Bandango
08-06-2009, 10:09 AM
Eternal Silence:
The smoldering debris of an NGM Corvette spirals away from a now unaccompanied mothership bristling with weapons. Its laser batteries pour kilometer-long corridors of white hot death into the cold vacuum outside your gunship. Afterburners shake the cockpit. Flak explodes in tangles of smoke blacker than the space beyond it. An enemy pilot makes a last ditch attempt to keep you from reaching the hanger he just emerged from, but he’s too late. The miniguns on the hull of your transport blaze away as you penetrate the NGM force shield and enter the stale atmosphere of the fighter bay. Your fellow marines roll out, rifles at the ready. It’s time for the real fight to begin.
I assure you, I am not embellishing. All of this does and will happen if you decide to play. Eternal Silence takes two distinct fields of gaming and marries them into a seamless multiplayer experience that will engage both space-sim grognards and casual fps-ers alike. Expect to wage interstellar war in just about every possible fashion, employing everything from suicidal bombing runs to desperate blows from an empty pistol, all within the same unbroken stretch of action. ES is a space-sim and a first person shooter, and nothing less than either; in no way does it favor one genre at the expense of the other. Together, though, this melding of opposing play styles creates a game that is more than the sum (I couldn’t resist) of its parts. ES is a fresh breath in the current climate of ever calcifying genres, and the only thing holding it back from greatness is the small number of players aware of its total awesomeness. I hope that the following words will help add to their ranks.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/10/3696217686_a256c79ff0_b.jpg
The Plot:
The Eternal Silence team has created a unique universe to give context to all you would be space aces out there. It goes a little something like this: in a far off future, Earth has been annihilated. The survivors of this apocalyptic war, the United Terran Forces, limped off into space in search of habitable planets. The UTF carved out a hard life on a handful of inhospitable rocks, giving their progeny a new chance at life. Generations passed until a small exploration fleet discovered a lush world orbited by something even less likely than this new earth; the Surrogate, a strange vessel responsible for terraforming the verdant world. Aboard were three libraries: one of Human history, one of literature, and a genetic catalog of all the Earth’s past life. These revelations rocked the militant society that was forged by the UTF, and soon a new force, inspired by the re-discovered pages of Earth’s forgotten thinkers, rose up and declared its independence. Obviously missing the bits about repeating history’s mistakes, the Neo Galactic Militia and the United Terran Forces soon began settling their differences with fire and steel. And thank God for that; an interstellar contest of sit-ins and peaceful protests could never be as fun as a good old space battle.
The ES site features what appears to be a novel-in-progress (http://www.eternal-silence.net/story.php). Though I confess to not having read through much of it, I’m tempted to revisit it at some point. Don’t let all this talk of story fool you though, it’s entirely peripheral to the game itself. In effect, the plot boils down to this: red ships attack blue ships, blue ships attack red ships… BOOM.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/10/aethra_corvettes.jpg
The Tech:
Eternal Silence is built on the Source Engine, and though in no way is it ugly, the age in its bones shows. That age, however, does not appear in any particular aesthetic weakness: after five years of playing games on Source, they’re all starting to look a bit alike. Something akin to deja vu seems to haunt the way characters move, the shine on the guns, and the shapes of the bullet holes. But when I step back and look at the game on its own, I can’t really complain. Weapons are responsive, weighty, and pack a satisfying punch. The graphics are more than adequate, and the overall design of Eternal Silence is professional and classically sci-fi.
The Gameplay:
Eternal Silence is a hell of a lot of fun and brings some innovation to first person shooting. The principal gametype, hardcore mode, pits the NGM and the UTF against each other in asymmetrical combat. Each map sports different capitol ships that serve as your team’s home base, and each capitol ship is accompanied by a detachment of three corvettes. Both the capitol ship and the corvettes are computer controlled and attack independently, but, unfortunately, are otherwise static. At the beginning of each map, players must race to destroy the enemy’s three corvettes before their own are destroyed. The first team to do so moves into the attack phase, during which they are free to board the enemy capitol ship. Once there, the goal is to capture different ‘subsystems’ that both maintain critical ship functions (keep shields up) and act as spawn points. By capturing all points, you win. Alternately, each capitol ship has a large life bar. Drain it through direct attacks or take down its shields and win by attrition.
