A creative blend of speculative fantasy and conventional lead-slinging...
Iron Storm still stands as the only approximation of a day in the life of a trench dweller. The game is actually set in the ‘60s, but along a divergent timeline that assumes that the obsolete and costly tactics of WWI continued on for fifty years. As the story goes, death dealing is commoditized to such an extent that a cessation of hostilities represents a dear and undesirable cost to a number of investors in arms manufacturing enterprises on either front. Iron Storm does a competent job of incorporating the corrupted rah-rah ideals of a group of leaders who likely have no real idea of just why they’re fighting into the storyline as brief (and often hint-laden) news broadcasts from the opposition. I’ve always enjoyed the use of piecemeal exposition through hidden or passive artifacts -- like Doom 3’s PDA entries or FEAR’s voicemail messages – and each of Iron Storm’s updates were of just the right length and level of detail.
Once the player successfully survives such WWI-era throwbacks as a thoroughly blasted no man’s land, gas attacks, and numerous fixed-placement machine guns, there are still plenty of deadly anachronisms like assault helicopters and exploding dogs (I was warned about by the latter by the expository newsreels, but I was still surprised out of my mind when the first pup detonated at my feet). Later levels are incredibly difficult – those KSK heavy cannons are almost always a one-hit kill – but overall I was never once bored. I must admit that the stealth-oriented levels in the enemy’s bunker/lab and, especially, the armored train were screamingly frustrating, at first. With a bit of practice, however, I was able to navigate both areas without raising many alarms.
4X Studios did a remarkable job of designing Iron Storm’s heavy, bulky weapons, machinery, and electronics equipment from 1914 forward through the perspective of a culture trapped in the gears of an unending war. The train was especially interesting as a huge traveling bunker, as were the cobbled streets and shattered buildings of a town frozen in time. Iron Storm doesn’t present a true-to-life enactment of the first major war of the Twentieth Century, but instead builds a completely new world around the wearying dread and ghastly carnage of that conflict’s protracted stalemate. Iron Storm’s engine and gameplay are still robust enough to entertain FPS fans four years after its release.