What
Steel Beasts does have is an amazingly complex simulation of two different tanks, an elaborate sequence of tutorials that draw you into the experience, and a number of missions that tax your abilities to control the mechanical monsters. There's no campaign mode here; it's a pure simulation, with posited scenarios and much destruction.
I've said it before: I'm not a grognard. I don't do tabletop warfare, I shrink in fear when someone shows me their copy of Advanced Squad Leader, and most pure military simulations leave me cold. Steel Beasts, however, managed to draw me in with its deceptively simple tutorials, eventually launching me into the full experience. It was exhilirating, and I must say that I enjoyed the experience.
In Steel Beasts you get to pilot either an M1A1 for the US or a Leopard 2A4 for Germany. Both of them are very highly detailed, and while you don't get to manually pilot the tanks--you give directions to the pilot instead, simplifying your life considerably--you get to do pretty much everything else. You can be the gunner or the commander; the gunner is the one that does the firing, while the commander is the one that does the, er, commanding. Yeah, yeah, I know.
There's a lot going on in the game--keeping track of everything is a monumental task, and if you immediately jump into one of the Instant Action scenarios you may be very overwhelmed. Fortunately, Steel Beasts comes with both a solid manual and an excellent set of training missions, one for each tank. They show you the intricacies of the various positions inside of the tanks, how to use the various readouts, and the vagaries of combat.
For example, you have to 'lase' your targets with both tanks. The M1A1 lets you choose between the fastest return and the slowest return, since the beam spreads at a distance; you have to choose which one you want to use. The Leopard, on the other hand, always uses the slowest return, which means you want to lase a little low to make sure it's not hitting that tree half a klick beyond your target. The gun itself auto-adjusts for the distance; it's up to you to actually aim at the tank. Both also support automatic leads for moving targets.
As you get deeper into the game and the missions, you'll realize that, while a few of them seem a little 'tech demo', the rest are quite deep. There were times that I pined for a sort of 'ground war' campaign, but I suppose that's years of non-simulation play banging on my head. The game comes with map and scenario editors for when you tire of what the game gives you as well. The game's AI is solid, and you can indeed do almost all of the controlling from the map screen and let the computer do the combat for you. It's more exciting to be in the gunner's chair, of course, but for those who want more of an RTS feel to the game, the ability is there.
The game also supports multiplayer over the 'net, which brings in another level of excitement. The games last a while, which may be a turn-off for some players, but they can get very fast and very furious quickly.
