Iron Meat (PS5)

Iron Meat (PS5) – Review

by
Evan Norris
, posted 22 hours ago / 1,356 Views

With a name like Iron Meat, you sort of know what you’re getting. Without even looking at the box art or a screenshot you could reasonably assume it’s a shoot-’em-up or run-and-gun game with crunchy action and hardcore music. And you’d be right. Developed principally by Russian programmer Ivan Suvarov, with support from Retroware, it’s a throwback action-platformer with plenty of gore, guns, and grinding metal tunes. Imagine Contra III and The Thing had a baby who was raised by the Doom Slayer, and you’ll get the idea.

Iron Meat begins on the moon, where a scientific experiment goes awry and unleashes THE MEAT, an all-consuming, ever-expanding biomass that mutates everything in its path, including organic matter and machines. After an army of these meaty mutations reach Earth via an interplanetary portal, the planet’s defense force is quickly overrun. As Vadim, a heroic Earth soldier, you must fight back against the invasion and ultimately take the fight to the monstrosity on the moon.

As with most retro action games, Iron Meat doesn’t belabor its story. There’s a cut-scene at the onset that explains the outbreak and the high stakes, and one at the conclusion that wraps up all the loose ends. For a run-and-gun game like this, it’s sufficient. Suvarov and Retroware don’t stop there, though. They also pepper in small background details in several levels that add extra context. As Vadim travels through the devastation on Earth, he’ll often encounter other troopers in various stages of combat. This adds to the feeling of things happening in real time, that the invasion is unfolding as you go.

Indeed, Iron Meat mostly takes a “show, don’t tell” approach, which works in its favor. This is helped along greatly by its crisp pixel art and body horror production design, which is gory and grotesque in all the right ways. Everything in the game tells a story, whether it’s droplets of blood raining down in the first level; the fractured, mutated moon in the background in the fifth level; or corpses cocooned into the walls in the seventh level. And the violent, horrific themes are only amplified by the game’s outstanding heavy metal music, composed by Vladimir Tugay, aka Darkman007.

Iron Meat looks and sounds great, but how does it handle? Very well, in fact. The controls are snappy and responsive, the guns are punchy, and the onscreen action is smooth and seamless. In true Contra fashion, you can run, jump, and aim your deadly projectile weapons in eight directions. You can also swap between two guns on the fly, and lock your character in place to pick off enemies at an angle. It’s pretty much what you’d expect from the genre.

Unfortunately, the game doesn’t experiment much outside of the standard run-and-gun formula. In fact, it doesn’t bother with some features that have been part of the template for years. Iron Meat doesn’t play around with perspective, offering top-down or behind-the-back sections; neither does it embrace a shoot-’em-up or vehicle episode. Vadim does leap atop a hoverbike at the end of stage two, but it’s a total bait and switch.

That said, Suvarov is able to engineer some interesting scenarios within the strictly on-foot side-scrolling action. That includes a vertical climb through a tall tower, a desperate run across a high-speed train, and an assault on a mutated airship. There are also lots of small platforming challenges interspersed throughout the nine levels, which keeps players on their toes. And the multi-stage, screen-filling boss battles are adventures unto themselves.

Each of the nine levels lasts roughly 10 minutes, so you could finish the game after only an hour and a half. Again, this is typical of the genre. The developers managed to extend the replay value somewhat with three difficulty levels, a host of achievements, 30 unlockable skins, and support for local two-player multiplayer, but they didn’t go far enough. Additional modes or even an online leaderboard would help improve the value proposition here. 

Even with a short running time and a lack of special set-pieces, Iron Meat does justice to the genre, not to mention its own on-the-nose name. By investing in grotesque pixel art, a thumping metal soundtrack, fluid action, and nine stages of non-stop carnage, it delivers a solid game in the Contra tradition. With additional modes and more diverse levels it would be even better.

VGChartz Verdict

This review is based on a digital copy of Iron Meat for the PS5, provided by the publisher.

Read more about our Review Methodology here
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