Silica
Dive into Silica, an immersive blend of first-person shooter and real-time strategy, each true to its respective genre. The game allows you freedom of choice without forcing you to play as either.
Intense Shooter and Classic Strategy
If you prefer sand-filled boots, bullets whizzing overhead, and menacing alien jaws closing in, the infantry role is for you. Not limited to merely foot-based soldiers, you can also take control of any available vehicles, including the colossal Harvester, the speedy Light Quad, or the insidious Siege Tank, just to name a few.
Or, if chewing metal is your niche, then the hive-mind, insect-like aliens are your faction of choice. Shift your consciousness between creatures such as the stealthy Crab, the nimble Hunter, or the armored Goliath.
For those who’d rather command their forces from a distance, the esteemed role of Commander awaits you in the relative safety of orbit. Deploy Harvesters to silica crystal fields, hiding the valuable resources you’re after. Construct and place immense structures to produce and dispatch units that will dominate the battlefield.
Key Features
- First/third-person shooter – control any character, creature, or vehicle. You can leave the commanding to the AI.
- Choose from 6 unique locations to play on.
- Immerse yourself in 3 engaging game modes.
- Singleplayer and multiplayer options – play alone or with up to 12 people in Strategy mode and 32 in Arena mode.
- As a human, produce and select from 5 infantry classes and 11 distinct vehicles.
- As an alien, spawn and shift between 8 different creatures.
Game Discussion
Steam User 31
Played Solo modes only (not too interested in Multiplyer myself).
Pros:
- It has a Solo Mode (I actually wasn't expecting one).
- Gorgeous visual.
- Punchy actions.
- Epic cinematic battle moments.
- Fun vehicles.
Cons (and hopefully devs can make some adjustments to these):
- Simple AI RTS player (run straight into their targets often or just wander around seemingly aimlessly, though this may not be relevant in Multiplayer).
- Terrible RTS unit pathfinding (often runs backward and get stuck in rocks, and positioning is so important in this game because they only shoot with their line of sights and explosive rounds could hurt them if not positioned well. Harvesters often get stuck in their Refinery buildings).
- No unit behavior control. (needs cease fire mode with the nuke trucks, formations, evasive combat behaviors, and "go straight" move options instead of trying to "pathfind". There is no reason why a flying unit should go the opposite direction from where I told it to go. Bug units also have their own behaviors during combat, making me lose control and the units because 1 is charging on its own while the other 4 are stuck in rocks).
- RTS UI units grouping automatically when camera is far away (Another element that makes player lose control of the situation and harder to read which units are in that cluster).
- Terribly balanced bug units (close range, bigger-than-human targets trying to hit ranged units that are smaller or faster or stronger targets, takes longer to turn than humans, bouncy physic and gravity, results in terrible early game experience with them and I decided I don't want to know what it's like in later stages. It needs larger melee attack arc and able to lunge towards attacking targets and stick firmer. I also can't order them to attack and charge at a specific enemy, which is a problem because their advantage is hoard melee combat).
- Map too big for individual bug players. Dies often and gotta run all the way back.
- Limited RTS map utility (I don't know where my units are in the little map, and no unit or camera control in the big map).
- Terrible story delivery (A really long info dump in the intro, meaning it's happening every time you turn on the game. Story's a mix of several popular sci-fi fictions so nothing original either, they're almost uncomfortably familiar. AI art slide show, and the narrator's voice electronically modified to sound like a sci-fi villain in the late 20th century's TV show for kids. There is a "story mode" game as well. It's one of those, "You are here, go there, it's important, well done, and repeat" type).
- Quitter AI player (I'm enjoying the cinematic siege and the game just ends in the middle of it, then the game restart timer ends before the victory music ends, overall making things feel finishing prematurely. I understand that this is the default multiplayer behavior for us gamers with addiction for perpetual dopamine stimulation. But I'd say this would feel nicer if it can be adjusted in the server setting.
