Ok, I’ll kick off this review by admitting I’m actually pretty bad at this game, I spent a couple of weeks trying and honestly, I’m just bad 😀

So, onto the review…

Bow we’ve been following Ironcast on PC since it was released on STEAM March 2015, roll on a year later and the XBox One version was released on the 9th of March.

At it’s heart, IronCast is a turn based gem collecting game, but calling it just that does it an incredible disservice. This is a roguelike tactical RPG if ever there was one.

Inspired by Victorian era science fiction writers such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Ironcast is set in an exciting alternative history; a time when refined men and women in top hats and bonnets commanded gigantic walking war machines, laying waste to the enemies of the British Empire.

Take control of a 7 meter tall walking vehicle called an Ironcast and face off against an invading force of enemy Ironcast in order to defend 1880’s Victorian England. Battles are fought by generating resource nodes which in turn drive the Ironcast’s various weapons and systems. You must choose how to spend these nodes wisely, either offensively in order to cripple and destroy your opponents, or defensively, if they suspect a barrage of incoming weapons fire is due.

As the blurb says, you are the commander of an 1800’s era steampunk inspired steam tank/walker. You have to collect gems in your turn the correspond to ammo, coolant, etc, which you then use to move your mech, fire your weapons and/or raise your shields, but you never really have enough to do all of it.

The game is simple in idea, but in the execution, its easy to forget what you’ve done and as you’ll see in my twitch playthrough below, I regularly forgot to do something or simply ran out of what I needed to keep myself alive or attack the enemy. Now this could just be me, watching other streams, people are gettign the hang of it, but i also wonder if for me, the transistion from keyboard and mouse, to a single controller system is, for me, the downfall. Everything in the controller layout makes sense, and on screen the items are marked with the button that makes them work, but maybe it was too much for this old senile head to master.

That aside, I really enjoyed playing Ironcast and I love the steampunk vibe of the game.

The sound is also great too, the voice acting is a wonderful cockney British that makes me feel like I’m part of the game (it is my natural accent anyway) and the force feedback of the controller suited the sounds of the gun fire and moving mech perfectly too.

The leveling up and skill system seemed a little tricky to get to grips with and my main gripe while playing it on stream was some of the text is too small to read, even on my rather large tv in teh front room, something that would be less of a issue on a pc monitor you’d usually sit closer to.

As I said though, I enjoyed Ironcast and I will play it a lot more and it’s definitely worth £10, so head over to xbox.com or check your Xbox One’s store page!

~Lone

A Steam powered 6.5 out of 10!

Despite how some received the beta, The Division seems to have been mostly well-received so far. However, like all new games it has some issues to work out, and some of those are being solved through patch 1.02, the first major one since release.

Among other things it does a number of things to discourage combat logging. Firstly the disconnect timer has been increased to 30 seconds to stop people logging out to avoid fights they were losing against another player. At the same time the rewards for taking down a rogue player and surviving a rogue status have been increased, as well the the XP and DZ penalties upon death being decreased slightly.

The other notable change is the that stun upgrade to turrets have been nerfed to stop the occurrence of PvP encounters being entirely stunlocked for periods of time.

The full list of changes can be found here.

The in-game economy of GTA Online is giving into March Madness this week as several of the stores are offering up to 75% off the customisation options they offer.

The Lowriders Custom Classics week also offers double GTA$ and RP opportunities for anyone jumping into the various events dotted about Los Santos until next Friday. You’ll be able to pick up a Lowrider custom chassis or bodykit from Benny’s and there’s 75% off Bobbleheads, Custom Gear Shifts and Plaques. Ammunation is having a 50% off sale on the ammo for shotguns and rifles and across the map there’s also 25% off motorbikes. And in case you need more storage space for those vehicles, Dynasty 8 is offering 10-car garage properties for 25% off.

There’s also a Snapmatic competition running through the week with a cool GTA$1m up for grabs. All you need to do is a take a cool hot shot and upload it to Social Club with the hashtag #customclassics to enter.

The first Escalation missions for the new Hitman game have finally landed, extending the life of the game’s first episode with missions that see you asked to take out new targets in specific ways. And each successful attempt sees you unlock a more difficult version of the mission. Sounds good if you’re a challenge-seeker.

The first of the new Contracts is called “The Holmwood Disturbance” and sees players head to an attic, wear they will don a magician’s outfit and then eliminate target Faustin D’Aoust with a bullet. I’m assuming they mean shot from a gun of some sort, although I guess if it’s possible to choke them with it, that’d be accepted too. Each time you pass the mission, you’ll get more restrictions and obstacles added including extra security cameras, an additional target, disallowed pacifications, and forcing you to escape by speedboat.

The second new Escalation is “The Mandelbulb Requiem” and has Agent 47 eliminating target Michel Charest while dressed as a Palace Staffer. More difficult versions of it will ask you to hack a laptop, contend with extra security measures, and even use a different disguise to get to your target.

Of course, Escalation Contracts also don’t allow you to save during the mission, so it forces you to think on your feet a little more. If you get something wrong you need to figure out a way to get past it and continue your mission – or adapt and change your plan. In a way that’s a little bit more realistic and probably a bit more fun too unless you prefer to see your plans go like clockwork.

The second episode of the game should also be hitting sometime in the next month too, so prepare yourself for that.

The DLCs were announced a few weeks ago, and now we finally have the trailer for the first DLC public.

Automatron will release on March 22nd and will pit you against the mysterious Mechanist who has assembled an army of hostile robots and released them into the Commonwealth to cause havoc. You will be able to find these robots, destroy them and take their parts to construct your own robotic companions to fight back against the enemies of the Commonwealth. The trailer showed off the construction screen as well as many different scenes that resemble what I imagine Robot Wars would look like in the Wasteland. This content will be available to purchasers once they get their character to Level 15, which means you’re not going to meet a mechnical death machine just outside of Vault 111 with your fresh character.

Either way, I’m looking forward to making my own robotic companion. If you’re not so much, then maybe the following two months’ DLC packs – Wasteland Workshop in April, and Far Harbor in May – will be more up your street.