8/29/2023 0 Comments Steamworld heist recruits![]() ![]() Robots will climb up ladders to get above you, jump off platforms to get below you, or just charge you with a shield, anything to get you out of cover. Enemies will often miss if you’re behind something, but they’ll also try to flank your weak side, adding a definite strategic element to the combat. Even if you’re just behind a barrel that only offers half cover, it’s better than being caught out in the open. Like any cover-based shooter, waist high walls are essential for survival. The action may progress in turns, but it feels fast and demands a keen eye. Those labels sell the game short, though, as it pulls off a neat trick of feeling more like a cover-based shooter than a strategy game. That fighting takes the form of a 2D, side-scrolling turn-based strategy game. In many ways this is the Firefly/Serenity game that fans have always wanted - a ragtag team of western-styled space outlaws fight against vicious raiders and a totalitarian government up to suspicious things in deep space, eventually learning that the two just might be connected. What begins as a mission of revenge turns into a bit of do-gooding, which then turns into a rebellion of sorts, and then into a battle for the fate of all steambot kind. The story itself is surprisingly engrossing, continually upping the stakes in a way that feels natural and thrilling. I started the game more interested in the gameplay than the story, but over the hours spent playing, the crew grew on me until I cared what each of them had to say after a mission. The best thing that I can say about the character work is that I came to like them all despite myself. Each crew member that you recruit begins as a cliché, but over time they’re all (robot readers please pardon the expression) fleshed out: the loyal pilot who has literally been built into the ship, the grumpy old seadog who lost his wife to salt rust, the hard-worked hard-edged farmer looking for justice, a mercenary dandy, an aged soldier, and more. Work camps and oppressive governments come up in casual conversation, adding an emotional weight to these cartoon robots. Most of that world building comes from the crew and the bits of backstory they offer up after you take them on a mission. The plot stays tightly focused on Piper and her crew, but it’s clear that they exist in a world with its own society and values and prejudices. Or the fact that the Royal Space Force exists as the oppressive government because they’re dieselbots and thus require less water than the steambots to survive. Instead, SteamWorld Heist teases the imagination with a throwaway line about parents giving their limbs to literally make a child, contrasted by the horror of zombie bots being rebuilt from various scraps. It’s filled with fascinating world building that isn’t doled out in long expositional speeches or through encyclopedia entries. Little details like that (of course steambots would build a society around water) make the game so surprising. With your having been crew hauled off to be parted out and your supplies low, you begin doing odd jobs for cash… Well, not cash exactly, water, which has replaced cash in this world of steambots and space deserts. You play as Piper Faraday, captain of a ship that was just raided by Scrappers. SteamWorld Heist is a game of little things - clever art, smart design, simple controls - that work to elevate this relatively simple game into something blissful. It’s a jaunty frontier earworm that goes well with the steambot outlaw life. Then the news reel ends, and the main menu appears with a theme song so damned perfect that you’ll want to spend hours just sitting on this menu screen. It’s a perfect encapsulation of the retro-future-steampunk-western style that defines the game. The imagery is grand but cartoony with robotic “cowbots” replacing all flesh and blood people. SteamWorld Heist opens with a 40s style news reel telling us how the earth shattered apart and now exists as an exposed planet core surrounded by rocky debris. ![]()
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