Oh, yeah. Though I preferred RA2's, they were like a B-movie from the eighties, delightfully cheesy but not TOO cheesy. Notably, the uniforms in RA3... *rolls eyes*
Looks like it makes sense to wait on this one. Doubly so when their roadmap has new features like a map or glossary coming out every week after release. Gives me the feeling that the game wasn't done when they put it out.
It's true, I love the core, but that's about all it has at the moment, I wanted to play coop campaign with my friend, but that's still a week away on the 'roadmap' 😐
Yeah I was surprised to see that - especially so soon. I really hope they didn't decide not to delay because of their fancy release date of '1.9.20' lining with the games title - could've used even just another month in the cooker
The dev poses a major red flag for me, IH's already out and the pre-order rewards/backer rewards are still unfinished, on top of the missing features that was supposed to be there at launch like co-op.
@@Zade_95 I'm waiting for a sale :D I'm actually playing the StarCraft campaigns. I've just finished the first game, its extension and the first chapter of the second game :D
I'm not sure how valid this is as I am all in all a garbage RTS player, but to me the campaign is pretty difficult but someone who actually knew what they were doing could probably get it done (Can't help that I'm currently playing mostly germany against the AI [which on medium seems a bit easy seeing as even I can kill it, which is something i found almost impossible in CoH2]) Otherwise, I'm rather enjoying the game, seeing as the somewhat cut down mechanics make it so that I can actually play the game without losing within 5 minutes.
It is such a gigantic pity. The whole draw for me when it came to CoH was how it had a gratuitous amount of tactical options even at the most baseline first installment basic factions skirmish. Each 'tech tier' introducing huge components for your battle-order, asymmetry embraced whole-heartedly to create flavour and appeal, extensive defensive mechanics which allows you to dynamically reshape your battlefield into a web of emplacements and/or forward bases. And then this.. so pretty looking and full of potential.. wearing it's heritage proudly.. only to then REDUCE that crucial complexity that brought us to the table. Ugh. At the very best I'll consider getting it at some very deep discounts.
From what I've heard the deluxe doesn't even get you anything extra. In that section of the store page it says "Comes with artbook and game soundtrack (both things you could get for pre ordering the standard version) and [something about TBA features]
@Xeraser Alright, get rid of all the mech animation, get rid of any sense of balancing, get rid of the asymmetry of the various factions, and have no plans for any more advancement post-launch. You say this like CoH was perfect at release. It had years of DLC and updates and piles of content added down the line each costing 20 bucks. Just because now it's cheap because the franchise has basically been abandoned doesn't change the initial value. I think the idea it is only worth 15 is utterly absurd personally. IH has far more content than CoH, DoW 1, and CoH 2 had at launch and far more balanced gameplay than those games began with. It is not there yet, yes, I think it should more be described as early access in its current state, but you are comparing a brand new, just released game with the greatest games ever released which cost notably more at time of release for much less when they first launched. I think you guys are rather overharsh.
A few other things CoH does better that this game does worse: You *can* station units in buildings, but their offensive capability is severely stunted, basically guaranteeing a death if the enemy boxes you in. Units almost always go for melee over staying at range away from each other, which ends up causing most units to run out from behind cover while being fired on by other infantry or mechs. The game doesn't teach you that you can make mechs walk backwards so they don't expose themselves, leaving your weak spot up for grabs due to some fairly bad pathfinding. Base buildings have so much health that it's almost hilarious. Killing just one can take literally minutes.
Yes thats defently annoying, they seems to barley shoot out of Buildings. The devs should fix this. Not sure when you played last Time but the melee problem should be fixed mostly. True, they should defently add an button in the ui (there is space for it) for the walk backwards command for the mechs. Personally i dont think the base has too much HP, compare it to dow2. Now that bases takes literally minutes, even when full army shoots at it and with Commander artillery support.
@@CrusadioI think It's partly got to do with how the base infantry is designed. Instead of giving both long range and midrange/short range options for all factions, they split them across the factions giving Rusviets only short range with Polania got only long range and Saxony has midrange.
I've been hoping for Tiberian Sun & Company of Heroes to have a baby. But sadly it looks like a premature delivery, and instead of Tiberian Heroes, we got Company Sun :( Still, there's promise in there-good atmosphere, good visuals, and the mechs capture the TS vibe-I hope they learn and IH2 fulfills the potential.
I played it a lot but never thought tiberian sun was good. Graphics were dull and gameplay was a weaker experience vs red alert 1. But if they re made tiberian sun or made a red alert 4 that wasnt garbage id be game.