To achieve these goals, players select from three classes, eight guns, and five ship types. Each team has one unique weapon, the UTF a grenade launcher and NMG a flamethrower, but are otherwise identical. All classes can fly any ship, each of which performs its own necessary role. There are three fighters, one bomber, and one transport class. Certain ships are more effective in certain situations, but there are no clear cut rock-paper-scissors demands. What you fly is up to you, and each ship provides a unique experience.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/10/3696213316_dea556afc9_b.jpg
On foot within the confines of a capitol ship, ES sheds is inter-stellar skin and becomes something else entirely. During the five minute attack phase, the push to take enemy subsystems takes on a frantic pace unmatched by the more graceful arcing and weaving of dogfighting. On defense, the tight corridors of your capitol ship contrast the colorful, nebula filled openness of space. When a server gets packed, these corridors become natural bottlenecks where teammates are forced to come together, work together, and fight together. I have rarely felt as connected to random pubbers in an FPS as I have in this game. At the end of the day, I don’t know whether I like the space bits or the foot bits better. Best thing is, with ES, I don’t have to choose.
There are additional gametypes besides the one I described, but unfortunately only one server on average is occupied at any given time, and most of the time hardcore is what they're playing. There is also, of course, capture the flag, and I had a couple chances to play a neutral bomb gametype where players attempt to directly destroy enemy subsystems. However, the server running it had too few players to give me a real taste of how it works. Twelve players is the minimum for a good game and a full server is even better. With no bot support few servers ever sport those numbers, but fear not, there's always at least one crowded one waiting to let you in.
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line is that Eternal Silence is wicked sweet. The only thing holding it back is a lack of players. If you are a veteran fps-er and are looking for something new, this is it. If you own a joystick and any Source game, you absolutely must download this mod. And if you want to know more, check out this interview with the project lead, Daniel Menard, that follows. He offers some insight into the creation of and the original intentions behind Eternal Silence.
ES is now supported by Steam. Visit their website (http://www.eternal-silence.net/downloads.php) and start downloading now.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/11/es_valve.jpg
The ES team at valve. Dan is in the middle.
Immortal Machines: Space sims are a dieing breed, or are at least on the protected species list. Why did your team decide to bring one to Steam?
Daniel Menard: I'm not sure why the genre is dying. I think it's an awesome, action filled game type. Eternal Silence was made to fill the void left by great games like Freespace 2 and Freelancer and bring the Space Sim genre up to date. We blended it with FPS gameplay and gave it all a fresh coat of paint. Eternal Silence is different from other space games because it also features lots of teamwork, with bombers needing escorts and interceptors protecting the Capital Ship. You really get a complete experience, and this is all possible because of the Source engine and today's technology.
Immortal Machines: Were there any particular games that your team used as a source of inspiration for Eternal Silence?
Daniel Menard: We had many sources of inspiration for Eternal Silence. For the space portion though, Freespace 2 was by far the biggest influence. It's an old game, now available for free, I believe, but it had the most solid space combat I've ever experienced. We wanted to have that in Eternal Silence. Freespace inspired the HUD and the feel of the fighting. We looked to more modern games like Freelancer for controls.
Immortal Machines: Did you guys draw upon any classic science fiction to help guide your design, either movies, books, or TV shows?
Daniel Menard: A little bit. It wasn't nearly as big an influence as Freespace was, but Battlestar Galactica was a good source for a lot of things. They have beautifully designed bridges and the space combat in the series is truly amazing. We tried to infuse some of that with our cut engines key, which allows you to pull a quick 180 turn on your target and fire on them while flying backwards. It makes for some really amazing dogfights and allows skilled players to move in all sorts of ways.
