Ironcast Review

Ironcast is Inspired by Victorian era science fiction writers such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Ironcast is set in an exciting alternative history; a time when refined men and women in top hats and bonnets commanded gigantic walking war machines, laying waste to the enemies of the British Empire.

Supplied by Xbox you take control of a 7 meter tall walking vehicle called an Ironcast and face off against an invading force of enemy Ironcast in order to defend 1880’s Victorian England. Battles are fought by generating resource nodes which in turn drive the Ironcast’s various weapons and systems. You must choose how to spend these nodes wisely, either offensively in order to cripple and destroy your opponents, or defensively, if they suspect a barrage of incoming weapons fire is due.

From the offset the game looks like a side scrolling shooter in the realms of metal slug but with robots but then you have a screen pop up in the realms of candy crush but only less frustrating. You need to pair the nodes to gain ammo, armour, repairing options and coolant which cools down your robot once it becomes too hot from al the action. Combat is turn based and you take it in turns to match the nodes to defeat one another.

Visually it is easy on the eye…well the robots are that is, the background is the same but does vary as you progress…but honestly it doesn’t get any better.

The controls are laid out for you as you go along, With the mains shoulder buttons doing most of the work the Y button is where you can control the repairing of your robot. The sounds aren’t anything to shout about either, simple gunshot sounds and the basic robot movement, the dialogue is just text with no voice overs.

There are three different nodes you can collect whilst playing from the chain node which lets you chain together the same nodes if they’re in a nearby area, the scrap node which allow you to upgrade your robot in the workshop based at your base.XP is gained from battles which allows you to ad more health to your Ironcast and allows you to choose new Passive Augmentations or Abilities for your Ironcast. Missions are selected in the base and instantly reminded me of age of empires…i was feeling very nostalgic but there is a lot to do is this small ID game and Dreadbit did a really good job.