Iron Grip: Warlord (PC) Review
System PC
Developer ISOTX Publisher ISOTX Genre First Person Shooter, RTS, Tower Defense # of Players 1-12 Release Date December 5th, 2008 (PC) |
Pros
Game is a functional FPS/RTS Hybrid Cons Difficulty Imbalance Little to no online community |
Review
by Thonos
6/26/2015
When you take two game genres and combine them, the results can be varied. Iron Grip: Warlord is a great example of this. Iron Grip: Warlords combines a first person shooter, tower defense, and real time strategy games into one. In the game you play as the Atelian Militia as they fight a war against the Confederation of Nallum. The game is set in a diselpunk world and while there is some backstory to the game, I found it to be pretty much irrelevant. Since there is no campaign mode, the backstory just gives the player a context as to why the two sides are fighting.
The general flow of the game is that you build turrets and defenses using the RTS mode of the game while using the FPS mode to help fend off the waves of enemies that come after you. Turrets can be upgraded for increased health and damage while other items can be used to slow the enemy down like poison traps and trip mines. In first person mode you go around the map shooting the waves of enemies using a variety of weapons that can be purchased. These include machine guns, shotguns, flamethrowers and rocket launchers along with some other guns and tools. You also repair your turrets from first person mode.
The goal of the game is to kill the enemy officers that spawn randomly on the map. They only show up on the map while you or another player sees them so its important to take them out as you find them. This will decrease the enemy morale and when that reaches zero you win the match. Likewise, if you constantly lose your stronghold to the enemy and/or don't take out the enemy officers in a timely manner, your morale goes down and you eventually lose the match. Other factors effect morale, but these are the biggest factors to contend with.
For being a hybrid game it does handle well. The RTS mode is pretty basic but is functional and does what it supposed to do. The first person mode works well and you can seemlessy go between the two modes. In first person mode the guns handle well and movement is not a problem. The only issue I had was that the rocket launcher is basically mandatory for taking out tanks and walkers which while a minor issue it would have been nice if more reliable options were available. As a whole I feel the game handles well and is one of the games strong points.
Graphically the games looks alright. The games textures looked average, not bad but not good either. The same goes for the character models, enemy models and the weapons. I found the audio to be pretty average as well. Each of the games eight maps are varied in there designs, giving the player multiple routes to get to the enemy and multiple chokepoints to defend. Each map has items scattered throughout that regenerate your health and give you more power to purchase items with. I would have liked to see more maps in the game but the included ones get the job done.
I felt the game had a difficulty imbalance. When playing solo or co-op on easy the game was pretty easy. When we switched to medium the game became ridiculously hard to the point that my brother and I were unable to win the match. We tried a few different maps and we had the same result. I tried a solo game on hard difficulty and I got overrun after the first enemy wave. While I'm not against a challenge, I got pretty frustrated with the games AI very quickly playing on anything other than easy difficulty.
As a whole Iron Grip: Warlord is not a bad game. While average looking, it does deliver on being a functional FPS/RTS hybrid game. While I found the bots to be too hard past medium difficulty, others may have an easy time with the higher difficulties. While the game supports up to 12 players, you are hardly going to find anyone online playing this game. This is a game you buy for bot play or LAN parties.
NOTE: My play through of the game included the Scorched Earth DLC. The DLC added some map weapons and two different enemies to contend with. The DLC also included a deathmatch mode that was not tested for this review.
by Thonos
6/26/2015
When you take two game genres and combine them, the results can be varied. Iron Grip: Warlord is a great example of this. Iron Grip: Warlords combines a first person shooter, tower defense, and real time strategy games into one. In the game you play as the Atelian Militia as they fight a war against the Confederation of Nallum. The game is set in a diselpunk world and while there is some backstory to the game, I found it to be pretty much irrelevant. Since there is no campaign mode, the backstory just gives the player a context as to why the two sides are fighting.
The general flow of the game is that you build turrets and defenses using the RTS mode of the game while using the FPS mode to help fend off the waves of enemies that come after you. Turrets can be upgraded for increased health and damage while other items can be used to slow the enemy down like poison traps and trip mines. In first person mode you go around the map shooting the waves of enemies using a variety of weapons that can be purchased. These include machine guns, shotguns, flamethrowers and rocket launchers along with some other guns and tools. You also repair your turrets from first person mode.
The goal of the game is to kill the enemy officers that spawn randomly on the map. They only show up on the map while you or another player sees them so its important to take them out as you find them. This will decrease the enemy morale and when that reaches zero you win the match. Likewise, if you constantly lose your stronghold to the enemy and/or don't take out the enemy officers in a timely manner, your morale goes down and you eventually lose the match. Other factors effect morale, but these are the biggest factors to contend with.
For being a hybrid game it does handle well. The RTS mode is pretty basic but is functional and does what it supposed to do. The first person mode works well and you can seemlessy go between the two modes. In first person mode the guns handle well and movement is not a problem. The only issue I had was that the rocket launcher is basically mandatory for taking out tanks and walkers which while a minor issue it would have been nice if more reliable options were available. As a whole I feel the game handles well and is one of the games strong points.
Graphically the games looks alright. The games textures looked average, not bad but not good either. The same goes for the character models, enemy models and the weapons. I found the audio to be pretty average as well. Each of the games eight maps are varied in there designs, giving the player multiple routes to get to the enemy and multiple chokepoints to defend. Each map has items scattered throughout that regenerate your health and give you more power to purchase items with. I would have liked to see more maps in the game but the included ones get the job done.
I felt the game had a difficulty imbalance. When playing solo or co-op on easy the game was pretty easy. When we switched to medium the game became ridiculously hard to the point that my brother and I were unable to win the match. We tried a few different maps and we had the same result. I tried a solo game on hard difficulty and I got overrun after the first enemy wave. While I'm not against a challenge, I got pretty frustrated with the games AI very quickly playing on anything other than easy difficulty.
As a whole Iron Grip: Warlord is not a bad game. While average looking, it does deliver on being a functional FPS/RTS hybrid game. While I found the bots to be too hard past medium difficulty, others may have an easy time with the higher difficulties. While the game supports up to 12 players, you are hardly going to find anyone online playing this game. This is a game you buy for bot play or LAN parties.
NOTE: My play through of the game included the Scorched Earth DLC. The DLC added some map weapons and two different enemies to contend with. The DLC also included a deathmatch mode that was not tested for this review.