Iron Brigade, take fantastic Double Fine's tower defense, finally arrived on PC. While it took longer than fans would have hoped, this port does pretty much everything right. In addition to all the original content, you also get The Rise of the Martian Bear DLC as part of the transaction. Ultimately this means that you get hours and hours of replayable levels with even more loot and levels to enjoy. If you have not played Iron Brigade while now.
Iron Brigade is set in an alternate world, where soldiers from the 1940s-esque pilot called anthropomorphic machinery giant trenches in an effort to fight against a madman and his army of construction. Part third person shooter, part tower defense, Iron Brigade challenges you to fight off wave after wave of enemies in a variety of stages. Sometimes you defend a position, other times you defend multiple, but the goal is always the same: the turrets to deploy and use weapons your mech to blow the holy hell out of everything you see. The collection of "waste", the enemies drop when they die, you can deploy additional turrets (or locations) that look great as they fall from the sky before they drill into the ground.
Much of the fun in Iron Brigade is to find the right mech for the level at hand. Choosing a frame changes the amount of weapons and locations that you can make, so once you figure out your play style, you must decide which weapons fit the enemies ahead. If you want to play like a shooter, choose a frame that allows you to take a series of canons, completing your weaknesses combat with one or two locations. If you are more in the back to sit and watch type, you can take a chassis engineer with almost any weapon slots and a bunch of locations, to create a network of turrets to knock your enemies. Sometimes it's fun to put a mech assault with six shotguns, while other times I felt like a badass when I manage to build a mech that could beat long-range and short-range everything else. It makes a lot of replayability, as you can play super aggressive levels once or more strategically later.
The best part of playing any stage, however, is the collection of "surprise boxes". There are simply some things better than the thrill of getting random loot that allows you to min-max your stats and production of damages. I'm a bundle of constant tweaking and customizing my trench. It's downright addictive, and makes me replay the steps several times in hopes of getting a new weapon or a brilliant chassis.
Besides a couple of fights against the bosses, all levels come down to the simple goal to stay alive and defend one or more points. The reason it never gets old is due to the pure entertainment that comes from using your mech against a variety of enemy types. A second, I find myself pulling an artillery projectile in a crowd of enemies at long range, the next I'd be swarmed by small enemies that forced me to use my guns while falling back. You can never sit on your laurels while playing Iron Brigade, because just when you think you're ready for what you are forced to adapt to a new combination of enemies. Not only that, but if you made the right places, it's up to you to go and collect the waste they drop. Each stage becomes a dance between the shooting and looting, and the few seconds between waves become valuable.
The gameplay is really well done, but what makes Iron Brigade more than just another shooter or tower defense title is its well-developed atmosphere. The story of the campaign is not so important at themselves, but the writing is just as spiritual as I've come to expect from Double Fine. Between levels you return to a world hub over an aircraft carrier. Here you can control and customize your trench, choose your level, and invite friends to join you in your hub before taking the field. The setting is really well done, perfectly capture the feeling of the other half of the 20th century.
Invite others to join you in your hub is worth it too, because multiplayer levels makes more replay (and feels almost essential content in the Martian Bear). It's too easy to play through the steps with four players (despite more enemies or severe mini boss), but with two or three players you can really experiment. A player can not play the role of a tank, leaving other players to use the lowest engineers or combinations of exotic weapons they would not normally. The best part, though? You get loot every time.
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