It must be hard to come up with a new and novel gameplay experience. After all, pretty much every possible genre – and even fusion of genres – has been done. All that is left is to take an established genre and try to add a new twist to it.
And this brings me neatly to Iron Meat, a new game from Retroware and Ivan Valeryevich Suvarov, a game that so badly wants to be Contra that you can almost taste it. So, can this new kid on the block hold a candle to the daddy?
Now, starting with the presentation of the game, here the news is good. The graphical style is on the retro end of the spectrum, with a pleasing pixel art look to not only the soldiers but the enemies you face. Here I have to pay tribute to the design of the visuals; with the way the story is handled, the imagination of the design team has been given free rein. The Iron Meat of the title takes over seemingly innocuous things and transforms them into monsters, whether that be trucks, helicopters, or even trains. The design of the bosses is truly top-notch.
The levels themselves also look good, in a traditional left-to-right scrolling way, and even the regular foes have a nice design to them. And when the blurb on the store page says “gore-ific brutality”, it isn’t kidding, with the enemies all exploding into bloody puddles when you defeat them.
Sound is also on point, with each different gun you pick up having a nice sound to it, the enemies squishing as they are killed, and best of all, a rocktastic soundtrack that matches the action perfectly. Who could ask for more?
Story is usually nothing to write home about in these games, but here there has been an effort to shoehorn one in, so I’ll explain it.
A scientist named Yuri Markov has been performing experiments on the moon, as you do, and has managed to summon an interdimensional biomass called The Meat. Now, that wouldn’t be too bad, except for the fact that when The Meat consumes something, it mutates it into a new form, whether that be people or inanimate objects. And obviously, playing as a character called Vadim, it is our job to take out The Meat and get to the bottom of what happened. No problem, right?
The gameplay itself is standard Contra fare. Starting at the left of the screen, we have to keep running right, destroying the enemies we come across until we meet a mini-boss. Once they’re in the ground, rinse and repeat until we get to the main boss of the level, take them down, and it’s home for tea and medals.
Of course, along the way, there are a variety of hazards to overcome that have nothing to do with the enemy, mainly in the shape of jumping sections. I’m not sure whether it is my controller on the way out, but there seems to be a slight delay between pressing jump and our guy actually jumping, and this has led to a few naughty words as I fall from a platform again. This is especially annoying on the second level, which appears to be set in an elevator shaft, and constantly trying to jump upwards gets a bit old. Still, jump a bit sooner than you think, and you should be fine…
The controls of Iron Meat do annoy though, especially when it comes to being able to lie down prone, as you will need to do in order to avoid a lot of attacks or shoot small enemies. You see, in order to lie down, you have to press down when you aren’t using any other directional input, but in a fast-paced game, this is tricky. Otherwise, pressing down makes your guy shoot at a downward diagonal, which isn’t helpful for avoiding an attack that is about to kill you!
Two-player couch co-op is available for this game, and this works very well. I spent many a happy hour killing baddies with my son, and being able to split the enemy aggro is a good thing. Let it be known, the difficulty in Iron Meat, even on so-called “easy” mode, is very real, as it throws everything but the kitchen sink at you in an attempt to end your run. If you do die and have to continue, it’s right back to the beginning of the stage for you; there are no namby-pamby ‘pick up where you left off’ settings here.
All in all, Iron Meat can be mentioned in the same breath as those classics of the run-and-gun genre that we are all familiar with. The challenge is real, learning boss patterns is vital, and moreover, it is just good, old-fashioned fun. Give it a blast; you won’t be disappointed.
Iron Meat Serves Up a Platter of Bullet-Hell Action – https://www.thexboxhub.com/iron-meat-serves-up-a-platter-of-bullet-hell-action/
Buy Iron Meat – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/iron-meat/9MTF8W0FVHD3