Game review Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. - Steampunk, President Lincoln and Lovecraft monsters

I do not know about you, but I really like video games genre step-by-step strategies. This genre, unlike popular action games and shooters in the people, gives the player the opportunity to deliberately and carefully think through each of his subsequent actions before rushing into battle. I really do not like haste, so I can hardly afford to play games in which everything depends solely on the player's reaction. And so the game Code Name: STEAM was for me a very welcome project.

Studio Intelligent Systems was founded by the Japanese programmer Toru Narihiro in 1986 solely to help Nintendo port a number of games from the Famicom Disk System, a diskette format used in the 80's in Japan, to standard game cartridges that were sold in the United States for a set-top box NES. Initially, Intelligent Systems staff helped Nintendo's internal teams develop large projects and technical issues related to equipment. For example, this studio is still developing Nintendo platforms for developers.

In 1988, the light first appeared own game Intelligent Systems, which played a key role in the future fate of the studio. It was a step-by-step tactical strategy Famicom Wars (the name of the console Nintendo Famiсom, known in our country under the guise of the Taiwan clone Dendy). This not only allowed the Toru Narihiro team to get out of the shadow of other Nintendo indoor studios, but also glorified it throughout Japan. After all, the game, and the truth, turned out very unusual and fascinating.

In Famicom Wars, the player was given control of a tiny army on a map of the terrain, broken into cells. Competently using various combat units, which can be produced or built for money, he had to defeat enemy troops, while minimizing their own losses. After the player's game was over, the enemy phase began, when the same way he moved his tanks along the map and tried to destroy the player's army. Battles were depicted on a separate screen, where the player's units are on the left, and the enemy troops on the right. We can see something similar today in the Heroes of Might & Magic series, with the only difference being that in Famicom Wars the player could not influence the outcome of the battle that started. The winner of the struggle came out a unit with better characteristics and more energy.

Now all this sounds quite ordinary, but in 1988 it was a breath of fresh air in the gaming industry. True, here's to Europe and North America, the series got only in 2001 under the heading Advance Wars for the pocket console Game Boy Advance. This turn-based strategy has become incredibly popular among Western players, so the series to date has already 12 parts, the last of which was born in 2008.

The second popular series of the studio Intelligent Systems was Fire Emblem, born in 1990. This time, role-based elements were added to step-by-step mechanics. The focus was on carefully crafted characters with a set of unique combat skills. Each character developed with the course of the game and became stronger. But if the character was killed in a duel with the enemy, he left the player's team forever. This brought to the game an incredible connection between the gamer and his virtual heroes, because he understood: it's worth making mistakes - and all his work on the pumping of characters will be in vain.

The Fire Emblem series, like Advance Wars, has won millions of fans around the world. A unique game mechanics and carefully worked out plot, involving the player in the intricacies of political and military intrigue, fell in love with fans of turn-based strategies. To date, the series has more than 15 games and spin-offs. In addition to the games mentioned above, Intelligent Systems has developed many other projects, but it's step-by-step strategies that earned it well deserved respect from both the authorities and the players.

Code Name: STEAM is a new game for the Nintendo 3DS pocket console, inheriting the classic turn-based mechanics inherent in the Intelligent Systems series, but this time the first-person shooter elements were integrated into the project. As the main stylistics the developers chose steampunk. Let me remind you that the steampunk genre tells about the alternative history of the development of our world, in which mankind has mastered steam engines in perfection. Other popular steampunk video games are, for example, BioShock Infinite and Dishonored.

From the first seconds of the game, you have the impression that you are flipping through a comic book about Victorian London, because everything is deliberately looking as if it were an illustration of the history of superheroes. The storyline throws the unprepared player into the thick of battles with hostile aliens attacking the UK.

The main character is Henry Fleming, a member of the elite unit STEAM (Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace), which was formed by American President Abraham Lincoln specifically to provide a worthy rebuff to alien invaders. And here begins the most interesting, because the game surprisingly intertwines among themselves the famous classic works of literature, drawing a little from a variety of sources.

In addition to Abraham Lincoln (who, by the way, manages a giant combat robot similar to him) and Queen Victoria, in the game you will meet such colorful characters like Tiger Lily, the daughter of the leader of the Indians from Peter Pan, talking Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Woodman "The Wizard of Oz", tomboy Tom Sawyer for the authorship of Mark Twain and many other unusual personalities. If this is not enough for you, be prepared to meet the pantheon of ancient deities and an army of monsters, born of the imagination of the writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. All this is intertwined in an extravaganza of witty dialogues and unusual situations, with the help of which the game will present you a story in between relatively long levels.

The gameplay will seem quite familiar for those people who are familiar with other games of the studio Intelligent Systems. You have to command a squad of fighters, each of which is endowed with unique abilities. By combining their skills and carefully planning their actions, you must get to a certain place, destroy enemies or defend an important person who needs to be evacuated from the battlefield. Of course, all this is carried out step by step: first the player walks, and then the opponent, controlled by artificial intelligence.

Each action that a character makes from your team spends steam. Do not forget that we are talking about a world in which steam is the basis of almost all technologies, therefore, the main characters carry some stock of this valuable substance in special tanks constantly replenished by compact steam boilers. Moved to the level of one cell - expended one unit of steam, fired at the enemy - took a few more units (the amount depends on the power of the weapon). Steam is restored at the beginning of each new move or by additional cylinders that can be found at levels. Over time, your characters will be able to get more advanced steam boilers that will produce steam faster and in large quantities.

It is important to remember that not only do you see your enemies, but enemies also see you. If the enemy has noticed you, then during the next turn he will make an attack on one or several of your characters. If after the end of the turn your character has a certain amount of steam left, then in the opponent's phase he will be able to automatically shoot back from the enemies caught in his field of vision, as if defending himself. However, remember that this system operates in the opposite direction, so try not to get caught by the aliens and act as secretly as possible.