Immortal Machines: Eternal Silence is essentially two games in one. Was it difficult to create both an fps and space sim without sacrificing the quality of either?
Daniel Menard: Our biggest challenge was just making the modes coexist. I think we've succeeded in that regard. Players get to participate in a large battle between two huge capital ships, and in Eternal Silence, this battle takes place in different phases. There is a Strike phase at the beginning, where players must bomb enemy ships in order to make a landing. Once one team has succeeded, they move to the Attack phase and can start boarding players. Without that framework, it was really difficult to make the game feel coherent, and we're really happy with the way it turned out.
That being said, we did have to sacrifice a few things, like power management in the ship, or other advanced space-sim features. We did this to make the game more accessible. Quality is always a big concern for us, mostly though, we want to make sure the overall experience is good, and that meant cutting a few things.
Immortal Machines: Were there any compromises that your team had to make while designing this mod? Were any especially ambitious ideas cut?
Daniel Menard: Initially we wanted to have a Captain character which could oversee the battle and issue orders to all players on the battlefield. The entire game was built with the assumption we would eventually get it in, unfortunately it proved far too difficult and we had to can the idea. The Captain would have been responsible for managing the power of the ship (max power to shields, for example), moving the huge capital ship around and handling the targeting for the capital ship weapons. I still fall in love with the idea just talking about it, but it would have been more complexity in an already complex game.
Immortal Machines: Will any of those ideas one day see the light of day?
Daniel Menard: Unlikely. We need to keep our feature-creep under control. Maybe for
the sequel...
Immortal Machines: Why do all this hard work for free?
Daniel Menard: There are many reasons. Personally, I do it because this is a game I've always wanted to play, and I could never find a product that did it right. It's a lot easier to make a free game than a commercial game (you'd be surprised). For many on the team, this is their way of getting into the industry and getting some very good experience. They build their portfolios and make a name for themselves. We all share a passion for games and that's why we do it for free.
The smoldering debris of an NGM Corvette spirals away from a now unaccompanied mothership bristling with weapons. Its laser batteries pour kilometer-long corridors of white hot death into the cold vacuum outside your gunship. Afterburners shake the cockpit. Flak explodes in tangles of smoke blacker than the space beyond it. An enemy pilot makes a last ditch attempt to keep you from reaching the hanger he just emerged from, but he’s too late. The miniguns on the hull of your transport blaze away as you penetrate the NGM force shield and enter the stale atmosphere of the fighter bay. Your fellow marines roll out, rifles at the ready. It’s time for the real fight to begin.
I assure you, I am not embellishing. All of this does and will happen if you decide to play. Eternal Silence takes two distinct fields of gaming and marries them into a seamless multiplayer experience that will engage both space-sim grognards and casual fps-ers alike. Expect to wage interstellar war in just about every possible fashion, employing everything from suicidal bombing runs to desperate blows from an empty pistol, all within the same unbroken stretch of action. ES is a space-sim and a first person shooter, and nothing less than either; in no way does it favor one genre at the expense of the other. Together, though, this melding of opposing play styles creates a game that is more than the sum (I couldn’t resist) of its parts. ES is a fresh breath in the current climate of ever calcifying genres, and the only thing holding it back from greatness is the small number of players aware of its total awesomeness. I hope that the following words will help add to their ranks.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/10/3696217686_a256c79ff0_b.jpg
The Plot:
The Eternal Silence team has created a unique universe to give context to all you would be space aces out there. It goes a little something like this: in a far off future, Earth has been annihilated. The survivors of this apocalyptic war, the United Terran Forces, limped off into space in search of habitable planets. The UTF carved out a hard life on a handful of inhospitable rocks, giving their progeny a new chance at life. Generations passed until a small exploration fleet discovered a lush world orbited by something even less likely than this new earth; the Surrogate, a strange vessel responsible for terraforming the verdant world. Aboard were three libraries: one of Human history, one of literature, and a genetic catalog of all the Earth’s past life. These revelations rocked the militant society that was forged by the UTF, and soon a new force, inspired by the re-discovered pages of Earth’s forgotten thinkers, rose up and declared its independence. Obviously missing the bits about repeating history’s mistakes, the Neo Galactic Militia and the United Terran Forces soon began settling their differences with fire and steel. And thank God for that; an interstellar contest of sit-ins and peaceful protests could never be as fun as a good old space battle.
