Full Steam ahead

Strategy games

You’ll get a similar, albeit slower, experience in Strategy First’s line of titles, which are steadily appearing on Steam. Iron Warriors puts you in the same terrain as you see in Red Orchestra, but in a more contemporary T72 tank. Designed as both a single player and a multi player game, it's as realistic a depiction of tank combat as you’re going to see. Environments are destructible, and the ballistics model for the turret includes both the wind and oddities like how much wear there is on your tank’s barrel. It’s the kind of game where you see more 2D control panel than you do 3D world, and commanding a tank on your own is a nightmarish experience for a beginner. You can play one of three co-operative missions with your friends each manning a station in the same tank.

Dangerous Waters is basically Iron Warriors in boats instead of tanks. Your battlefield is the ocean instead of some Baltic snowfield, and the battlefield includes over 270 different platforms, from Aircraft Carriers and Subs to unmanned detection stations and buoys. Since you have numerous different vessels and each one has realistic stations ala Iron Warrior. More of a simulation than a game, it’s a beast to play. You’ll need to watch the many tutorial videos a few times before you can actually work the game out enough to play it.

Birth of America is a turn-based strategy game, where players can either fight for King or Confederacy across a beautifully lush 2D map of 18th Century America. All the battles are made fought by the computer, so you don’t need to get involved in the frantic micromanagement required in the Total War series of games, but you don’t get dirty in any battles either.

If the subject matter interests you, you’re sure to get hours of engaging play Strategy First’s games. The same could be said of the latest addition to the list of games available on Steam, X2 and X3.

X2 is a story driven game, which while detailed and full of interesting missions, only provides a short game before the player is left aimlessly RPGing across the galaxy. Being one of the few games where a destroyed ship leaves you floating in the vastness of space awaiting a slow death by asphyxiation, or a quick death at the hands of a suit failure, X2 gives you a real feeling of scale.

X3 builds on this, ditching as much of the story mode as possible, making a game that feels more open. It makes the game play like Elite; you’re just someone with empty pockets who wants to fill them. You flit from space station to space station, getting missions as and when you want them, as in the background you research and maintain a fleet of vehicles with which to make more money so you can research and maintain bigger and shiner vehicles.

There are more games and developers arriving regularly on Steam now, and they all seem to fit well into Valve’s existing catalogue of interest and oddness. Earth 2160 is the latest in the EARTH series of RTS. Although its graphics are nice and new, they depict the time tried play of pretty much every RTS since Dune – Build, mine resources, and then hopefully shoot stuff.

Shadowgrounds is another old school class of game – the top down shooter. If you’ve played Alien Breed you know exactly what your in for, spooky action and lots of crawly things to shoot. As well as slightly improving the control system over earlier TDS’, it also adds an interesting use of light and shadow. As well as being able to hide from your enemies in the dark, when you turn of your torch, you can scare smaller nasties away with your flashlight – saving your ammo for their more bitey, less timid bretherin.