Iron Harvest - Review

 

The other day I was debating which game to embark on playing next. I checked on XBOX Game Pass to see what new additions there were, one of them that stood out was Iron Harvest an alt-history real time strategy game. Designed by Maximilian Kiese , developed by King Art Games and published by Deep Silver. It was free (relatively speaking) and decided why not give it a go.

Over the last few weeks I have been drinking a lot more coffee, probably not a good thing but could be consuming much worse things. While I enjoy many fancy coffees nothing quite beats a good filter coffee. While coffee is great hot it degrades in quality the longer you take to drink it, pretty much once it get becomes warm it starts to lose it taste and smell. Playing Iron Harvest I found myself asking was this a great filter coffee that stayed hot for ages or had it become warm quickly and lost its appeal?

Story

Iron Harvest has an extremely rich story. It is an alternative history, set around the 1920's and featuring diesel driven mechs. There are multiple factions you can play as and all add information to the overarching story along with presenting their own back stories and history.  The base game features three factions; Polonia, Rusviet and Saxony.

The Polonia faction's lead character is Anna Kos, after the death of her brother she joins the resistance to try and take back her country from the Rusviet.  The Rusviet faction has you take control over a multitude of characters, there is divide, some looking for peace for Polonia and others wanting war. The Saxony faction has you play as General Gunter von Duisburg, a veteran of wars trying to help conquer Polonia and Rusviet, but is forced to question who is the true enemy?

Overall the story is amazing, well thought out, the only real down side is that to a degree the game finishes on a cliff hanger. Looking at the two DLC available at present neither seems to provide a full conclusion. This could mean there will be more DLC or perhaps the story will be continued in Iron Harvest 2 (if one is made).

Visuals

The visuals are absolutely stunning, the combination of the country side, wooded area, and snow covered fields combined with diesel powered mechs is quite a sight to behold. While exploring the towns and villages they have a very realistic feel and a lot of time and effort has been put into the landscapes. Then seeing large and in some cases huge mechs traversing these same areas is very surreal and cool. I love mechs, but seeing innovatively designed diesel powered ones was amazing. While clearly out of place in the real 1920's it can be easily imagined how a few things changing could have brought about their creation.

Overall the game is worth playing for the visuals alone and creates a sense of magic and wonder making me question as to 'what if' our world would look like now if diesel powered mechs had existed in the 1920's?

Music

The music has a very military sound, which fits perfectly with the style of game, and in honesty I do quite like military music as a genre. The music conveys both a feeling of sorrow and loss but also chance and possible victory. The soundtrack is created by Polish composers; Adam Skorupa (Witcher 3, Witcher Enhanced Edition, Shadow Warrior),  Krzystof Wierzynkiewicz (Bulletstorm, Ancestor's Legacy, Shadow Warrior), and Michal Cielecki (Shadow Warrior 1 and 2).

The soundtrack is relatively speaking quite short and is well under an hour in length. That being said I loved every track and is certainly one of the more standout soundtracks I have listened to this year. Overall a very enjoyable soundtrack that I have no doubt will listen to again even if not replaying the game itself.

Gameplay

Iron Harvest is a real time strategy game. It offers you the choice to try multiplayer, skirmishes and of course the main campaign itself. The gameplay is the weakest element of the game overall, and while there are certainly many great things about it there are some that really spoil it.

The missions vary between playing with a single hero and a few troops for support, protecting an area, and building up a base and going all out (my favorite type). Each hero has some great abilities and can take on a small group of enemies alone with very little effort. The mechs you have are really cool, not only in look but also on feel, creating ideal units and then combining them without others can make you a fearsome force. The downside is that you are very limited as to how many units you can produce, in the beginning of the game this is fine but as things go on the amount of enemy mech versus your own is very unbalanced. Additionally, after the first few mission standard troops seem pointless other than engineers that can repair the mechs. I could not quite tell if it was simply that the mechs were over powered or infantry (even the more advanced ones) were underpowered.

The game allows you to produce a very small amount of resources through your Headquarters, but most of it will need to be gathered from Iron mines and Oil pumps which can be captured and upgraded. They are able to produce resources indefinitely, so as long as you are careful and play slow you can dominate many of the maps. 

The gameplay starts failing a little over half through the game. The issue is that the enemies seems endless and overwhelmed me a lot. I have played many RTS games and never run into this level of imbalance, I am fine with a challenge but certain parts seemed unfair even on the normal difficulty setting. It started to feel grueling no matter what tactics I employed, I ended up watching a few videos to see what I was missing. 

Overall there is some great gameplay and some awesome units, but half way through the game starts to feel imbalanced and changes the game from being a challenge to a pain. 

Final Thoughts

So, after twenty hours plus how did I feel? Mixed. The story, visuals and music are amazing. The biggest flaw in the game is arguably the most important with an RTS which is the gameplay. While it starts balanced the game ramps up in difficulty to a level where it simply unfair and removes the joy I have gotten from most RTS games. This one could have had a higher score had some issues been resolved, sadly this one falls shy of its full potential and gets 3 out of 5

The Witcher Enhanced Edition - Review

It's 2020, whoop whoop!  I have a clear vision for the year, my eyesight is now 2020! Well, now that is out of my system let's get on with it.  Since the popularity of Netflix's The Witcher, I have been pumped to play the games again. I realized I had never played the first one and I like to play the whole series of a game franchise.  When Uncharted 4 came out I went back to the beginning and played them all. Apart from getting to see the whole story, it helps give me a greater appreciation for how far a game has come. The first time I felt this way was with Half-Life 2, and relatively speaking it still holds up well.


