A cross between Musashi and FF7

When it comes to RPGs people generally know which companies to look to for quality titles. So far, it's been Japanese companies mainly. Infogrames, has developed a European contender, and it's called Silver. It takes 3D characters and maps them onto lush prerendered background, with real-time combat.

What the game lacks, however, is some real 3D artists. The 2D artists did some serious work on this game, and the 3D guys just could hold up their end of the bargain. The fighting is nice, and backgrounds are spectacular, and the 3D models, textures, and movies are ho-hum at best.

However, Infogrames does get one thing right that non-Japanese RPGs tend to screw up...the voices. The character voices for the game are done very well...nothing like the out-of-sync nonsense you get in Xenogears...shudder....

Combat is pretty good while you fight by yourself. Once other party members under your control join the fray, good luck. Mutliplayer combat is eventaully what turned me off the most about this game. It's really difficult apparently, for the computer to decide which character you want control over...so it settles for giving you control of none of them, which causes you to get killed a lot.

This game is one of my surprise purchases of the year, and I'd recommend that others at least give it a look-see.