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The year is 1964. The world is still engulfed in war since it first began back in the early 1900’s. The enemy is a ruthless dictator who controls a German/Russian state and apparently has nothing better to do than continue a bloody war for 50 years. Enter Lieutenant Anderson. “Mr.. Anderson… either you are going to cooperate or … “ oh sorry, I can’t help it sometimes. Ahem, anyway, as I was saying. Enter your classic one-man army of destruction. Your goal is to defeat King Kuppa and save the Princess... err, I mean take on all the bad guys at once and uncover the mystery of the new ‘super weapon’ that could literally end the war almost immediate (wouldn’t that be a good thing at this point?) Iron storm is has an original setting, yet is presented in a rather cliché fashion.

Iron Storm starts out introducing you to Lt. Anderson. A special forces soldier who’s been assigned to single handedly defeat the opposing forces of evil and deliver the world unto peace. Sounds easy enough. Nothing you haven’t done before, right? You’ll equip yourself with the latest high tech gear, which include automatic quasi-machine rifles, shotguns, the dreaded sniper rifle and a radio ear-bud transmitter so you can keep in touch with your commander. You’ll run around your base collecting gear as you finally make your way to the front lines. The atmosphere is of war seems very authentic (after all, what would a computer-jockey like me know about real war?) Explosions shake the compound, trenches line the countryside and body parts are flying everywhere.

Your first task will be to relieve a few enemy snipers of their lives. They have your men pinned down and it’s your job to take them out. This is where it starts to get ugly. Throughout the entire game, you’ll have run-ins with these robotically wondrous sniper demi-gods. You’ll develop your reload & retry skills to a level previously thought unattainable by mere mortals. You thought the aimbot that ‘m4d UsAMa k1Lla’ used against you in Counter-Strike the other day was some bad-ass shit? You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. The enemy snipers are so insanely accurate, you’ll probably end up quitting in frustration. That is, unless you are some kind of sick masochist, like myself. Beyond your many battles with the atrocious snipers, you’ll see the other extreme of the AI. Enemy soldiers that shoot at each other, get stuck on objects and generally behave in other peculiar fashions. Occasionally you’ll actually get into a good firefight with the AI. Grenades will be used intuitively, cover fire may actually be useful and the action is fast paced and balanced. Unfortunately, these encounters are few and far between. Oh, I can’t forgot to mention the genetically engineered cybernetic death dogs. Well, I don’t think they were genetically engineered or have any sorts of cybernetics stuck in their hindquarters, but goddamn, I had nightmares about those dogs for a week the first time I encountered them!

As the story progresses, you’ll run into all sorts of weird tech. Comanche style gunships, lasers, mutated weapons of the late 60’s era and most of your common weapons of war like tanks, shotguns, grenades and whatnot. The difficulty progresses naturally, with the exception of the damn snipers, which seem to bandaid the difficulty to unrealistic levels. If you get swarmed, you can generally expect to get slaughtered. You can only carry a limited load out of weapons and if you run out of ammo, it’s best to drop what you are carrying and look for something else. This adds a nice sense of realism and the sort of difficulty that actually makes sense. There’s lot of infiltration too. It’s not all guns and glory. Thinking before you open fire on that pair of enemy soldiers can often lead to an easier encounter a few moments later. On the other hand, sometimes if you hesitate at the wrong time, you’ll pay the price. Fortunately by now, your reload skills have been honed to perfection so it only takes a moment to quick-load and try again. To sum up the gameplay, Iron Storm plays like your classic FPS but with a functional 3rd person view for those who may get motion sickness from the first person perspective.

Iron Storm uses the proprietary ‘Phoenix 3D’ engine. While it reminds me of the original Half-Life engine, it also plays a lot like it. The colors all have that sort of green/grey undertone that makes everything look very similar. The framerate was relatively smooth on a my PC (P4 2.8Ghz, GF4) with all the goodies turned up.

The sound effects were rather hollow. The ambient sounds consist of your typical sounds of war, explosions, artillery, etc. - nothing too glitchy or annoying, thankfully. They accomplished what they’re supposed to, which is set the mood of the game.

Iron Storm does include multiplayer functionality, powered by Gamespy. There were barely enough servers for me to find a low ping game. But hey, if you’re in the mood for something different, this could be a great LAN game. Iron Storm allows up to 16 players. While not record breaking, it’s adequate. The focus of the game was definitely more on the single player story but the actual gameplay still makes a fair translation over to multiplayer.

When the day is done, Iron Storm is a decent game, but I don’t see it winning any sort of awards for innovative gameplay. The setting is creative but is overshadowed by some of the other faults with the game. Besides the story, there just isn’t much we haven’t seen here before. If you long for something beyond the traditional Alien/Monster or World War II setting, then maybe Iron Storm is your savior.