The ES site features what appears to be a novel-in-progress (http://www.eternal-silence.net/story.php). Though I confess to not having read through much of it, I’m tempted to revisit it at some point. Don’t let all this talk of story fool you though, it’s entirely peripheral to the game itself. In effect, the plot boils down to this: red ships attack blue ships, blue ships attack red ships… BOOM.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/10/aethra_corvettes.jpg
The Tech:
Eternal Silence is built on the Source Engine, and though in no way is it ugly, the age in its bones shows. That age, however, does not appear in any particular aesthetic weakness: after five years of playing games on Source, they’re all starting to look a bit alike. Something akin to deja vu seems to haunt the way characters move, the shine on the guns, and the shapes of the bullet holes. But when I step back and look at the game on its own, I can’t really complain. Weapons are responsive, weighty, and pack a satisfying punch. The graphics are more than adequate, and the overall design of Eternal Silence is professional and classically sci-fi.
The Gameplay:
Eternal Silence is a hell of a lot of fun and brings some innovation to first person shooting. The principal gametype, hardcore mode, pits the NGM and the UTF against each other in asymmetrical combat. Each map sports different capitol ships that serve as your team’s home base, and each capitol ship is accompanied by a detachment of three corvettes. Both the capitol ship and the corvettes are computer controlled and attack independently, but, unfortunately, are otherwise static. At the beginning of each map, players must race to destroy the enemy’s three corvettes before their own are destroyed. The first team to do so moves into the attack phase, during which they are free to board the enemy capitol ship. Once there, the goal is to capture different ‘subsystems’ that both maintain critical ship functions (keep shields up) and act as spawn points. By capturing all points, you win. Alternately, each capitol ship has a large life bar. Drain it through direct attacks or take down its shields and win by attrition.
To achieve these goals, players select from three classes, eight guns, and five ship types. Each team has one unique weapon, the UTF a grenade launcher and NMG a flamethrower, but are otherwise identical. All classes can fly any ship, each of which performs its own necessary role. There are three fighters, one bomber, and one transport class. Certain ships are more effective in certain situations, but there are no clear cut rock-paper-scissors demands. What you fly is up to you, and each ship provides a unique experience.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/10/3696213316_dea556afc9_b.jpg
On foot within the confines of a capitol ship, ES sheds is inter-stellar skin and becomes something else entirely. During the five minute attack phase, the push to take enemy subsystems takes on a frantic pace unmatched by the more graceful arcing and weaving of dogfighting. On defense, the tight corridors of your capitol ship contrast the colorful, nebula filled openness of space. When a server gets packed, these corridors become natural bottlenecks where teammates are forced to come together, work together, and fight together. I have rarely felt as connected to random pubbers in an FPS as I have in this game. At the end of the day, I don’t know whether I like the space bits or the foot bits better. Best thing is, with ES, I don’t have to choose.
There are additional gametypes besides the one I described, but unfortunately only one server on average is occupied at any given time, and most of the time hardcore is what they're playing. There is also, of course, capture the flag, and I had a couple chances to play a neutral bomb gametype where players attempt to directly destroy enemy subsystems. However, the server running it had too few players to give me a real taste of how it works. Twelve players is the minimum for a good game and a full server is even better. With no bot support few servers ever sport those numbers, but fear not, there's always at least one crowded one waiting to let you in.