- Poor FPS aiming sight visibility (Very bright and glaring yellow-white environment, targets are far away and are dots made of several wobbly pixels, and my guns shoot at a bright half-transparent blue dot. With so many well-made visual decisions, I'm willing to believe that this is intentional to impair players from aiming too well since AI units usually spray-and-pray. But this strains the eyes, and us FPS shooters don't blink for hours as it is. Not healthy. Options would be nice. Color and transparency slide bar. Maybe even shapes based on real-life scopes since these bullets have speed and drops).
Substantially more cons than pros, resulting in a mostly frustrating gaming experience at the current stage.
But when things do go well, there's nothing else that looks this epic.
Cons are understandable due to its mid-development stage of a very ambitious project.
It's also good to see my favorite dead genre coming back with revenant fury.
I hope this game reaches many of its potentials.
Steam User 42
Very fun and very promising! Pay no heed to the losers complaining about an early access game haveing early access features. These devs deserve all the support they can get. This game is my childhood dream come true, a delicious combo of C&C renegade and Supreme Commander. I want so badly to see this game get fully developed and thrive. The devs are making an impressive amount of progress so far for how small the team (2-3) is.
Steam User 27
It's a fun game with so much potential that it's almost sad to see how it plays currently. I've played a few hours and honestly had some fun, but it has some frustrating parts that make me want to stop playing even when it runs perfectly.
It requires:
-an overhaul of the RTS aspect of the game (an attack button, defend button, a patrol feature would be nice) basic RTS features are missing and it make it really hard to command troops. The game needs to embrace RTS before FPS, because most matches are played by a few people so the RTS aspect matters much more.
-the game is not optimized very well, but it still runs on my outdated PC fairly well on low graphics
-the AI sucks, and you'll find that it is very inconsistent and it gets very frustrating when the shrimp and harvesters get stuck on each other or in terrain.
Overall, the game needs to go back to the basics of the genre to attract more players, it is very hard to have fun when your army of vehicles is moving so close together that it drives over each other and runs into walls, let alone the fact that you cant get the AI to target a specific enemy (which is very important to win decisive battles)
Best of luck to the developer this game is exactly what i would want from a Dune-like RTS game if only it would live up to the baseline of RTS.
Steam User 36
First impressions:
Well, I'm not sure why this game is marked as a beta. It's more like an alpha. And one that needs a lot of polish at that.
For the prospector game mode, from what I can tell, there's only one mission. It's not very long, but it's a decent introduction to the FPS gameplay.
For the Arena game mode, at least for the map I tried, the game was mostly long distance, tiny dot marksmanship. You can play CQB, but crossing out in the open will most likely get you killed. It can be a sniper's playground.
For the strategy gameplay, it's basic. My harvesters were destroyed and I ended up needing to quit the match because I had no more money, nor the means to make more. There was no way to sell assets that I could find, or repairing damaged assets, leading to me just quitting the game.
Game options are very basic, all being on one screen.
Overall, I would recommend picking this up while it's still in early access as it's half price, and it supports the devs. However, I wouldn't expect to put a ton of time into it until after some more development has gone into the game. If that's too much of a swallow, I would wait for the full release. This game still has a long way to go yet.
Steam User 45
This game is only in Early Access, and I would rather play it over any of the big AAA games produced like COD or Halo on console or PC. Anytime, any day. This game is made with passion and its first priority is just being sheer awesome. This is the reason why I play games from smaller developers now and avoid the expensive ones. If you want to play an awesome RTS game with loads of potential, this right here is what you're looking for!
Steam User 54
This game possesses tremendous potential, but it is currently an absolute headache at this stage of development. AI unit control is nothing short of aggravating.
Playing as the Human Commander will drive you insane as you witness your units killing each other while attempting to attack enemy units. Human tanks and heavy turrets mercilessly dismember your own army. The best tactic is to stand next to Human units, allowing them to eliminate each other. Human flying unit AI are demoralizing; fighter jets will fly on the ground only to be killed by a melee unit. It's somewhat enjoyable, but this game requires a substantial amount of improvement in the AI department.
Steam User 48
Buy this game if its for the sole reason of increasing the player base. Imgane Command & Conquer/Dawn of War with FPS elements. You WILL love it even if it has some bugs dued to a one-man dev team.
BUY THE DANG GAME OR ELSE