Both the sixteen and eight bit generation of gaming consoles had their fair share of top-down, shoot-‘em-up style games. It seems this genre has been passed over for newer third and first person shooters in this generation. The title, Steel Storm: Burning Retribution, an indie game by Kot in Action Creative Artel has filled this void. It presents a fun to play top-down shooting game that is both simple and enjoyable. If you ever find yourself pining for the days where you could be fighting off space invaders with your floating hover tank, this could be the game for you.
In Steel Storm, there is no story that I could locate besides that you are a hover tank pilot fighting against an alien invasion, but that is pretty much all you need. Gameplay in this title presents you with a variety of missions and chapters in which you have to complete different objectives in order to advance to the next stage. These are rather mundane at first, but they eventually get much more difficult and involved. Whether it be blowing up cooling tanks or fighting the boss of the stage. Adding another element of fun to the game, the creators allow you to customize and move around any of the stages that already exist as well as allowing you to make your own whole campaigns and missions in an integrated stage creator.
The mechanics are tight and easy to learn like most shoot-‘em-ups. There is a variety of weapons that fit into different slots on your hover tank that you can pick up at your leisure. Once you defeat a stage with the weapon equipped, you get to keep it. The stages can be difficult, but you get a generous amount of lives before you have to retry. There is also a pretty decent variety of enemies and obstacles to blow up which all add to your score. Steel Storm additionally allows a great deal of customization of how you see your game in perspective, color and even features an unlockable first person mode.
Along with the single player experience, Steel Storm also features a multiplayer mode in which you can play created or already existing campaigns in co-op or alternatively you can have dogfights in death match mode with your friends on the internet. I tried out both of these, but it is very hard to find matches at the moment for death match and I found it much easier to find co-op levels. I think a lot of the potential of this game revolves around this multiplayer mode.
The experience presented by Steel Storm is not a bad one, but it may be overlooked by many gamers due to their unfamiliarity with the genre being presented to them. I would not say this is a perfect game by a long-shot as I have experienced several minor bugs while playing such as the environment blacking out or crashing altogether, but these were not too frequent during my playthroughs. Despite being rather simple in concept, the game manages to have some complexity thanks to the editor and is a very satisfying and enjoyable experience for fans of the shoot-‘em-up genre.
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Graphics |
8.5 |
Interesting, almost cartoony style graphics are pleasing to the eyes and fit their purpose. Nice variety of enemies and effects from weapons are cool. |
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Audio |
7.5 |
Fits the mood but not really amazing or memorable. The gun sounds are pretty awesome though. |
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Single Player |
7.5 |
Fun and customizable - currently there are two episodes of developer created content on the game when you buy it. You can easily find more on the internet. |
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Multiplayer |
8.0 |
Death match and Co-op with user created content. Sadly, not enough people play it at the moment. |
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Replay |
8.0 |
The editor adds great replayability. Although, the gameplay itself is not really complex due to limited weapon choices. |
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Overall |
8.0 |
Fun and solid shoot-‘em-up but not everyone’s cup of tea. If you enjoy top-down shmups check this title out. A word to the wise if you are looking for multiplayer: find some friends who are also interested in the game and this will improve your experience immensely. |