The Bottom Line:
The bottom line is that Eternal Silence is wicked sweet. The only thing holding it back is a lack of players. If you are a veteran fps-er and are looking for something new, this is it. If you own a joystick and any Source game, you absolutely must download this mod. And if you want to know more, check out this interview with the project lead, Daniel Menard, that follows. He offers some insight into the creation of and the original intentions behind Eternal Silence.
ES is now supported by Steam. Visit their website (http://www.eternal-silence.net/downloads.php) and start downloading now.
http://www.eternal-silence.net/4images/data/media/11/es_valve.jpg
The ES team at valve. Dan is in the middle.
Immortal Machines: Space sims are a dieing breed, or are at least on the protected species list. Why did your team decide to bring one to Steam?
Daniel Menard: I'm not sure why the genre is dying. I think it's an awesome, action filled game type. Eternal Silence was made to fill the void left by great games like Freespace 2 and Freelancer and bring the Space Sim genre up to date. We blended it with FPS gameplay and gave it all a fresh coat of paint. Eternal Silence is different from other space games because it also features lots of teamwork, with bombers needing escorts and interceptors protecting the Capital Ship. You really get a complete experience, and this is all possible because of the Source engine and today's technology.
Immortal Machines: Were there any particular games that your team used as a source of inspiration for Eternal Silence?
Daniel Menard: We had many sources of inspiration for Eternal Silence. For the space portion though, Freespace 2 was by far the biggest influence. It's an old game, now available for free, I believe, but it had the most solid space combat I've ever experienced. We wanted to have that in Eternal Silence. Freespace inspired the HUD and the feel of the fighting. We looked to more modern games like Freelancer for controls.
Immortal Machines: Did you guys draw upon any classic science fiction to help guide your design, either movies, books, or TV shows?
Daniel Menard: A little bit. It wasn't nearly as big an influence as Freespace was, but Battlestar Galactica was a good source for a lot of things. They have beautifully designed bridges and the space combat in the series is truly amazing. We tried to infuse some of that with our cut engines key, which allows you to pull a quick 180 turn on your target and fire on them while flying backwards. It makes for some really amazing dogfights and allows skilled players to move in all sorts of ways.
Immortal Machines: Eternal Silence is essentially two games in one. Was it difficult to create both an fps and space sim without sacrificing the quality of either?
Daniel Menard: Our biggest challenge was just making the modes coexist. I think we've succeeded in that regard. Players get to participate in a large battle between two huge capital ships, and in Eternal Silence, this battle takes place in different phases. There is a Strike phase at the beginning, where players must bomb enemy ships in order to make a landing. Once one team has succeeded, they move to the Attack phase and can start boarding players. Without that framework, it was really difficult to make the game feel coherent, and we're really happy with the way it turned out.
That being said, we did have to sacrifice a few things, like power management in the ship, or other advanced space-sim features. We did this to make the game more accessible. Quality is always a big concern for us, mostly though, we want to make sure the overall experience is good, and that meant cutting a few things.
Immortal Machines: Were there any compromises that your team had to make while designing this mod? Were any especially ambitious ideas cut?
Daniel Menard: Initially we wanted to have a Captain character which could oversee the battle and issue orders to all players on the battlefield. The entire game was built with the assumption we would eventually get it in, unfortunately it proved far too difficult and we had to can the idea. The Captain would have been responsible for managing the power of the ship (max power to shields, for example), moving the huge capital ship around and handling the targeting for the capital ship weapons. I still fall in love with the idea just talking about it, but it would have been more complexity in an already complex game.
Immortal Machines: Will any of those ideas one day see the light of day?
Daniel Menard: Unlikely. We need to keep our feature-creep under control. Maybe for
the sequel...
Immortal Machines: Why do all this hard work for free?
Daniel Menard: There are many reasons. Personally, I do it because this is a game I've always wanted to play, and I could never find a product that did it right. It's a lot easier to make a free game than a commercial game (you'd be surprised). For many on the team, this is their way of getting into the industry and getting some very good experience. They build their portfolios and make a name for themselves. We all share a passion for games and that's why we do it for free.