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Review by zigfried
January 16, 2004

There are a lot of famous horizontal shoot-em-ups on the Genesis: Gleylancer, Task Force Harrier EX, Arrow Flash, and Air Buster. Actually, no one cares about those games anymore. It's not that they were necessarily bad, they just weren't able to compete with other, better shooters (or, as in Gleylancer's case, never even saw US release).

While designing Steel Empire, Hot-B no doubt realized the road facing them was cluttered with very stiff competition and littered with the broken, plastic corpses of forgotten shmups. The question: how does one make a shooter that will stand the test of time? Or, preferably, just sell a lot of copies?

It should seem obvious that the answer is either through flashy graphics or honey-sweet gameplay... neither of which are in Steel Empire. What we've got instead is a bitter, gooey blob of motor oil.

The year is 19XX and the zeppelins of the Motorhead Empire approach...

The apparent selling point of this game was that you pilot either a (miniscule) blimp or an (appropriately-sized) airplane fighter. The mission? Destroy the encroaching waves of Motorhead's tanks, zeppelins, and fighter planes. Once that has been accomplished, you must valiantly dive deep into the heart of Motorhead, seeking out and destroying the evil dictator!

Unfortunately, blimps aren't the strongest selling point in this day and age. And they weren't a strong point back in 1992 either. Perhaps some people might enjoy the idea of gatling-toting, supercharged WWI aircraft flying into orbit and beyond, but the whole thing struck me as being quite silly (and worse, dull). Nothing was done with the story beyond ''find and kill the enemy''. The opening screen was ingenious, with a stock WWI footage video opening (not to mention a fanfare theme), but the rest of the game falls flatter than a deflated balloon.

''Well, what did you expect from the Genesis?''

Obviously you wouldn't be reading this review if you didn't have some amount of respect for the system. Unfortunately, this is the kind of game that ''proves'' the naysayers right. Everyone has heard about the limited (and faded) 64-color palette. Well, take those faded browns, greys and greens, and splash them on the screen. Now, apply a translucent film to the TV screen to fade the colors to the point that even your Grampa's shirts scream style by comparison. That's Steel Empire right there!

To their credit, this extremely understated palette was intentional on Hot-B's part, to help achieve that ''old'' World War I feeling. Unfortunately, it's so overboard, and there's (almost) nothing of graphical interest, that the whole product comes across as bland.

What does work in the game? There's a very cool city in level 5. You begin the level flying past a giant blimp (that is slowly being destroyed by the Allied forces). As the blimp explodes and crashes to the ground, you descend upon the Motorhead capital for a night-time raid. The music in this part is also very well done, as the frantic ''blimp attack'' music segues into a more mysterious melody as you enter the city.

Speaking of the music, that is the most interesting part of the game. I actually noticed that Noriyuki Iwadare (Lunar, Grandia 2) had a role in the composition, which might help explain the strong sense of thematic style. The opening song is a fanfare (imagine trumpets, but distorted through the Genesis sound chip). While the rest of the music takes a more traditional and ''busy'' shooter approach, with frantic rhythm and constant upper-register movement, the fanfare melody still springs up from time to time. This helps to reinforce the WWI feeling, albeit in a much more pleasing manner than the graphics.

Unfortunately I've left the worst for last...

The gameplay, for a shooter, especially a Genesis shooter, is outright abysmal. The interesting part is that you can fire left or right (depending on which button you press), similar to Section Z (Sidearms). Also, you have the standard ''blow everything up in a huge ball o' mess'' bombs.

The bad part? Whenever things shoot at you, the game slows down. Every boss (or mid-boss) battle is in slow motion. Yes, there's been slowdown on other Genesis shooters, but every single battle is quite extreme! Of course, sometimes the slowdown does go away. There's nothing better than fighting the submarine boss's waves of bullets, only to have the slowdown temporarily vanish, hurtling the bullets straight from 5 to 300 miles per hour. Is that not bad enough? Then consider this: you have 20 levels of basic shot powerup. Level 20 only appears to be firing out twice as many streams of bullets as level 1. Oh, your shots do get more powerful, but 20 levels of powerup would have been the perfect opportunity for some eyecandy. Finally, the greatest crime is the number of ''cheap hits''. Hot-B must have decided that, since you have a vitality bar, it would be a good idea to throw in a few spots where it's simply impossible to avoid everything (thus depleting that precious lifebar).

In nearly every way, the game is not only uninteresting, but is actually worse than typical Genesis fare. Even a shooter fan who just wants to test his or her skill will breeze through this in one or two sittings. Steel Empire desperately tries to be average, but it just manages to miss the mark. Add one more broken body to the pile of unremarkable shooters.

//Zig

Graphics: 4/10
Music: 7/10
Gameplay: 3/10
Challenge: 3/10

Rating: 4/10

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Game Profile & Content

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Staff Score (Avg): 3.0 User Score (Avg): N/A Press Score (Avg): N/A
Reviews: 1 Guides: 0 Cheats: 4 Ratings: 1	High Scores: 0 Screenshots: 1 Videos: 0

Title: Steel Empire
Genre: Shooter
Publisher: Acclaim Entertainment
Developer: Hot-B
Release Date: 1992
ESRB: N/A
Save: N/A
Platforms: GBA, GEN

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