Steel Rats™

Steel Rats is a polished, creative, and fresh-feeling game, which combines disparate elements (motorcycle racing, platforming, beatemup type combat, RPG-type skill advancement) to good effect. The setting, artstyle, and music and sound design are great and very polished. The story is serviceable. I want very much to love the game, but cannot quite endorse it wholeheartedly. The main problem I have with the game is that, as polished as the gameplay is, it was clearly designed to be played with a controller. It is... mostly playable with a keyboard. You can rebind the keys freely, but that doesn't quite solve the problem: the issue isn't an odd key layout, but rather that the game requires you to press the keys in odd combinations which are awkward and uncomfortable on a keyboard. I don't think this can really be ironed out with patches, or anything, either, because it's so complex and baked-in to the design. I managed to beat the game playing with a keyboard, but I felt like I wasn't getting everything out of the game that it had to offer, and some of the more complicated and involved platforming sections were frustrating. Another, minor issue is that, since there are no clearly delineated "lanes" and the player can move freely on the Z axis, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether you will run into a given enemy, or fall into a given pit, etc. If the devs ever make a sequel (the ending leaves the plot open for a followup), these issues can probably be solved. All that said, however, I do absolutely recommend this game if you're looking for something different: even if I was sometimes frustrated with it, I mostly enjoyed it, it felt fresh and new, and I'll look out for any future games from the developers.

Terrible keyboard controls, and it won't let me use my gamepad.

*Intro* This is a 2,5D platforming game in which you ride a bike through levels and jump/destroy obstacles. *The Good* - It's pretty. - Neat idea... i guess. *The Bad* - Easy to die. - You constantly have to drive slowly to avoid obstacles/wait for energy to refill (you need it to cut obstacles to earn cash). - Pointless clumsy elevators. - Obstacles are sometimes hard to see. *The Ugly* I don't think you could come up with worse controls if you tried. Seriously, here's a simple overview: Up - accelerate Down - decelerate/reverse A/D - rotate bike in air Shift - Enable cutting wheel + speed up Ctrl - turn around W/S - Up/Down (on screen) Space - Jump To turn a corner neatly you have to press Up + W/S + Ctrl. Right middle finger + left middle finger + left pinky to turn? It feels so unnatural it breaks my brain. *Conclusion* Instead of being a badass biker you constantly have to struggle with the controls and drive extremely carefully and slowly to avoid breaking your bike or wait for energy to refill. Seriously, if you jump over an obstacle you can destroy that means you don't get cash (in this game junk is cash) for upgrades. What a bizarre design choice. Maybe if the controls were a bit better, turning was automatic and cutting didn't require waiting constantly this would've been passable but now it's just frustrating.

This could have been a fun game. But the awkward, confusing, sometimes irresponsive controls ruin what could have been a hidden gem of a game. Unfortunately, I spent more time being frustrated and yelling "NO, THE OTHER WAY!"; "That's not what I wanted" more often than not. Maybe next time Tate Media, maybe next time.