Hello, my name is ColdBeer and this is my short review of Iron Harvest.
I played beta version, but the final result cannot be very far from this, because game
feels kinda finished and it’s release date is September 1st.
You can’t remake a game in a month, so it is fair to say that almost everything I will
mention will greet you in a final game as well.
Iron Harvest has many great and many annoying things I will definitely talk about.
I played the game for two days, so I have made quite firm opinion.
Let me tell you a bit about the setting.
Iron Harvest is a real-time strategy set in the alternate reality of 1920, just after
the end of the alternative First World War.
The game lets you control giant dieselpunk mechs, very cool robots created by the Polish
artist Jakub Rozalski.
Storywise Europe is still recovering from the brutal battles of the World War.
Cities are being rebuilt and in the countryside, the era of the Iron Harvest has begun.
Farmers are uncovering the remains of the majestic walking machines that had fought
on the battlefields of the Great War.
So, a lot of metal to sell and a lot of vodka to buy.
But this happy period doesn’t last long.
New war is already brewing and there is no way to avoid majestic battles and blood soaked
fields.
Iron Harvest has three campaigns available - you can play for Polania, alternative Poland,
for Rusviet - alternative Soviet Union and for Saxonia - alternative Germany.
Every faction has its own campaign scenario, maps, units and everything else.
Game is very beautiful graphics wise.
I would dare to say that this is probably the best looking RTS game that exists on this
day.
All landscapes, trees, combat troops and especially your mechs are really detailed - a true eye
candy to watch.
Or I should probably say “eye vodka”, because we all know that there is nothing
more beautiful than vodka.
Sadly this game, apart from graphics, is probably not what every RTS player dreams about, because
your units are slow and unresponsive.
That, to be fair, kills the fun and brings a lot of confusion in the first campaign missions,
because you are constantly unaware how to control your troops efficiently.
In example, your main hero Anna has some sniper shot ability that has 40 seconds cooldown,
but when you use the ability Anna will not shoot immediately.
After pressing the button she will do nothing.
She just stands like you never ordered anything.
Then she slowly lifts her rifle by her shoulder, says her catchphrase and then... then she
will aim for another second before shooting.
That slowlines, that clumsiness just kills the fun for me.
And Anna is not the only one who are doing such things.
If you want your troops to go to one place or another, in many cases, they will not even
react to your command.
They will stand there like nothing happened and you will click again and again until they
start reacting to your commands.
Everything has a delay.
And how about those majestic mechs, how are they responding to commands?
Take a look.
I’m commanding this cool robot, but when I click on the ground ordering him to go to
another direction his reaction is delayed.
Game has momentum implemented everywhere.
I understand that this is made for the reasons to make the game more realistic, but what
actually happens, that it invokes the feeling that you are playing with huge lag.
Or maybe not a lag, but ping of 400.
When you click, but you have delayed reaction for everything.
To be fair I should say that I’m a fan of Age of Empires and Starcraft - units in those
games respond immediately and I think that this should be a standard for any and every
RTS game.
Another issue I have with this game, that mechs are just huge units with more HP and
more DPS.
They can be killed just as simply as any other unit, they have no special abilities or anything
like that.
Of course some of them are meant to kill infantry, some of them are destined to destroy other
vehicles, but besides that they are just a simple unit.
You know, at first I was hoping that mechs will have a capability to walk through walls
or destroy houses, but in reality there is nothing like that.
Yeah, they can knock off some electricity poles or specially made destructible fence,
but they can’t go over or through the walls.
To be fair they can’t go even where they should go.
See this gap?
It’s impassable barrier for your mechs.
Look how mister robot is going around to kill some Rusviet soldiers.
That is a problem.
I hope this will be fixed in a final version of the game, but that doesn’t do the justice.
You know, I even hoped that huge robot can destroy infantry when stepping on them, but
alas, nothing like that.
Let’s say, if you play with delay, right, then it would be at least interesting to plan,
to try to take advantage of your heavy metal by planning the path of destruction through
your opponents troops.
It would be incredibly fun to squash them and make a blood soup beneath your feet.
But that’s not the case.
Despite all that the campaign felt kinda cool.
I played for Polania, because it is implemented in beta and I was pleasantly surprised.
Although story is kinda generic, evil Rusviets are killing and raping poor unarmed villagers
and their animals so you have to stop evil from spreading.
I imagined the raping part, because I wanted this game to be more immersive.
Oh silly me.
Missions are very long, it can take about an hour to finish one map, but here are at
least several really interesting and engaging ones, where enemy is constantly keeping you
on your tiptoes.
You leave your base - you get guests.
And those guests are tearing apart your base like butter.
So you have to come back and defend, then go and do another blitzkrieg again until your
base is under attack again, so you have to go back and so on.
That was really entertaining.
Also I tried multiplayer.
Here you can build up to 4 different buildings and conquer various mines for getting more
money, thus getting more troops and finally victory.
I lost ten times and won twice.
So obviously lobby is filled with more experienced players and newcomers like me are raped without
applying the soap.
Almost every single one of my opponents played like they practiced at least for a few weeks
and I felt like a little girl trying to wrestle a bear in the pool filled with my own tears.
My opponents already knew most efficient build order and made everything by a book.
I was thinking maybe they played Company of Heroes recently, a game that is the inspiration
for Iron Harvest.
To be fair, Iron Harvest is basically a clone of Company of Heroes, but I played that game
like 10 years ago and can’t remember anything.
Oh, and I should mention the voice acting - I can already see where they made a mistake.
You see I was working as a scriptwriter for TV shows in my country for many years and
I know that sometimes actor cannot say particular phrases realistically, so we often made changes
on the spot.
When some phrase sounds silly when spoken by actor, we have always asked how you would
say it in your own words.
And after that we proceeded with his phrase.
We left the same meaning, but changed the wording so the phrase sounded more realistic
while spoken.
In Iron Harvest it was never done - actors are reading the script as it is and it often
sounds silly, because you can tell that actress or actor would never ever say the phrase like
that, and it sounds dumb.
Also, why do they asked the actor to change his voice like that?
It’s not a cartoon network show where every character sounds funny, it’s a game which
will be played mostly by a grown men.
So, what is the verdict?
I would say for now 6 vodkas out of 10.
If they fix response time it can go up to the nine out of ten.
But if they leave responsiveness like it is now - nothing they could do will change my
score of six.
The controlling part in RTS games is the most important thing and if you don’t agree with
me I envy you, because you can enjoy the game where I cannot.
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news about upcoming games and many more cool stuff.
Have nice day and I’ll see you next time.