Iron Storm (PC video game): Difference between revisions
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{{work|wppage=Iron Storm (video game)}}
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{{quote|''[[Sarcasm Mode|This delightful and cheery war]] started in July 1914. It is now February 1964, and [[Lampshade Hanging|believe it or not]]... [[Forever War|it's still being waged]]...'' |'''[[The Hero|Lieutenant Anderson's]] [[Opening Narration]]'''}}
'''''Iron Storm''''' is a 2002 [[First-Person Shooter]] / [[Third-Person Shooter]] game, created by French developer 4x Studios and published by Dreamcatcher Interactive. The game is a fairly typical war FPS, but offers lots of good level design and a huge amount of intelligent opponents. What sets it apart from most games of the genre, is its very unique [[Alternate History]] setting and engaging atmosphere.
In the game's [[Backstory]], [[World War
Sounds like a fairly straight-forward action and espionage story ? Well then : Expect a few interesting twists on your way...
{{tropelist}}
* [[All There in the Manual]]: The [https://web.archive.org/web/20090906185930/http://www.ironstorm.com/weapons.html names and specs of the weapons] and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20090906185820/http://www.ironstorm.com/characters.html short biographies of the main characters]. The original manual that shipped with the game even had a few [[Fictional Document
* [[Alternate History]]: One of its selling points, no less. It was arguably one of the first mainstream shooter games where AH was a deliberate part of the backstory and plot. It's also one of the few games that are set in [[World War
* [[Artificial Brilliance]]: Though the game's budget wasn't big (it's nearly an indie game), the AI of the enemy soldiers is surprisingly high and cunning. You
* [[Big Bad]]: Baron Ugenberg. {{spoiler|This gets subverted hard in the Twist Ending, where you discover he's become just an old senile [[Punch Clock Villain]] after years of gradual [[Villain Decay]].}}
▲* [[All There in the Manual]]: The [http://www.ironstorm.com/weapons.html names and specs of the weapons] and the [http://www.ironstorm.com/characters.html short biographies of the main characters]. The original manual that shipped with the game even had a few [[Fictional Document|Fictional Documents]] to better explain the various details and tone of the setting.
* [[But Thou Must!]]: Given the game's [[Useless Useful Stealth|dodgy handling of stealth mechanics]], there really isn't any way to escape from the Wolfenburg lab without [[Complete Monster|murdering every single scientist you find]]. To make it up to you, there's one officer cowering in a bathroom in the next lever [[Pet the Dog|who's death is entirely optional.]]▼
▲* [[Alternate History]]: One of its selling points, no less. It was arguably one of the first mainstream shooter games where AH was a deliberate part of the backstory and plot. It's also one of the few games that are set in [[World War One]] (or inspired by it).
* [[Call a Rabbit
▲* [[Artificial Brilliance]]: Though the game's budget wasn't big (it's nearly an indie game), the AI of the enemy soldiers is surprisingly high and cunning. You usualy can't lure them to fall for an old trick learned in other [[FPS]] games. If nothing else, the AI makes the game really challenging. There are occasional moments of [[Artificial Stupidity]], but thankfully, they're rare.
▲* [[Big Bad]]: Baron Ugenberg. {{spoiler|This gets subverted hard in the Twist Ending, where you discover he's become just an old senile [[Punch Clock Villain]] after years of gradual [[Villain Decay]].}}
* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Lieutenant Anderson is technically young ([[Younger Than They Look|around 40]]), but he's already graying, and looks well into his 50s. He's a war-hardened [[Badass Normal]] veteran nonetheless.
▲* [[But Thou Must]]: Given the game's [[Useless Useful Stealth|dodgy handling of stealth mechanics]], there really isn't any way to escape from the Wolfenburg lab without [[Complete Monster|murdering every single scientist you find]]. To make it up to you, there's one officer cowering in a bathroom in the next lever [[Pet the Dog|who's death is entirely optional.]]
* [[Cool Train]]: Baron Ugenberg's fierce "Tsar Ivan" armored train, a hulking steel monstrosity. [[Locomotive Level|And you get to spend an entire mission aboard it, gradually fighting your way through it's entire length, from the tail car to the locomotive.]] It's a surprisingly awesome mission.
▲* [[Call a Rabbit A Smeerp]]: Television (used mainly for newscasts and propaganda) is referred to as DRT, which stands for "[[Gratuitous German|Deutsche-Russische Tagesschau]]" ("German-Russian News(caster)"). As the in-game dialogue indicates, it was apparently invented first in Ugenberg's empire and only later smuggled to the USWE.
▲* [[Cool Gun|Cool Guns]]: Cool? Yes. Shiny? [[Used Future|Never.]]
▲* [[Cool Old Guy]]: Lieutenant Anderson is technically young ([[Younger Than They Look|around 40]]), but he's already graying, and looks well into his 50s. He's a war-hardened [[Badass Normal]] veteran nonetheless.
