Steam Tactics Review

Recently I’ve had a backlog of games to get through, but this time around, I have been playing Steam Tactics. A turn-based strategy game where you use steampunk ships to navigate around a grid in the attempt to destroy enemy ships. Sounds fairly easy right?

Well before we come onto the battling let’s just talk about the game’s story. The story that drives this game starts as 2 companions which have been given a quest by the Queen to gather the princess from the Kingdom to then keep her from harm and take her somewhere safe due to a conspiracy that the archbishop is coming up.

The layout of this game is done in levels similar to games like Peggle where it is done in stages but the gameplay is a lot different. (Trying to paint a picture of the map you are given.) Each level gets slightly harder as the enemy skills increase and the weapons you come up against do more damage. It is your aim to improve your ships and its weapons to stand a chance at defeating the enemy team.

Within Steam Tactics there is a very simple upgrade system in place for weapons and ships. With each upgrade it costs your coins and parts. You gain these by simple completing levels. Each level gave a new challenge and gave some variation of strategy to how to defeat the enemy however, after a little while it just gets a bit boring and repetitive. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did find it fun and interesting figuring out where to place my ships in retrospect of which direction my weapons would hit the enemy.

There are a lot of different weapons with Steam Tactics as well as it does with Ships. Each with its unique uses, strengths and weaknesses. Mastering and understanding which ship and weapons are best to use in each level is one key to a successful win. I do think some of it is purely just down to luck though.

For the most part, the gameplay is very smooth with the transitions of turns, but the control input is definitely lacking. Using a controller, there was no point using the analogue stick as half the time it didn’t want to pick up the movement which in this day-an-age, just sucks. Surely a simple fix/update could make this more usable. So, resorting to the normal directional buttons, this was smooth and worked really well. There was no lag input or stuttering.

The Audio is OK, not brilliant but passable. I think if they added more sound effects and different background menu music to something more pleasant then it would make this area overall a lot better. I found at times I had to mute the music as it started to annoy and irritate me.

Maybe I am being a bit harsh about this game. Don’t get me wrong, I have played it a lot. To the point I have gained all the achievements. Heck, it only takes around 10 hours to do this. For some reason it did have me coming back for more so it does have some replay-ability. Maybe because the strategy/turn-based person inside me likes this type of genre, I don’t know. But I do think there are areas it can improve on but equally there are areas it Is doing well in.