time strategy, each true to its respective genre. Silica allows players the freedom of choice, without forcing them to play as both. Silica plays very much like a spiritual successor to the Natural Selection games (whilst being it's own complete entity at the same time), which the developer Martin “Dram” Melichárek (who was also the lead developer behind Take On Mars) has said was a large inspiration.

Review


The First Person Shooter aspect of Silica at the moment is the most polished between it and the commander mode, in my opinion, The gun play whilst very arcade like in comparison to some other titles that Bohemia Interactive has published, ARMA, etc, Still feel as though they have some weight and power behind them, This is especially the case when it comes to the weaponry on the vehicles, The Rail gun Tank, Siege Tank, etc.

A large feature that interested me is the teleportation aspect of the FPS which granted was something I was very apprehensive of at first, thinking that you had the ability to teleport anywhere on the map that had been discovered by your team, This turned out to not be the case, whilst yes you can teleport anywhere on the map that has been discovered it isn't an exact direct teleport, The further away you're hoping to teleport the larger the area it will actually spawn you in to due to its uncertainty for example you could teleport 50m away from the point you selected, There is however a nice GUI to display the circle of uncertainty on the map so you aren't completely in the dark as to where you may end up.

The game however is unfortunately lacking some elements that I would like to see in a title that costs $29 AUD, Yes I did receive it for free however I still feel that for the price things, such as a tutorial, ability to remap key-binds and animations especially for reloading, etc, should be included. Dram is an amazing, hardworking and lovely dude and I have the utmost faith that these main issues will be fixed as promptly as they can be with a Solo dev working on the project.

The Discord contains a lot of different ideas and suggestions from the community that Dram actively looks through, so hopefully we will see some community suggestions coming to fruition within this year of Early Access. I haven't commented on the Alien and Commander aspects of play as I've mainly been focusing on the Human FPS aspect and how that plays, but now that the game is released and people are online to play it, I will be very much getting back into playing it and exploring the different aspects I haven't commented on.

In conclusion, Whilst yes I did receive the game for free and will inherently have some bias in that regard I would suggest picking it up if you understand that yes it is in EA, Yes it has it's flaws, but those flaws and issues will slowly but surely be ironed out, If you feel that issues I listed are a deal breaker for you I would wait a few months, Silica is planned to be in EA for a Year so give it a few months and check back in!