I like physics. I’m terrible at the actual calculations, but I enjoy the concepts involved and the way that things like energy, speed, and velocity interact to form all the basic rules of motion in the universe. That being said, I also love games that completely ignore physics for the sheer fun of it, doing things we are simply unable to do in real life. And that’s Steel Rats. Physics is straight out the window in this rather unique motorcycle combat game from Tate Multimedia, the relatively unknown company whose most famous title is Kao the Kangaroo and who has spawned such instant classics as The Saddle Club (yes, based on those pre-teen books by Bonnie Bryant) and My Horse And Me 2, a game so obscure that they couldn’t be bothered to fix the blatant HTML errors on the second paragraph of the homepage for it. Suffice it to say, Tate Multimedia is pretty unknown. But now they have something new, and it might actually make people take notice of them.
Steel Rats is a single player story-based motorcycle combat game with a lot of charm, some solid music, and a lot of physics-defying fun. In short, you’re a member of an outcast group of bikers whose city has been invaded by mysterious robots that seem to be made of all the scrap lying around the city. Apparently there’s not much recycling there, because there are a ton of robots to fight. Actually, thousands of robots if you added up all the sizes of them, the amount of metal it would take to make them, and…ugh, um…sorry about that. We’re skipping physics. Got it now. I’m good. Really.
Anyway, the robots are all over you so you hop on your trusty weaponized motorcycle and go on the offensive. The story is thin but entertaining; just enough to justify the game play and keep things moving without asking any hard questions. As you progress, you unlock four separate characters, each with their own distinctive moves, abilities, and motorcycles, which you can also customize. But you’re not really here for the story. You’re here for the combat. And it’s actually surprisingly fun.
In Steel Rats, your entire gameplay field is primarily two-dimensional. No trailing cameras, no bs, just driving left and right. Oh, and up and down. Didn’t I mention that? Part of what makes Steel Rats unique is that with the touch of a button, giant saw blades come out of your front wheel which you can use to attack enemies and cling to the environment. You literally drive up the sides of buildings, fight enemies while fully upside down, and can still turn on a dime while doing it. In addition, each biker has their own special attacks and ultimate attacks which become available as the game plays out. You purchase them between levels with money you make from the junk you collect and level criteria you fulfill while playing through levels. Don’t worry though, because unlike most games, Steel Rats gives you so much excess money that you can’t even spend it all, so you’re never hesitating to buy that next upgrade or even the next outfit as long as you kill most of the bots zipping about in the levels.
In addition to the gripping combat and unique attacks, Steel Rats has one more trick up its sleeve, that of front and back planes of combat. I know, I know, I said it was two-dimensional, and it both is and isn’t. Levels consist of at least two planes on the Z axis, meaning you can move from the foreground to the background and back quickly. It’s quite reminiscent of the classic Saturn game Guardian Heroes, only with a much smoother transition between planes. Enemies can follow you and travel at an angle between the fore and background though, so you’d best pay attention while zipping about! It’s easy to get stuck on the Z axis, especially while biking at high speed and trying to jump. As you race through levels, you’ll find that you’re forced to make a lot more movement on that plane than you do at the beginning of the game too, so don’t waste time learning how to utilize it effectively.
So with the basics out of the way, the real question is how does Steel Rats hold up? Turns out that it’s also pretty fun to play. The physics are quite floaty, which means that when you get your motorcycle airborne, it tends to hover a bit and then drift down, leaving you able to do all sorts of flip tricks and other small stunts, which the characters comment on if you’re successful. The banter between characters throughout the game is also utterly fantastic and really adds to the flavor of the game as well. You can flip, spin, and dash in midair, and you’ll definitely have to do all of that and a lot more to survive some of the unique enemy attacks in the game. It definitely takes a bit of getting used to however, and some of the controls are either non-intuitive or require buttons to be held while performing other actions, always a hassle. I found by around midway through the second area (each area is broken up into multiple stages) my hands were starting to get a bit sore, as some of the button combinations just feel a bit unnatural.
I didn’t run into much in the way of bugs with this one, though due to the loose physics (I’m trying to use it in as many sentences as I can now!) I tended to respawn in areas where I’d instantly die again more frequently than I’d have liked, and a few of the levels were quite non-intuitive. You will definitely encounter some moments of sheer frustration as your bike flips around like a coin in midair while trying to make a jump or you forget to hold down the wheel blades during combat and fall off the side of a building or into a pit.
Enemy variety is a bit weaker than I’d like and most levels don’t require you to even fight most of the enemies, so it’s entirely up to you how much you get out of the game. There are some interesting robots, but the boss fights are a little simplistic and not quite as entertaining as I’d like, although they do manage to make some flashy entrances! Zipping about the levels and figuring out how the heck to get to some areas is where the meat of the game lies, and even with focusing on that, I only managed to find about half the secrets in any area (there’s a secret in pretty much every level). Graphically, the game is simple but solid and I liked the overall feel of the design. Due to the scale of your bike however, which is totally necessary for the gameplay, you can’t really enjoy all the nifty skins available for each character and bike as you just can’t see them all that well.
The sound and voice acting is solid in Steel Rats too. I enjoyed the soundtrack, which comes with the deluxe edition of the game as a separate download, along with the game, a theme, and five avatars. For a measly extra $4, it’s probably worth grabbing. It’s nice to see a reasonably-priced deluxe edition for a change, and the base game weighs in nicely at the $20 mark, lasting around 6 or 7 hours, so no complaints all around. While you could finish it in a night of solid play, it’s got just enough going on to keep you coming back for a bit as well.
Ultimately, Steel Rats makes an excellent budget-priced title that’s fun to play, looks good, and gives good value for your money. It’s no War and Peace (in length or complexity), but it’s got an okay story that works well enough, and it’s pulled off with just enough flair to keep you engaged. I’d love to see some more complex combat with a wider variety of more versatile enemies, or maybe some biological ones, but I really can’t complain much. When push comes to shove, Steel Rats manages to deliver a fun experience, and that’s what’s most important these days. I would have loved to have a zoom function in combat so I could see a bit more detail of the characters even though it would have been detrimental to the gameplay, and I guarantee you will die while looking at what’s going on in the intricately designed backgrounds, but at least you’ll have fun doing it, and you don’t respawn too far back, so it’s all motorcycles under the bridge (sometimes literally). If you like racing combat, pick this one up. If you just want something that’s fun, pick it up too. Chances are you won’t regret it!
This review was written based on a digital copy of Steel Rats Deluxe Edition provided by the publisher and played on an PS4 Pro running on a Sony LED TV in 1080p.