Steel Rats

Yet another "not my genre but probably not too bad" game this week. Steel Rats is a peculiar one, pretty nice, polished and interesting, but getting at times a lot too frustrating for my personal gameplay tastes (scaffolding ramps and rotating thing, I am looking at you there).
While most of the driving is nicely assisted, I found the two-lanes depth at times a bit confusing and misleading. Luckily at times the game is extremely forgiving (unfortunately at other times it gets the opposite), but still I didn't make it past one hour. I reckong it's not my gameplay choice, but nevertheless absolutely not badly made.
I give it a 65/100, while I am sure that those of you more into sidescrolling frenzied action will probably like it a lot more.

After a couple of hours playing Steel Rats I'm ready to admit I don't want to play it anymore. But it's such a shame! I absolutely LOVE the movement controls! It is no exaggeration to say that the devs are definitely on to something here, something new and special. This is a physics platformer with extremely satisfying and original movement gameplay.
The problem is level design and combat. Trying new things usually comes with a risk. The awesomeness of the movement gameplay is held back by repetition and boring combat. Some parts are hard and the old school design of rinse and repeat is all over Steel Rats. Try the jump, fail, try the jump again, fail, try the jump again, fail, out of lives, back to the start of the level. Some people like that, but I don't. I feel like this philosophy had its time in the arcade, meant to eat quarters.
The combat is not a total loss though. My guess is that this is the trickiest gameplay element to implement when trying a new movement mechanic. Most of the time it works nicely. They have these bots that you defeat by driving fast through them, which is nice. Then there are these other bots that stand still and you have to also stand still near it and deflect projectiles by double tapping a button. That does not fit well. My feeling is that anything that deviates from the core movement philosophy is not good. So attack and defense should be attached to speed or maneuvers, not dedicated buttons like a normal platformer. I would definitely remove all the standing enemies. Maybe add sections with infinite road and implement more complex boss patterns there . So you are always driving forward and so is the enemy, in a mix of race and combat. Anyway, I'm just rambling now. Point is, combat is mostly boring and breaks the fun flow of the movement.
Other than that all I have are small comments. The upgrade and the selection of characters seem to add very little to the game at the cost of feeling like filler content. I find no noticeable difference between the bikers and I didn't play enough to find a use to most of those abilities, which were all too similar. Again, feels like filler. Feels like one character and maybe 3 upgradeable skills would be enough.
I was going to not recommend the game but I changed my mind. This is something new that I'm happy I got to play a little bit. Things that are different are good and I would like to see more of. Maybe get it on a sale though.

Fun game...if you have some patience with some quirks and mainly- the controls.
The story is actually a lot darker than I was expecting. At first I thought this was a balls out arcade game- drive fast, do tricks, destroy stuff...But I quickly realized its a little slower paced than that. You need to get a glimpse of whats ahead or youll die. You need to take out enemies and do tricks to keep a combo meter up, so youll earn more points to unlock the upgrades in each level etc. The more points you earn, you'll unlock perks and costumes which can be bought with junk collected from destroyed enemies. Achievements are well thought out and fun to get. Im pretty sure one of the voice actors is the general's voice from the game Renegade Ops, (excellent game btw). So whats not to like?
Like others have mentioned- the controls take a bit to get used to. It IS manageable, but you will inevitably die. A lot. Partly because there isnt really a template for this sort of game, so having to remember what button does what- be it from spinning, dashing, regular attack, special move, ultimate move, u-turns, grinding, jumping, braking, etc can get confusing real quick if youre not careful. I played the campaign to completion in about 9ish hours and still never felt confident with the controls. Also, sometimes it felt like the game wasnt quite registering the controls properly sometimes which caused many deaths. And one more thing- if you land on your head- instant death. Ugh.
Having said that, there's also some design issues. Most notably- Levels where an enemy chases you (usually vertically) and you have a limited amount of time to do jumps, u-turns, etc through a small gauntlet to get to the next checkpoint. Problem is, the next checkpoint is usually where the sequence ends, so youll have to try over and over again to get it right. You can die as much as you want, but if you lose all your characters you wont start at the last checkpoint, instead youll start the level over from the beginning, (as you progress through the story youll unlock 4 characters- each time you die you get a few more chances for each one, but I was always unsure how many more i had before having to select another character). The game crashed about 5 times, and I had a few instances where my character clipped underneath the "road" and fell endlessly until I restarted the game. Not a huge deal, but worth noting.
Going back to the characters- toggling through them is easy, but since they all kinda look all the same its hard to differentiate who is who. The only way to know is by taking your eyes off your character and looking to the upper top left of the screen with tiny avatars. It wouldve been better if their names were there too, and maybe adding their names underneath or above my actual character Im controlling would be much less of a guessing game. The guy with the lightning bolt drone is clearly the best out of all of them, while the guy with the harpoon I found to be completely useless.
There are also upgrades, but the problem is the developers chose a predetermined path rather than letting the player decide what they want to upgrade. Want to get your health up for all characters as soon as possible? Well you may get one unlock during an early mission, but the others are scattered throughout the campaign.
It sounds like Im dogging the game bad, but honestly, overall I had fun with it. Its sort of unique, as its kinda like Trials but with vehicle combat mixed in too, with a dark story in a 2.5D gameplay. Not much else out there like it. I enjoyed it, and considering its frequently on sale for 90% off its definitely worth playing. Hopefully they make a sequel and improve upon what they have here.

I would definitely recommend this 2.5D game. It is dynamic and original, there is no room for boredom while playing it. Its achievement system is great: there are 46 fascinating achievements, and it can become a real challenge to unlock them all.
'Play n' chill' would describe it best, especially if you like this invaders-must-die theme as this game is about a post-apocalyptic world.