▲* [[Cool Train]]: Baron Ugenberg's fierce "Tsar Ivan" armored train, a hulking steel monstrosity. [[Locomotive Level|And you get to spend an entire mission aboard it, gradually fighting your way through it's entire length, from the tail car to the locomotive.]] It's a surprisingly awesome mission.
* [[Controllable Helplessness]]: {{spoiler|When you break into the lab, you are immediately captured. Rather than switching to a cutscene, the game will not allow you to proceed until you manually discard ALL of your weapons and toss them to the nearest officer mook. Now THAT's twisting the knife.}}
** Well, technically you can {{spoiler|just shoot the officer and run through the open door...at which point you'll get mowed down by an invincible rocket-launcher-wielding mook.}}
* [[Crapsack World]] / [[Dystopia]]: Where... to... begin...
** Lets just say that the game's setting isn't a nice place to live (or die) in.
* [[Damn You, Muscle Memory!]]: Selecting a weapon works a bit differently than in most [[FPS]] games. First, you select it with the appropriate keybind or the mouse wheel, and ''then'' you have to click the left mouse button so your character will unholster it and put it in his hands.
* [[
* [[Elite Mooks]]: The Russo-Mongolians have their Siberian troopers, armored [[Gas Mask Mooks]] with enhanced health and equipped with a full-auto rifle that fires explosive, one-shot-kill rounds.
** {{spoiler|In the final level, you encounter Consortium troopers, the soldiers of the American military-industrial complex that is secretly
* [[Expy]] / [[Captain Ersatz]]: It's painfully obvious that Baron Ugenberg is based on none other than the infamous baron Roman Nikolai [[Ungern-Sternberg]]. The only real difference between them is that [[Mirror Universe|Ugenberg was Sternberg's opposite]] [[Villain Sue|when it comes to competence]].
** [[Dummied Out|Earlier in development]], Ugenberg [[Historical Domain Character|was directly referred to as Ungern-Sternberg]]. A few traces of this survive (particularly with a tank designated the "US-III").
* [[Fackler Scale of FPS Realism]]: The game isn't a true tactical shooter per se, but still requires you to take precise aim, choose your gear wisely and carefully fight your way through enemy territory. [[Do Not Run
* [[The Federation]]: The United States of Western Europe seems to be this, compared to Ugenberg's
▲* [[The Federation]]: The United States of Western Europe seems to be this, compared to Ugenberg's opressive empire. At first, that is. As you gradually progress through the game, you start becoming increasingly aware of the painful truth : {{spoiler|Both regimes, despite their outer coating of [[White and Black Morality]], are actually [[Not So Different]].}}
* [[First Person Ghost]]: Averted. Arguably one of the first games where you could easily look down and see most of your legs and feet.
* [[Forever War]]: 50 years of bloodshed and no end in sight. It gets all the more ridiculous when you learn it has turned into a literal [[War for Fun
* [[Gas Mask Mooks]]: Many of Ugenberg's soldiers, in addition to their [[Putting
* [[Giant Mook]]: In the console remake, ''World War Zero'', a more dramatic "final boss" battle is added in which you fight {{spoiler|A pair of Giant Mooks wearing steampunk power armor and equipped with dual wielded miniguns and acid-throwers.}}
* [[Gun Porn]]: If you're an enthusiast of [[Used Future]] style guns...
* [[Gunship Rescue]]: Bulky dieselpunk helicopters constantly scout above the main frontlines. You even see one of them get shot down and crash while running through a trench.
* [[He Who Fights Monsters]]: {{spoiler|Oddly, not the protagonist. It's implied that humanity as a whole has become completely accustomed to war and has turned into a race of militaristic [[Crazy Survivalist
* [[Hollywood Silencer]]: Averted. Though the silenced pistol still makes the obligatory "fwip" sound, it's also pretty loud and can be easily heard by enemy soldiers if fired at a close distance. The pistol has little use in most of the game though - except for an occasional [[Stealth
* [[Humans Are
* [[Hyperspace Arsenal]]: An effectively done aversion of this trope (with a few minor hiccups though). You can only carry one weapon from each class at a time. This can get pretty tricky, especially with slot 4, which houses most of your heavier firearms (marksman rifles, assault rifles, portable machine guns and grenade launchers). This forces you to choose your loadout carefully according to your current situation, since you can't carry both a marksman rifle and an assault rifle at the same time, etc. Sadly, it also gets a little ridiculous occasionally : ''You can't carry a simple silenced pistol and an SMG at the same time'' ([[Lampshade Hanging|as the tutorial is eager to inform you]]).
* [[Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels]]:
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** [[Nintendo Hard|Hard]]
** [[Harder Than Hard|Realistic]]
* [[It's Up to You]]: Played straight.
* [[Just a Stupid Accent]] / [[As Long
* [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better]]: Especially if you're the one who's carrying them.
* [[Mega Corp]]: "The Consortium" of the USWE. They deal primarily in heavy industry and arms manufacturing.
* [[More Dakka]]: Never enough in this game... Capturing an enemy's stationary machine gun and using it against them is particularly dakka-tacular...
