Guns of Icarus base game Review

IIWYM reviews...

Guns of Icarus: Base game


Urgh.

That's my sad opinion of this game.

Maybe I should go on.

Guns of Icarus was something I was actually looking forward to for some time. A friend told me about it, and  I will freely admit one of my secret loves is anything steampunk, and this looked to answer that. Airships! Gatling guns! Trading missions! Impossibly cool goggles and leather jackets with fur around the necks!
Well, I'll say Guns of Icarus delivers that, certainly... But it's all very soulless... Which I suppose is strangely appropriate, considering the world is an APOCALYPTIC take on Steampunk, which... Isn't quite what I expected...
Wait, hold on.
*Looks at the icon for the game*
"Guns of Icarus: This is not the future I expected"
...
Oh, hahahahahaha. I get it.

Regardless, the basic premise of the game is that you are a lonely airship captain, trying to transport your cargo across long distances while using the Guns of Icarus (Ahhh, I see what you did there) to defend your airship. The single player DOES capture the loneliness quite well, and each basic mission starts with a little blurb, ususally "OMG Everybody's dead". Well, a bit more eloquent than that, but... Yeah.
Also, I find it a bit hard to buy that there's an apocalypse when I'm shooting down dozens upon dozens of fighter aircraft. A lotta airfields must've survived the apocalypse.
Anyways, you pilot your way across the landscape, picking your route that always leads towards an ending, which I won't spoil... But I will say...
I thought...
WHAT THE F***!
...
Just a word of advice.
But I supposed it fit in with the theming, so...

Moving right along to the main problem: The game is SOULLESS. You feel this as you run about repairing things and shooting pirates, your only two activities in the game. Now, I will say, to the designers credit, there's some SERIOUS tension when you're nearing your destination, there are pirates everywhere, everything's on fire... That's a great sensation.
...
The problem is, there's really not much point to it all. It's just a series of wave survival with varying difficulties. Plus, add to the fact that this game is... Well, it's not pretty, to say the least, even on the misleading "Fantastic" graphics quality.

Now, in my ideal vision, this game would have bartering with other ship captains, some exploration of the ruined towns to find loot items, upgrades, more RPG mechanics. These things could be used to make it a great game!
The world is interesting, and there's some really good ideas available here, and there's nothing quite like the relief that comes by barely surviving a really tough mission. And then there's multiplayer, which I thought would relieve some of the soullessness, but it in fact is MORE soulless since you don't get a map to pick your route, you don't get to modify your ship layout, and you don't get any reward other than a little score number and some smiley faces. So, IMO, don't bother

But on the other hand, I got this game for two dollars, and I would really say that I got my money's worth.
I REALLY wanted to like this game. I was prepared to shout from the rooftops; "Steampunk fans rejoice! for there is now a game that takes your favorite thing and does it well and is awesome!"... Sadly I can't do that, because this game is not it. But it could have been, maybe with a bigger budget and a larger team (This game SCREAMS "Made in a garage by five guys"). And that's the saddest part of all.

This game recieves a....
BUY IT BARGAIN
Review.

But I do recommend getting it, it's worth spending the four hours or so it'll take to give the campaign a run-through. If you grab it for like a few dollars, then it's totally worth your time.
And now, I'm sure you're wondering why I put Base Game in the title here. There's an MMO of the same name released at the same time, and from what I understand that's a superior experience... But it has no player base.
Regardless, this is a review of the more solo game.

This has been Nev with IIWYM reviews, and I hope you join me next time when I *FINALLY* get to that Darksiders II review I've been wanting to do.