In the game there is no map of the terrain, so you will have to navigate according to your own memory. Carefully study the environment and do not lose sight of any important details. You can find boxes with bonus items, money or cylinders with flammable gas, which can be exploded with powerful opponents in one fell swoop. In addition to the items, you can stumble on the points of conservation, which, in addition to recording your progress, can restore the health of your team's heroes and the reserves of the pair (although you will have to pay for it with local currency - gold medals), as well as various instructions explaining the subtleties of the gameplay that also replenish steam stock of the character.

Shooting at opponents is quite traditional for shooters: aim and shoot. Remember that aliens have weaknesses that are highlighted on their body in purple. Getting into these points, you take away from them much more vital energy. Do not rush, look for the most advantageous positions for shelling opponents. Each character has the ability to carry two types of weapons. Arsenal of weapons is wide enough: from classic rifles and grenade launchers to healing cannons, restoring life to friendly characters.

Management in the game is not bad, but it's overshadowed by the fact that owners of Nintendo 3DS consoles for camera control and aiming will have to use four buttons A, B, X and Y that are not designed for this, which is very inconvenient. However, they can purchase an additional device Circle Pad Pro, which is an additional analog stick sticking on the console. Owners of the new revision console New Nintendo 3DS luckier: they have an additional control element C-Stick, with which to aim very conveniently. Although I would say that the sensitivity of the sight is too great and sometimes to direct it to the desired point is not so simple.

By the minuses of the game, you can safely attribute the low speed with which your opponents go. The situation improved slightly after the release of the patch, which added a "normal / fast" tempo switch to the game, but even with the fact that the enemies began to stir a little more actively, during their turn it is quite possible to start yawning. Because of this, the overall rhythm of the game becomes uneven, which will surely irritate impatient players. Levels are already long, and then there are these unhurried aliens. By the way, during the enemy move, you will see the level of the eyes of the hero, on which they have completed their own move. So you do not even know which of your other characters and which side was attacked by the enemy. Very uncomfortable.

As I said, visually the game is a mix of comics and the fiction of the Steampunk fiction. The characters are specially drawn very roughly and are surrounded by thick lines. Despite the fact that the artists of Intelligent Systems tried very hard, the game looks rather contradictory. Either she lacks the final polish, or the power of the console Nintendo 3DS did not allow developers to implement their plans in full. The color scheme seems too dark and depressing for the Nintendo project, which is somewhat frustrating, because even a steampunk can be bright and attractive. On the other hand, all this is a real taste, since there will certainly be people who like this style.

The music and sound in the game I had no complaints. The characters were voiced by famous actors who played in popular films, cartoons and serials: Will Wheaton (Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Big Bang Theory), Michael Dorn (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Fred Tataskior (Gravity Falls "" Adventure Time "), Cary Walgren (" Volt "," Aliens in the Attic "), Jeremy Shada (Finn from the animated television series" Time of Adventure "), James Urbaniac (" Mentalist "," Homeland "), Paul Eiding (Metal Gear Solid, StarCraft, Diablo) and Adam Baldwin ("Firefly", "All-metal shell").

If you suddenly want to compete against other players, then at your choice the game will offer several options for online matches, when you can put your best fighters against the opposing team. You can play both on the network and locally with friends who also have Nintendo 3DS and the game Code Name: STEAM Now briefly about the multiplayer modes. "Confrontation" - here wins the one who last remains alive in the battlefield. "Every man for himself" - each move is limited to 60 seconds. "Battle for medals" - in this mode the team that collected the largest amount of local currency, scattered in level, will win. "Battle ABE" - a holiday for fans of large humanoid robots, because that's what abbreviation ABE (Anthropomorphized Battle Engine) stands for.

In the game, you can use the amiibo collection figures, which are sold in the official online store Nintendo. Let me remind you that the reader for NFC-chips, mounted in these figures, is only for consoles New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL. Owners of the old 3DS will have to wait for the release of the external reader amiibo, which we promised Nintendo. With the help of characters from the series of games Fire Emblem you can add these characters to your team. They will fight on your side until they die in battle. After that you will have to attach the corresponding figure to your console again.

Pros:

• A real gift for fans of turn-based strategies.
• Unusual visual setting, combining comics and steampunk.
• A whole heap of famous literary characters.
• Chic monsters from the Lovecraft Necronomicon.
• A cool, slightly absurd and even sometimes crazy plot.
• Excellent combat system and a deep strategic component.
• The presence of several multiplayer modes.
• Voices were given to the heroes by famous actors.

Minuses:

• Controversial graphic execution.
• The phase of the enemy move lasts too long.
• Play without a C-Stick or Circle Pad Pro is very inconvenient.
• Too sensitive aiming.
• Absence of any level map.
• Fans of fast games will be frankly boring.
• There is a certain unfinished game.

Game Code Name: STEAM will definitely appeal to fans of turn-based strategy Valkyria Chronicles (I remembered for a long time what game it reminded me of), as well as fans of previous games of the studio Intelligent Systems. If you prefer fast entertainment - it is unlikely that this project will take your attention for a long time. I sincerely appreciated the high complexity and elaborated strategic component of the game - it's really interesting to play, it drags you on for dozens of hours. But the general atmosphere of the new IP from Nintendo turned controversial, because of what you constantly catch yourself thinking: something is not right here. This feeling does not leave you until the very end, which somewhat lubricates the overall picture. I put the game 7 points out of 10 . Code Name: STEAM goes on sale for all consoles of families Nintendo 3DS, New Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 2DS as early as May 15.

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/games/obzor-igry-code-name-s-t-e-a-m-stimpank-prezident-linkoln-i-chudovishha-lavkrafta.html.