Iron Storm

The Good
IronStorm poses the question, what if World War One never ended? Well the Bolshevik uprising in Russia is squashed leading to a united Russo-German army under Baron Ugenberg that’s taken Asia and most of Europe. The United States of Western Europe is fighting trench warfare against helicopters and tanks and faces the threat of a more powerful superweapon. It’s 1964, and you are Lieutenant James Anderson, a graying soldier who’s lived his entire life entrenched in battle-ravaged Europe. Your commander feels that one man might succeed, where hundreds have failed. It’s up to you to fight your way into the heart of enemy territory and disrupt the plans for this new superweapon, before the Baron becomes unstoppable.

So does IronStorm succeed? Yes and no. The premise of the War to End all Wars never ending is intriguing and the designers do a wonderful job of taking 1920’s weaponry and bringing them into the future. You get a definite sense of a war machine that keeps cranking out weapons, without taking a breather to refine them. The MG-36A assault rifle is a clunky rapidly firing weapon with poor accuracy, as opposed to the M-16’s used in our world. Likewise the Heckler & Koch MP-6 machine pistol is loud and weak, but fast and the Dragunov Snayperskaya sniper rifle has an excellent zooming scope, but small magazine.

IronStorm seeks to account for all the weapons Anderson carries, meaning that you can’t pick up every weapon you come along. Using Anderson’s body as a template, there are a few left leg guns, a few right leg ones, etc. That means you’ll have to choose between lugging around a rocket launcher or an assault rifle, a silenced handgun or a machine pistol. If you play in the third-person perspective, you’ll see the guns rendered. In addition to guns, you also get a useless knife (decent for stealth missions) and four types of hand grenades: standard pineapple, incendiary, poison gas and a disabling gas which warps your perspective for a short time.

James Anderson begins his journey assisted by Cecile who monitors via a camera/headset device. Cecile seems more omniscient than the period’s technology allows, but since the game has limited character interaction, it’s nice hearing a friendly voice. Another recurring character is a Russo-German newswoman. From time to time, you can find televisions and watch her broadcasts that either cover events you just participated in or offer hints about upcoming levels.

IronStorm has interesting level design, ranging from dismal early levels that may turn players away to a brilliant middle section taking place in a wreck of a German town. Here the ambient war noises are top notch and the city looks wonderful. This level offers white-knuckle gameplay as you creep around enemy bunkers, try to spot snipers and take on tanks.

IronStorm is very hard despite a hit-or-miss enemy AI. Even on the medium level, shots do a lot of damage and it’s often difficult to spot snipers, especially when the sun is behind them.

The Bad
While I enjoyed IronStorm, I do think it’s very inconsistent. As I mentioned, level design can be spotty. Within the general missions you can do some exploring but it’s hard to get lost and there is a sense of linearity to the overall design. Early levels reminded me of the abysmal Shadow Force: Razor Unit, but later levels were much improved. I also think that the save anywhere function heavily influenced the level design. I definitely depended on trial and error and had to replay several sections multiple times.

Enemy AI was inconsistent as well. At times they displayed great cunning, other times they ran into walls or ignored me. It seems like scripted scenarios worked better than on the fly reactions.

The typical FPS conventions got a little out of hand- pseudo-stealth levels, levels where your character is captured/disarmed, last minute plot twists, endless supply crates, enemies that use explosive weapons in close proximity and indoors and more!

Finally- exploding dogs?!?

The Bottom Line
IronStorm is a very good game once you get past the early levels. While inconsistent, it is enjoyable and it's tough enough that you’ll get a strong sense of satisfaction after passing certain areas.