I am a sucker when it comes to cakes, biscuits or chocolates with coconut in them. There is a chance if I see one of those things with coconut in it I have already tried it or I'm going to try it.  A recent enough purchase was McVities Digestives Twists Chocolate Chip and Coconut biscuits.  I was excited to try them. Unfortunately, the experience was a bad one, they were super dry, tasted like a combination of low-grade chocolate, carob, and dark chocolate.  On top of that, there was barely a hint of coconut.  I learned my lesson though, just because I like coconuts snacks doesn't mean they are going to be good.  Playing The Witcher I found myself asking was this a great coconut treat or one I would end up regretting?

Story


The game has you take on the role of Geralt of Riva, a Witcher, experimented on a child and made into a monster killing machine just like all Witchers before him. The opening scene sees you unconscious on the ground, found by your fellow Witchers and brought back to your home Kaer Morhen. Shortly after waking up your secluded and secret home is invaded and after a skirmish, some powerful Witcher making materials are stolen. Geralt, along with the remaining Witchers go in search of those who attacked and robbed Kaer Morhen.


This is the basic outline of the story, along the way you will have to deal with a deadly group known only as Salamander.  The Scoia'tael,  non-humans that are being pushed to the brink of extinction and are willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want. Outside of that, you will have to deal with Royalty and navigate the twists and turn of politics.


While all of what I said sounds good the pacing can be extremely slow and sometimes drawn out. Friends of Geralt tell him they saw him die.  This is never really explained that well and there are only some small breadcrumbs handed out near the final scenes of the game.  The side missions help fill out the world and are often more exciting than the main narrative.


Overall the story was okay, but I don't feel the experience enriched the world of The Witcher for me.

Visuals


Originally The Witcher was originally released in 2007 and was released as an enhanced edition in 2008.  Considering the age of the game the visuals look surprisingly good. There are little frogs you see jumping around the place, a monkey/squirrel/pokemon creature that runs after you sometimes.  The background is pretty lush and can be quite varied. The finishing moves are purposefully in slow motion and look pretty cool.


Frame rates can be poor and sometimes take a bit for slightly more distant objects to load, but in fairness considering the age of the game, it is to be expected.  The 'romantic' cut sequences (one eyebrow raised) are fairly tasteful and don't really show anything, especially by comparison of the second and third games. The voice acting is a little overacted and is not always synced correctly with the character's facial movements.


Overall considering the age of the game it holds pretty well but would benefit massively from a full remaster, although that is easier said than done.



Music


The music definitely has an old school sound, and reminded me very much of Diablo and Warcraft 3 which is kind of cool. The composers are Polish composer Pawel Blaszczak and Adam Skorupa, who between them have worked on Dying Light, Call Of Juarez, Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, and Witcher 2.

The soundtrack is over an hour long and features some standout tracks including; 'Dead City',
'Last Battle', 'To Arms (Rebellion)', 'Do You Remember', and 'Tavern At The End Of The World'.

Overall the soundtrack was good, but due to the long, long, hours of playing, I found I had to mute it due to some track repeating over and over (not a fault of the composers, but added a niggle to an already frustrating game).

Gameplay


Many moons ago I used to play quite a few PC games but nowadays I enjoy the comfort and ease of console games. Going back to a full-on keyboard and mouse game was a little daunting, but I needn't have worried.  Almost the whole game can be played with the mouse which was great.  However, sword attacks can miss their mark even when targeted correctly, this got much worse during the epilogue. Additionally, in the epilogue magic spells (activate by pressing the right mouse button) would not always work.  This was incredibly frustrating especially at such a critical time in the game.


There is quite a cool leveling system in the game which rather than just focusing on level 1-20, for example, they use titles like 'Novice Witcher' and 'Skilled Witcher'.  Instead of the normal leveling points, you gain bronze, silver and gold talents each time you go up a rank.  I really liked this as I really had to think about what I was leveling up and wanted I needed.


There is a lot traveling to be done in The Witcher and all of it is on foot.  In place of a horse or a proper run, Geralt does what appears to be a type of prance. This is a pretty inefficient way of travelling and the game could have been completed much quicker with a proper run or some transport.


The missions can be a lot of fun, while there were main quests that I liked my favorites were the drinking ones. Drinking with Dandelion and Zoltan was always fun, especially when it ends up turning into a party. It reminded me of the mission Red Dead Redemption 2 where you get drunk and ends up with everyone looking like the same character. Another shoutout is to an old lady in the house that keeps kicking you out for no good reason over and over again. This got old quick until one point where you can select the answer 'Die you hag!' and she drops dead. There was the occasional issue where if I had multiple missions to be handed into an NPC none of them were recognized, or better yet one gets accepted and the other fails.


There are other activities for Geralt to complete when he isn't slaying monsters including; fist fighting, dice, drinking and 'romancing' humans and non-humans alike. So there are many characters Geralt can romance, and when I say romance I mean have a one night stand which often doesn't last that long.  I guess Geralt just isn't into pillow talk.


Up until the epilogue, my frustration with the game was relatively low but playing the epilogue became so brutal I almost had to throw in the towel. And when I say throw in the towel I mean break something.  It felt like the game just wasn't completed correctly, everything from sword fighting, casting spells and even not having a merchant in the epilogue was crazy when it was so long.


Overall the gameplay left me feeling frustrated and confused as to how things could take such a downward turn?




Final Thoughts

So, after nearly fifty hours how did I feel? Frustrated and let down.  The story wasn't bad and certainly had highlights.  The visuals were pretty good especially for an older game, the music was good.  The gameplay turned from okay into a total car wreck, I am shocked to see that it got such high ratings when it was released. This one gets a disappointing 2 out of 5.