By PlummerX

Publisher: Shrapnel Games
Developer: eSim Games
Released: Aug 25th 2000
Purchase: $39.95 Shrapnel Games Store

Once in a great while, a sim comes along that, at a casual glance, is nothing special. There may be little hoopla and/or promotion that preceded it. It may come from a little known publisher, and a previously unknown developer. But once you sit with it, play it, and learn to appreciate all that it can do, all it’s subtleties, you suddenly realize you’ve stumbled upon something very special and very unlike anything you have every played before. Such a sim is Steel Beasts.

The tank sim sub-genre is one that has struggled as of late. You had games like M1 Tank Platoon 2 or Armored fist 3, both lacking enough in the realism department to leave a sim enthusiast un-rewarded. There is the very excellent Panzer Elite, which at the moment is tough to find because the publisher simply decided to bag it, leaving the developer to try and re-obtain rights to the game as people who want a copy cant find one. But PE is a WWII sim, and fans of modern high-speed armored warfare want a sim they can get into.

What makes Steel Beasts different? Well, a lot of things. The things it does and the things it does not do. The developers, eSim games, seem to take a bit of a different approach. They have melded aspects of a true 3D sim with all the mental aspects of a strategy game, and done it with great success. It seems there were specific design goals, a determination not to go off on a tangent and an effort to concentrate on getting what was in the plan right. The strategy paid off.

The 3D portion of the game seems at first unimpressive. The graphics are conspicuously un-accelerated. The game runs only in software mode. Now that being said, don’t stop reading, because the lack of hardware acceleration does not detract one bit from the game. You see, eSim is basically made up of a small group of gamers. Yes, guys that play games like you and me. A lot of these fellows I had met online via Panzer Elite, guys I had exchanged E-mails or message board posts with, guys that had made free mods for other games. There was no big corporate money behind the development of Steel Beasts, just the president of eSim, Al Delaney (who is also the designer/programmer) and his very talented group of aides de camp. There just wasn’t money for 3D accelerated graphics, but they still pulled off the best and most realistic modern armor sim to date.

Two Tanks, the American M-1, and the German Leopard 2A4 are modeled from two perspectives, the tank commander and the gunner. From the commander’s position, you are in total control and can command the driver where to go, and the gunner as to what ammo he will load. You can designate targets for the gunner, or override him and shoot targets your self. You can also call in artillery if it’s available in the current mission. The sim features a very intelligent AI. Friendly units, if left on their own, won’t stray or act stupidly or with tactical incorrectness. The enemy is not dumb either, make a wrong move and you will be on the receiving end of a lot of steel and lead.

From the gunner’s position, prepare yourself for an incredibly accurate representation of modern tank gunnery. All targeting systems of both the American M-1 and German Leopard 2A4 are included with great attention to detail. Don’t know much about tank gunnery? Steel Beasts includes extensive live fire tutorials that will get you blowing the turrets off enemy tanks in no time. And, unlike many other games, these tutorials are FUN! Little is sacrificed to realism. "Why?" you ask, because the steel beast development team includes real tankers. Particularly, Edward "volcanoman" Williams who is responsible for the sound effects. What you hear is what a real tank crewman hears. I can’t say enough about the sounds other than, TURN IT UP!

Steel Beast includes a mission builder, and the SB community is already cranking out new missions and campaigns. It will be a long time to never when you run out of missions for this sim. The feature that really stands out in my mind is the map screens. Fully detailed topographic maps are done in the same style as the ones produced for our troops by the defense-mapping agency. With these maps, you can move units to specified locations for a specified purpose, determine how they will move tactically and lay out the entire route very precisely. You can have total control over dozens of friendly units this way. When an enemy unit is spotted he is automatically plotted. You can plan your response and execute it on the spot, all in real time. You can jump from unit to unit and tank to tank at will; a seamless integration of 3d and strategy all in one.

Steel Beasts is currently only available by order from Shrapnel Games.

There is also a downloadable demo at the shrapnel website. There are dedicated Steel Beasts forums at Shrapnel and at SimHQ, should you need advice or assistance with the demo.

GRAPHICS: 60%
SOUND: 100%
AI: 90%
OVERALL IMPRESSION: 94%

MINIMUM SYSTEM SPECS
266 MHz Pentium, 32 MB RAM, 2MB SVGA card,
220 MB available hard disk space, Mouse, CD-ROM,
Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 installed,
Microsoft DirectX version 7.0 (or better) installeD

REVIEWER'S SYSTEM
PIII 800
256mb pc100 RAM
VOODOO 5 5500

Author’s Bio
Plummer-X AKA Steve Ramsey, is an avid sim enthusiast, history buff, and seasoned forum rat. In real life he is 40, and an aircraft mechanic building 737’s at The Boeing Company.