SilverLoad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
SilverLoad is the title of a graphic adventure video game produced by Vic Tokai in 1996. In this single-player game, you control, via a first person perspective, a Wild West cowboy as he ventures into a haunted town in order to save two children that were taken from their parents. The U.S. based Entertainment Software Ratings Board game the game a "M" rating for its graphic violence, blood and gore, and bits of profanity. The game was released for the personal computer in Europe, and the original PlayStation edition was given an international release.
[edit] Storyline
The game begins just after a wagon caravan has been attacked by werewolves, who ended up stealing a family's two children. As the Clint Eastwood inspired anti-hero cowboy you agree to go to the town, find the children and return them to their parents. As you venture into the town picking up various objects, interacting with the locals, and finding a safe place before the werewolves come to eat you, you soon realize that this once God-fearing and prosperous silvermining town has become a cursed den of vice, ghouls, vampires and werewolves after the original town's residents decided to slaughter an American Indian tribe. The tribesmen, as it just so happens, were the cowboy's long-lost ancestors.
As is the case with other graphic adventure games, progress in SilverLoad involves finding and interacting with various "hot spots" in order to pick up objects, solve puzzles and interact with (or kill) the various characters in the town. Picking up certain objects will cause the game's (and town's) clock to move forward, and thus, the trick to success is to pick up the right items in the precise order. Otherwise, you have to restart the game from the beginning, or from wherever you saved the game.
[edit] Critics
Most video game critics panned the game for being a port of a unsuccessful computer game. Not only do the voices in the game not match up well with the characters' mouths, they often had accents or mannerisms stereotyping various ethnicities. The town barber was also widely considered a stereotypical homosexual. [1]