I have this gut feeling the inspiration for this aesthetic was most strongly drawn from a long forgotten piece of RTS history, the Vinci faction from Rise of Legends. There are many different games that each aspect of this seems similar to, but the Vinci has so many similarities all packed into one faction from that one game... I'd be interested to know if the developers never forgot about the brilliance of the concepts anad aesthetic that went into the Vinci.
A positional COH style game does require some range diversity to really allow for some tactical positioning. COH Mortar teams for example traded damage and fire delay for incredible range. Certainly missing in a game like this where everything has to ball up to be effective anyways.
I agree. Especially when one of the points of making a mech/walker is unobsturction when firing straight at or more preferrable down on something without having to deal with the whole "arching your shots BS" we have to deal with.
That, in my opinion, is due to the map size being rather underwhelming. Sure, it's so games don't last too long, but at the same time, maybe they should.
Poor range, dumbed down cover system and underpowered infantry are the major shortcomings of the game. I still liked the campaign though it was nowhere near as hardcore as CoH.
A big thing to note, which you haven't said I noticed, is that this is their first true RTS and self-owned game the studio has ever made. So of course they're going to make multiple bumbles like the cheesy and at times messy voice acting, as well as not have everything ready to go at release. At least, I've found, is that the developers are extremely interactive with their fanbase, and look to them for new ideas. Especially on Reddit, they interact with fans on memes, questions and ideas, etc. on a daily basis. On a final note, the world the game is based off of (Scythe) is very bare in deep lore, so they have to come up with their own to supplement it, most likely why they share roughly the same weapon systems with no variation. It's their first attempt, be a bit lenient on them if you will.
I had high hopes for this one. Especially since they got a full fledged publisher. But I guess the publisher was only there to push the price to 50€ ... GoG currently has a special offer, where you get Sudden Strike 4 for free, if you buy Iron Harvest ... but I will probably still wait for a price drop.
I enjoyed Iron Harvest's single player the story and world really drew me in but you're right in terms of gameplay it really is Babby's first Company of Heroes fitting since this is King Art's first RTS. Here's hoping it actually geta better
Unless you’re really into mechs and the world theyve created, it sounds like a pass or wait for it to be 50% off. I don’t picture a thriving MP scene for this game unfortunately. What’s surprising is that other game journalists are lauding this game with praise, when any UA-camr who’s been backing or following this game for a while is disappointed.
To be fair, IGN seperated their review into a single player review and multiplayer review and they both are quite similar to what Zade said in this video great presentation and single player campaign held back by the shallow gameplay and lack of variety
To be fair the comparisons to CoH may ultimately have hurt the games chances, CoH are some pretty big shoes to fill after all and, if I recall correctly, this was their first RTS game.
I love the game so far. It is very small yes so I’m interested to see how it expands but for the base game, I think they’ve got something good with this one. I love rts games so whenever something new that looks good comes along like this I owe it to myself to check out.
Great editing and concise thoughts in this video. As an rts fan who likes campaigns but primarily engages in the multiplayer aspects, I think 50 dollars base is a bit too steep for now.
I mentioned this in the beta on reddit and ended up getting top comment for quite awhile. The core issue of this game is related to its emphasis on quick matches. CoH matches are done in 40~50 minutes. Both 1st and 2nd games. IH games are done in 20. Because of this. Maps are smaller. Unit engagement ranges are puny. Pathways on maps are limited. So forth. The reason CoH has the depth that it does comes from how -big- the maps are. Bigger maps mean units need longer ranges to engage, it also means you can need transport, may want to build defenses, so forth. I bought this game despite its issues because I want to support the developers and as a Gamer with money I need to support the genres I care about. Even if the game itself isn't fully worth the price- the developers genuinely care about the product and deserve a recognition for their effort. I just wish they learn from their many mistakes with this release. Hopefully starting with the fact that making a watered-down RTS will not earn you players. Games like Dawn of War 2 dumped endless complexity into their systems even as they ditched traditional RTS formulas. Command and Conquer 3 was far more complex in nearly every way than Tiberium Sun, so on and so forth. Each of these games drew crowds of new players. I love Iron Harvest, but I hope they make it better some day.
The campaihn is pretty good in my book. I've seen worse. Multiplayer however....is not so good. Nozhing a few patches and balance changes couldn't fix, and I also think for the teams first RTS it's decent enough. Am I disappointed as a backer? Kinda yes. To many promises weren't fullfilled, and it became clear that the development struggled internally. However. With time, and that's probably the keyword here, the game can reach a much higher ground. Hopefully the Devs don't give up to soon. Seems to be a trend in german dev teams. To build a game over time. With the exception of warhammer 40k gladius, i only know of german devs that are constantly working on their games. Like Egosoft and now KAG.
