- Release Date: 1994 12
- Genre: Simulation
- Style: Giant Robot Sim
- Similar Games: Iron Soldier 2 (Atari Jaguar)
Game Description
Iron Soldier is a simulation based on operating a giant combat robot. The first-person style perspective shows your view from within the robot as you march through skyscraper filled cities or through open countryside. You control the direction and speed of the robot, change your view by moving its head, and select and fire weapons. There are six different locations to mount weapons on your robot. Your arsenal can include a 75mm rifle, grenades, gattling gun, rockets, and a giant chainsaw-like cutter. Your opposition includes helicopters, tanks, attack planes, rocket launchers and gun turrets. Also beware of enemy Iron Soldier units. Power-ups are found in crates that are hidden in buildings. The goal is to complete a series of missions featuring a variety of terrain, enemies, and objectives.~ Joseph Scoleri III, All Game Guide
Review: Overall
Iron Soldier is a legend among Jaguar fanatics. Within this group of gamers, it is an almost universally held opinion that, along with Aliens vs. Predator, this is the best the system has to offer. The game features intense but strategic giant robot action (a year before Mechwarrior 2 on the PC popularized the genre) and manages to pull it off very well.The game offers some of the best graphics to ever grace the console. Most of the 3D objects are flat shaded, but some of the more important items in the levels have texture mapping. Everything looks great, and the explosions in the game are simply gorgeous. It's unfortunate that the Jaguar was not able to support texture mapping on everything. That would have made the graphics truly great.
Iron Soldier's sound situation is a bit disappointing. If you want to turn the game's music on, you have to pay the price of losing some sound effects that would have come from enemy units in the distance. You will want to turn on the music since all the tracks all memorable, or catchy at the very least. The sound effects are fairly good, and you can easily recognize unit types by the sound effect they make. It's unfortunate that you have to lose some of these sound effects to play the music.
While graphical excellence helps, the bread and butter of a game is its gameplay. And this is where Iron Soldier truly shines. It really feels like you're lumbering around in a giant robot the size of a tall building. Once you get the controls down, you'll be able to move around as quickly and with as much agility as a building sized robot can, complete with an arsenal with enough firepower to blow up small cities. But the game isn't about rampaging through cities blowing up everything in your path. No, the amount of firepower the opposing force carries is enough to reduce you and your giant robot to scrap metal in very short order. Instead you have to play strategically, while taking into account the limitations of an Iron Soldier robot.
You'll want to get intimately familiar with the weapons in the game so you can use them to your advantage, shooting the enemy units while keeping out of their range. You'll also find yourself ducking behind buildings to avoid getting shot at and running around narrow city streets jockeying for position when you come upon more powerful units like heavy tanks or enemy Iron Soldier units. Iron Soldier manages to pack a very complex control scheme into the Jaguar's controller. It takes some getting used to, but it is intuitive and after awhile it becomes almost second nature.
Sporting great graphics, deep and intense gameplay, and a wealth of replay with many weapons combinations, Iron Soldier should be a staple of every Jaguar library. The game's sound is its most disappointing aspect, but that's only in comparison to how great the game is otherwise.
~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Enjoyment
Intense shooting action that also manages to be very strategic.~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Graphics
About as good as graphics on the Jaguar can get. More texture mapping would have helped.~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Sound
The most disappointing aspect of the game. To hear music you have to lose some sound effects.~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Replay Value
You'll be going back to each mission multiple times trying out different weapon combinations.~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
Review: Documentation
The manual does a good job of explaining the different weapons.~ Kyle Knight, All Game Guide
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