* [[Nintendo Hard]]: The game is pretty hard and unforgiving even on Easy and Normal. The Hard and Realistic difficulty levels force you to really up the ante in terms of stealthiness [[Batman Gambit|and well-planned surprise attacks]].
* [[No
* [[Obligatory War Crime Scene]]: Several. A particularly memorable one occurs early on in the first level, where you glimpse a USWE conscript gunning down a
** There's also one building where you find a lot of USWE soldiers {{spoiler|that have been lynched, drowned in bathtubs, mutilated, and otherwise tortured to death}}. Another creepy place is {{spoiler|an abandoned trench near a bombed-out church, [[High Octane Nightmare Fuel|with a pile of skulls on spikes]] and [[Mood Dissonance|a religious icon looted from the church lying right next to them]]. [[Religion of Evil|This is all arranged to look like a small altar]].}}
* [[Old Soldier]] : Lieutenant Anderson.
* [[One Bullet Clips]] : Averted.
* [[Putting
* [[Real Is Brown]]: Both played straight and subverted.
* [[Red Shirt]] / [[Redshirt Army]]: The only defining traits of the regular USWE soldiers seem to be ridiculous [[Genre Blindness]] and [[Dying Like Animals]].
* [[Retro Universe]] / [[Schizo
** [[Fridge Brilliance]]: The tanks look surprisingly archaic compared to other military vehicles (in fact, like they're barely out of the ''1920s'') and are few and far between because {{spoiler|the [[Mega Corp|Consortium]] [[Government Conspiracy|wants to keep the war going]] - and it would likely ware out far sooner if trench warfare was avoided by using larger numbers of more advanced tanks.}} But that also makes it a bit of [[Fridge Logic]], since the fairly modern attack helicopters we see over the front would have done the same job equally well...
* [[Rule of Cool]]: It isn't a surreal dieselpunk dystopia for nothing...
* [[Scenery Gorn]]: So much of it goes [[Serial Escalation]]. Eerie [[Ghost Town
* [[Shell-Shocked Veteran]]: ''Everyone.''
* [[Silent Protagonist]]: Besides the trailer and a few cutscenes, lieutenant Anderson apparently hasn't got much to say. But hey, [[War Is Hell|can't blame him]]...
* [[Sliding Scale of Alternate History Plausibility]] : A little mushy, especially considering the
* [[Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty]] / [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: [[It Got Worse|Very]] cynical and ''very'' [[Hopeless War|bleak]] in tone.
* [[Sniper Rifle]]: The [[Shout
* [[Space
* [[Spiritual Successor]]: The ''Bet on a Soldier'' series of [[FPS
* [[Standard FPS Guns]]: But with a [[
* [[Sticks to
* [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Stupid Jetpack Ugenberg]]: But this trope is present to only a minor degree...
* [[Twist Ending]] / [[Anticlimax Boss]]: Handled really well. Beware, major spoilers ahead ! {{spoiler|When Anderson finally storms the Reichstag in Berlin and meets Ugenberg face-to-face, it turns out the old mad emperor is only a powerless figurehead now, [[Punch Clock Villain|a shadow of his former self]]. His empire is ruled more by various [[General Ripper
** [[Alternate Ending]] (also a [[Twist Ending]]): {{spoiler|When Anderson storms the Reichstag, an assault by Consortium (the American company/companies that are supplying everything to the USWE) troops happens at the same time, forcing Anderson to defend himself against not only the Russo-Mongolian troops, but also against the Consortium. He eventually reaches a room with a CCTV screen connected to other point in the Reichstag, and Anderson sees how the Consortium man that has been supporting him in the mission argues with Urgenberg: this discussion reveals that the Consortium has been supplying the Russo-Mongolian armies as well, that Urgenberg plans to stop the war in order to become a peacemaker after so many years of war and Urgenberg is
* [[Updated Rerelease]] : As ''World War Zero''. Published three years after the original, [[No Export for You|but sold only in the UK]].▼
* [[War Is Hell]]: It doesn't get more hellish and crapsacky (at least visually) than in this game.
* [[X Meets Y]]: Seriously, it's as if ''[[All Quiet
* [[Your Mom]]: One of the voice files for alerted Russian soldiers features the angrily pronounced "[[Bilingual Bonus|Tvoyu matz !]]".
▲* [[Updated Rerelease]] : As ''World War Zero''. Published three years after the original, [[No Export for You|but sold only in the UK]].
▲* [[War for Fun And Profit]]: ''And... how!''
▲* [[War Is Hell]]: It doesn't get more hellish and crapsacky (at least visually) than in this game.
▲* [[World War One]]: painted by a team-up of George Orwell and Hieronymus Bosch, apparently...
▲* [[X Meets Y]]: Seriously, it's as if ''[[All Quiet On the Western Front (Literature)|All Quiet On the Western Front]]'', ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' and ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' had a particularly rough threesome.
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[[Category:Iron Storm]]
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