Silver Knights

Silver Knights is a 3d Mech game made by a Japanese developer. It includes 13 different characters, including a fighter ship, a tank and a giant mech. It also includes 17 different maps to choose from.

The graphics are quite good, probably better then most freeware 3D games out there, and are very detailed. Each mech is of high quality, and most of them look very good. (I was somewhat disapointed with "The Joker" [The giant mech], as I dont think his model is quite up to snuff with the others, he looks to "spidery")

Silver Knights is a different type of mech games, as it does not use the conventional idea of weapons in a game. Each different mech has its own weapons(s), which it alone can have, and which it has infinite ammo for. Each mech (excluding the tank and fighter) also have melee sword\par weapons which they can use in close quarters combat.

Silver Knights also has a unique control system. It is played in the 3rd person, and the arrow keys are used to move, while the B, V, and C keys are used to shoot the weapons and boost.

Each mech has a jet pack which can be used to boost, or "fly", if you will. The boost is only good for a few seconds, and when I was playing, i found it rather hard to steer at first.

Each fight is fairly customizable, you can pick how many players are on your team (6 slots are available, and any of them can be on one team or the other), what mech you will use, along with what mechs the computer players will use, what type of battle you want, and wherer you want to fight.

Silver Knights seemed to me to be a bit confusing. When i tried to pick it up and play it, i had somewhat of a hard time controlling my mech, and had a hard time actually hitting anyone with the weapons. The action was fast, and i found it a bit hard to figure out what I was doing.

The hardest thing to control was the fighter craft, and as i was trying to turn around and shoot somehow, I was repeatedly shot, which isn't very fun. After a bit i finally managed to get the hang of the controls, and figured out how to lock onto targets, which was a big help. Once i got the hang of it, the game was actually pretty fun.

Oh, and the sound.... its a pity, the music is a bunch of random MIDI files stuck in a folder, with no real theme. I found them annoying, enough to turn it off.

All in all, Silver Knights is an ok game with good 3D graphics. The controls are a bit of a learning curve and the gameplay is a bit confusing at first. A puzzling little thing is the fact that the games menu includes a "Story Mode" option, but there is no story mode.

If you really like Japanese Games, or Mech games, download it. Otherwise, download it, but prepare for a bit of a learning curve.

(Note: I'm fairly sure this game has stopped development, from what i read at one of their community forums. Also, network play is apparently possible, though when i tried, there were no servers up. Mods are also available for this game.)

Pros:

Fun gameplay
Good graphics
Fights fairly customisable

Cons:

Controls a bit of learning curve
Camera is sometimes annoying
Music is less then great

Review by Mather