Parkan: Iron Strategy

First impressions of Iron Strategy were far from favourable. The first thing I noticed were the utterly awful terrain graphics. While not exactly pixellated, they look blocky close up with gaudy colouring completing the impression that the graphic artists literally slapped the terrain together in a matter of minutes. Things could only get better from here, and thankfully, they did. What seems at first glance to be a rudimentary shoot 'em up with strategy leanings soon develops into a mildly engrossing robotbuilding action game with several innovative features. For example, the ability to build your own warbots and send them into battle while you command the whole proceedings from the safety of your 'captain' robot is a nice touch. Missions usually involve capturing key buildings, which you can use to build up your robotic army, and then wading into enemy buildings and taking them over, or just shooting the hell out of enemy warbots.

The ability to build your own robots is particularly appealing. You can change any aspect of your bots during the construction process, including choosing the weapons they will use, how big they will be (certain functions can only be carried out by warbots of the correct size) and what armour they will use. Iron Strategy is unlikely to amaze you at any point, but if you can see past the dodgy graphics and often clumsy interface, you will find a game that's capable of taking up your time for at least a few days.