Iron Storm

I remember when I launched a demo of this game in 2002. There was something in it that instantly clicked with me. Don't remember exactly what it was, but I guess that in that era I just liked the idea of WW I never ending. WOW. So many thing could be done! Sadly, Iron Storm is a pretty bad game. It is long and boring and the designers never did anything interesting with the WW I setting. I really had a hard time with completing this game, but something inside told me to go. So here I am, basically warning you. If you don't want to destroy that you may have for this game, rather avoid it. There are other oldies that actually ARE an experience, that bring some emotions and fun. Although, I would lie if I wouldn't say that completing IS was oddly satysfying. The levels are boring (as there is no map, you tend to run in circles...) and the enemies could castrate a mosquito from a mile, but it brought me some joy. If you are not a melancholic type - avoid it. But hey, this is GOG. So you are an melancholic type...! OK then, enjoy your game. And save often.

The game is set in ww1 that continued into the 60. With a other warlord crushing the bolshevik revolution and it is weirdly enough all about money. Like the beran's army makes new weapons and sells them. But i don't understand to who there selling like bunkers and armored trains, but i'm just looking too much into it. Gameplay wise, it's a mess, you have barley any feedback in hitting something or getting hit, the guns are odd, you don't really have a croshair but a round cirkel in the middel. You can only aim with some weapons like the sniper rifle or well every scoped weapon. Using anything without a scope is just a spray and prey. But even with a scope i son't think 100% accurate. But now let's talk about the levels and the objectives. All levels are very liniar with some side ways you can make which just lead you to like a mg to mow down some enemies, but the objective are basicly geuss work. They don't tell you anything well sometimes here and there but that is it. I used to watch a guide on some parts since i hade no fu... i mean freaking idea what i was supposed to do. Or were i ahd to go. Now let's talk about enemies and there anoying and cheap placement. Firsltly the AI is terrible i saw them shooting walls because i was there once that was the last place they saw me on the other side of the wall. But outside of that, snipers are a nightmare, you can just walk around and you're dead yiu don't know from were you shot you, i used to just listen to the sound and hope i saw them before getting shot. And then there are the guys with FREAKING FULL AUTOMATIC ROCKET LAUNCHERS THEY SOMETIMES SPAWN RIGHT BEHIND YOU IN A HALLWAY. I had moments were i was just walking around and boom i was dead. But all these problems a side. Butr all these problems aside, i restarted the a week later when i got stuck somewere out of frustartion. But when i knew what i ahd to do and knew the enemie placement. It was kinda fun i don't know why, i just have a weakness for wanky games.

Honestly, this game is not the least bit fair. Enemies are fast and have very good aim. Often, you are pitted against giant tanks that you can only kill at close range. You are often stuck in tight corridors filled with all kinds of turrets that will tear you to pieces very fast. There are sniper sections. I thought the concept for this game was pretty good, but the difficulty curve is very steep and, graphically, the game looks gloomy, which I guess was the idea. This game is yet another case of over-ambition. It is in no way the worst game in the world, but it has a few of the elements, which is enough to bring it down. That being said, it is still worth a try.

I got this game some years ago, and while I could remember playing it, I couldn't recall why I never saw the end of it. Playing it again recently, I quickly discovered why my past memories were so fuzzy. Turns out I'd been shutting out the memories of the constant slew of trenches and the pointless frustration of an all seeing, perfectly accurate AI system and guns that mostly took up space rather than providing solutions. While I can appreciate that the actual real-life trench warfare was a terrible thing to experience where death lurked and you felt hopelessly impotent, that really isn't the feeling you want your players to have when they're playing your games, especially when you're going as far as to change history to justify your setup. Needlessly lazy artificial difficulty, a muddy UI and control scheme, and just plain dull graphic design make Iron Storm a dreary alternate-history what-if game. Not completely incompetent, but not recommended either. If you really, really want alternate history and the FIrst World War together in a game, play Darkest of Days--that one's also a bit dodgy and quite absurd, but at least it's put together a bit more reasonably and there's at least a few flashes of brilliance in its various visual and level designs.

Iron Storm is one of those games that had "promise." With a wonderful story, and a rather unique concept, you'd think that the game would have become one of the top games when it was released; and had the game been released when it was supposed to have been, then yes, it probably would have. However, there's a problem. Iron Storm was meant to be released around the time of the original Half Life game. Looking at the graphics, it's not hard to tell this. Problem was, the developer ran into some trouble. By trouble, I mean that they ended up being bought out by another company, who took one look at Iron Storm and said "Eh, not worth it." So a development team of several dozen men and women (more than enough really) was suddenly cut down to only a handful. Then, to make things worse, even though the game needed some serious work the new owners wanted not to produce quality entertainment as the previous company did, and instead sought to just get as many games out there as they could. The saying "If you throw enough crap at the wall, something's gotta stick" comes to mind. Well in Iron Storm's case, that was the company's philosophy. Iron Storm was released in the latest Alpha build, with all the bugs associated with it. To the point that one out of three discs which were sold, wouldn't even work. If you can get around numerous bugs, gameplay issues, and random crashes for no apparent reason; then the game's somewhat worth the trouble.