Year: 2003
Type: Original Soundtrack (OST)
Composer(s): Andrey Fedorenko
Number of tracks: 30

★★★★★

Storm in a teacup

If you abbreviate Silent Storm to 'SS' instead of 'S2', the historical setting quickly becomes apparent, as the tactical RPG is set amidst the turmoil of the Second World War. In the style of the popular Jagged Alliance series, Silent Storm is also about clearing map after map of enemies and completing various mission objectives with a squad of soldiers that we can put together ourselves, either on the side of the Allies or the Axis powers. The game is pleasantly challenging and exciting, upgrading the mercenaries is fun and the wide variety of weapons provides the necessary strategic depth.

There is also a physics simulation that allows us to destroy walls or bring down entire houses, for example. But because this also applies to the enemies, joy and dispair are very close together here. Unfortunately, Silent Storm , which is very solid in itself, never received much attention; I only played it myself because the full version found its way into my room as a magazine extra. Of course, it's not perfect and even if I would like to explain my various points of criticism and why I don't want to give it an unqualified endorsement, this is not intended to be a game review. That's why I'm limiting myself to a straightforward game recommendation. A solid game for many hours of fun if you like the genre and setting. As a 2003 game, it naturally seems old-fashioned and probably can't keep up with XCOM and its ilk - at least in terms of gameplay.

This elegant transition leads directly into the soundtrack part, which will be very uniform, at least in terms of the track names. The reason is simple: It's 2003, we have a no-name developer Nival Interactive (who, by the way, will make the fantastic Heroes of Heroes of Might and Magic V including add-ons three years later) and we have a commercially largely unsuccessful game. Sure, there's no OST here, i.e. original soundtrack. Instead, we are graced by a good old-fashioned gamerip, which is why the names of the files are kept to a manageable level with the theme song Silent Storm, Ambient 1-10 and Combat 1-19. Pleasingly, the same can only be said to a limited extent about the acoustics of the tracks. While the entire score has a very military feel to it, composer Andrey Fedorenko brings enough variety to the melodies that they don't sound too off the peg. It's a shame that he has never worked on any significant games, but instead on games like Blitzkrieg 2: Liberation or Hammer & Sickle, because in my opinion there is a lot of potential in his creations, as we hear in Silent Storm.

It starts with the theme song Silent Storm, which opens very generically with a drum roll, but which, due to my nostalgia, immediately gets me going as soon as the strings play and the two components intertwine. This generally reflects the instrumentation of the score well, as the instrumental ambience remains fairly straightforward: apart from percussion, strings and wind instruments, there are only occasional ear-catchers such as bagpipes or individual piano passages. Not much, you might think, but considering the age and budget, I think a comparison with AAA titles such as Call of Duty or Company of Heroes is unfair. None of the tracks reach this (master) class - but they don't have to. Unlike Empire Earth, for example, which plays in a similar league, Silent Storm is nowhere near as brute and imposing as the aforementioned representatives and remains grounded, almost simple. And by 'simple' I don't mean bad.

Not always, mind you, because alongside the mostly good Combat tracks, there are the Ambient tracks, which are, as expected, unexciting and, unless you're chewing your nails and letting your soldiers sneak across the map, quite boring to listen to. I can only point out the tracks Ambient 07 and Ambient 09, which, with their uniformity, the drawn-out strings and the late use of the wind instruments, give the whole thing a sense of something solemn and distant. They evoke a sense of scale for me, at least hinting at the magnitude of the historical conflict and conjuring up memories of the great battlefields à la Supreme Commander.

The combat tracks stand in stark contrast to this. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but almost all of them are action-packed. At times exciting, hectic, driven, at others thriller-like and dramatic. This is partly due to the increased tempo of the strings and the frequently used drum rolls, and partly due to the staccato style that whips us through the tracks. The melodies remain uncomplicated, like a gunfight in the narrow street canyons, it's all about straightforward functionality - and it works. An extra triplet here, a little transposition there, it all fits! Nothing is outstanding, but it's always coherent. I was particularly taken with Combat 13 whose piano reminds me a little of John Williams' Jaws-theme or, for some unknown reason, of the Borg from Star Trek ... purposeful and efficient.

And just as quickly as it started, it was already over again. It takes just under 1 ½ hours to listen to the score, not every minute of which is recommendable. It clearly shows me that Andrey Fedorenko has a lot of musical potential, which he was probably never really able to or had to tap into. In conclusion, it can be said that in combination with the game, this is a perfectly acceptable soundtrack that makes a lot of variety out of just a few ingredients, but is very restricted by its subject matter and therefore only something for real fans. And this brings us full circle to the actual game, which is also probably only for real World War II tactical RPG enthusiasts. Or those like me, who stumbled across it by chance and somehow had fun with it.

No.	Title	Interpret	Ratings
01	Silent Storm	Andrey Fedorenko	5
02	Ambient 01	Andrey Fedorenko	2
03	Ambient 02	Andrey Fedorenko	3
04	Ambient 03	Andrey Fedorenko	2
05	Ambient 04	Andrey Fedorenko	4
06	Ambient 05	Andrey Fedorenko	3
07	Ambient 06	Andrey Fedorenko	2
08	Ambient 07	Andrey Fedorenko	5
09	Ambient 08	Andrey Fedorenko	3
10	Ambient 09	Andrey Fedorenko	5
11	Ambient 10	Andrey Fedorenko	3
12	Combat 01	Andrey Fedorenko	5
13	Combat 02	Andrey Fedorenko	3
14	Combat 03	Andrey Fedorenko	4
15	Combat 04	Andrey Fedorenko	4
16	Combat 05	Andrey Fedorenko	4
17	Combat 06	Andrey Fedorenko	3
18	Combat 07	Andrey Fedorenko	4
19	Combat 08	Andrey Fedorenko	4
20	Combat 09	Andrey Fedorenko	3
21	Combat 10	Andrey Fedorenko	3
22	Combat 11	Andrey Fedorenko	4
23	Combat 12	Andrey Fedorenko	4
24	Combat 13	Andrey Fedorenko	5
25	Combat 14	Andrey Fedorenko	4
26	Combat 15	Andrey Fedorenko	3
27	Combat 16	Andrey Fedorenko	3
28	Combat 17	Andrey Fedorenko	4
29	Combat 18	Andrey Fedorenko	4
30	Combat 19	Andrey Fedorenko	4