After reading what STEAM, which stands for Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace, and its gameplay is about, it’s fair to ask, “What the hell?” It’s a bizarre concept to say the least, and I have never played anything like it, but it’s not at all a bad thing because of how much the game has going for it.
Told in a comic book fashion through the game’s visuals and cinematics with onomatopoeias and all, the demo starts players out as Captain Henry Fleming, who was charged with protecting the Queen of England when the invasion began. After playing a few tutorial missions, he meets up with John Henry. The pair battle their way through hordes of aliens after a mysterious voice over communications tells them to rendezvous at a certain location. The goal in each mission is essentially getting from point A to point B.
Steam technology plays the most vital part in the gameplay. The gear characters use runs on steam, which effects both movement and attacks. In a board game manner, moving from any space cost one steam unit, but moving back to any spaces in the same turn doesn’t subtract any. Using a weapon, however, permanently takes away steam for the turn, limiting character movement. Unused steam also carries over to the next turn, allowing characters to either move more spaces or conduct more attacks. Grabbing health on the field also takes any steam you could have used to back track for the turn. Even a simple movement during a turn adds intensity to the strategy.
Each character is also divided by an unofficial class. Fleming is balanced with a mid-range rifle and moderate health, whereas Henry is a tank who doesn’t have as much steam to move around, but has more health and a grenade launcher to boast. Knowing how to use these characters is important, especially since friendly fire is off.
The third-person shooting matters because aiming for the right spot depends on how much damage is dealt. Both characters and aliens have weak points. Character weak points are, of course, their heads while the aliens have a glowing spot. Henry’s grenade launcher deals the same amount of damage no matter where he aims, but using Fleming’s rifle to hit a weak point can probably likely kill an enemy faster. Figuring out how to effectively use the characters is key to a battle.
Stealth comes into play when you are trying to stay out of enemy sight. If you are spotted by an enemy during a turn, they will likely attack you during the next turn. This is where using cover and being aware of surroundings is important. When enemies randomly spawn, your character can easily get ambushed and taken down within a turn.
An interesting additional strategy is overwatch. If an enemy approaches for an attack and the character has enough leftover steam from the previous turn, the player will automatically attack with the weapon they are currently equipped with, which deals high damage and can potentially take a foe out. However, certain characters, particularly tanks like Henry, are not allowed to use overwatch. This can be especially useful if an alien spotted you and will likely come for you.
While playing the game as Henry and Fleming offered an excellent taste of what we can expect with the full game, it wasn’t until after the three missions where I got a sample of the true full course. Players are given one more level to play where they can control two more characters and are introduced to sub-weapons.
Before I dove into rescuing the Queen, I was taken to a menu where I chose my character’s loadouts, which in this case was strictly subweapons. Subweapons are typically earned by gathering coins on the battlefields and earning promotions. They can be assigned to any character. In the demo, I could use a rifle that heals my teammates, a steam rifle and a steam musket. Another part of the loadouts include boilers, which, if I had to guess, likely indicate how much steam a character can either use or start out with on each turn.
The last level introduced Tiger Lily and Lion (maybe from Wizard of Oz?). Tiger’s primary weapon was the medi-mortor, which heals anyone within its blast radius, while Lion can launch himself to damage enemies and reach new heights. Thanks to sub-weapons, I was able to maker Tiger more than just a healer and add further diverse firepower to Lion, Henry and Fleming. A four-man not only added more strategy on how to approach enemies, but taking them on was easier as well.
For completionists out there, each level also has three collectible golden cogs you can find. I don’t know if they serve a purpose to the game other than simple collection, but it at least serves as a nice, albeit small, extra.
The sheer amount of strategy involved in what I would call a generous demo now has me excited for STEAM’s release. Outside Pokemon, I have never really indulged myself in turn-based titles. Not because of disinterest, but I simply haven’t played others.
My main complaint with STEAM is how long enemies can take to make their moves sometimes. It would often take more than a minute for their turn to be over. It may not sound like much, but when you’re sitting there waiting your turn time after time again and you can’t usually see what’s going on because of the environment getting in the way or the camera fixates itself at an angle, it’s pretty irritating. A simple fast-forward button would make a great remedy for this problem.
Other than that, I look forward to seeing how STEAM turns out with its full release. As it’s expected of a demo, I wasn’t able to access things such as additional characters – and hopefully the Fire Emblem amiibo will be fun to use – or special abilities, but 3DS owners should try this demo with full steam ahead before the game releases March 13, 2015.
