Rusty Battalion

Iron Brigade (née Trenched) isn't a bad game, exactly, for its time. It combines the simplest and most visceral part of a mech-piloting game (putting huge gun turrets on metal legs) with a Tower Defense turret-placement game, picking up a "commander in-combat" feeling along the way. The thin-but-flashy presentation and light-but-thrilling gameplay makes it reasonably competitive with contemporaries like Toy Soldiers.

But even from very early in the campaign, it's clear that Iron Brigade isn't thoroughly exploring the space between the normally-appealing sub-genres it's combined. Your "trench" mech plods along slowly, with satisfying heft ... which makes battlefield obstacles as burdensome to you as they are to enemies. Turret placements are controlled from your mech suit, in close proximity ... which restricts your ability to manage the larger battlefield. Mech suit upgrades are customized inbetween missions ... which limits your weapon choices in the mission itself.

And, as much as the Double Fine level of audio-visual polish tries to conceal it, each mission is still just a wave-after-wave series of brainless enemies that you need to unload bullets into. The narrative backdrop is transparent and disposable.

And so, like Brütal Legend before it, Iron Brigade comes across like a riveting high-concept that was blessed with high production values and enough micro-level design to be playable, but not enough macro-level design to be cohesively engaging.

Progress: Finished the first non-tutorial mission (Europe, Beach).