Iron Harvest reminded me of a RTS called War Front: Turning Point. It an alternative history WW2 where Germany have jetpack trooper, mech and artillery Zeppelin; Allied have Nuke and force field; my fav is the Soviet which is tank focus and one of their high end unit is a 5 turrets tank.
@@Zade_95 To be honest it's quite an over looked little RTS gems. Though it isn't as deep or polished like C&C, Supreme Commander or World in Conflict, but its quite a lot of fun and consider how rare RTS are this days, those older overlooked games are worth checking out, though finding a legit copy nowdays might be challenging.
I will be honest: I did not know this game and I did not expect something totally amazing about it, but it is good fun overall. Maybe it is not what the people expected / publisher promised, but we need to wait for this game to develop itself. Its kind of weird that we're living on a time were almost all games come out unfinished, and then the publishers finish them on the run. So, let's just wait a couple of months to allow IH to become great, and hope that they don't go down the road at the same time.
Shame. I have loved CoH since my friends got me into the first one in high school, so this looked right up my alley. Will defiantly keep an eye out for sales and updates on the game. Other than that I hope Relic can get past the snafu that was Dawn of War 3 and make CoH *3 and go to the Pacific Theater.
I agree with the general review and am sadly disappointed by the game. It looks cewl, *seems* fresh and has a little amount of innovation (the squad "pickup" mechanic is surely interesting for comp-play), but overall its very shallow and therefore feels repetitive (which is WEIRD for a RTS game, which is the genre of appreciated repetition lol). It *is* a company of heroes clone, but its like the slightly *slow* bootleg version with a new tone/skin, feeling interesting for sure, but not interesting enough to get me super excited. I was hoping to get this game and then be part of a new "competitive scene", which the Company of Heroes "style" works good for. But unless they fundamentally expand their combat system, its a hard pass until a BIG sale Small addendum though: my Beta experience in PVP was, that rushing anti infantry mechs wins you enough time to pump out several of these and squash your opponent. The polish MG-Mech for example hard-counters anti tank gunners too lel ;:).
@Xeraser Except at release CoH had less features, not much more maps, and an even larger price tag, and the rest came from DLC, and you're basically just saying it's not perfectly up to snuff immediately with one of the best games of all time. This is like looking at Shadow Warriors and saying "well it's not Doom II so in the trash can it goes." You guys are massively overcritical of a fresh release game that really should be described as early access rather than full release.
We could be being a bit harsh on them. This was their first rts game and CoH is up there in the convo for best RTS ever. The bar was a bit high maybe unreasonably so, but it’s a start
New info up on the Steam page: store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/826630/view/2912095611694036382 - - - "Road Map For September Week 2 = New 3v3 Map and Campaign Coop mode. Week 3 = New 2v2 Map and Glossary. Week 4 = MP Ranked Mode and auto-cast abilities. Week 5= New 1v1 Map. This is a look at what lies ahead and should hopefully resolve some confusion caused by the mislabelling of information on the game-store fronts."
Interesting. Kinda wish it was pushed back a month and has all these included. Couldn't have the fancy release date in the trailers if that was the case though!
You should probably take it as early access if you’re considering buying since the devs have more planned for the future. I can understand wanting to get it out but they probably should have waited so that they had more content at launch.
To be fair, the game is new, plus, it took them 2-3 years to get here working off of the lore from a board game (surprise!) and inspiration from CoH. They have 5 factions technically, there's the main 3, Tesla (who I am convinced is going to be given for free to deluxe edition buyers before it's sold as a $5 to $10 expansion as a campaign following the events of the ending). And there's the villain faction (which if you know the ending, will probably be given as a faction to play in said possible dlc I mentioned I am convinced about, that or they're like Yuri and are given more as skirmish mode faction. Either way, IH is only in its beginning and it's already having gold shine through, all it needs is polishing and a bit of mining and soon we'll get a 24 karrot gold bar. *FOR POLANIA!*
Man... I was expecting "Company of Heroes WITH MECHS" but yeah... Not this. Seems disapointing. But maybe it'll get much better with updates and stuff. Also, maybe a fourth faction would be interesting?
The board game that inhabits the same 1920+ universe 'Scythe' has four more factions. Would love to see some of them added and have them be a lot more varied
Good review. Played a couple hour's so far and I agree with pretty much your whole review. Except performance. I have a GTX 1080 (a bit above minimum specs) and have resorted to running the game on the lowest settings, and the campaign still experiences frame dips into the 30s for extended periods. Maybe it's just the early missions I've played, but it was enough to make me look around and see if others were experiencing similar issues and many were. Skirmish single player seems to run much better. Don't know about multiplayer as I am not a multiplayer focused person. Anyway, a very good, balanced review.
Thank you! Interesting to hear about performance, I know I had some issues with the beta on significantly weaker hardware than I'm running now (used a Ryzen 3900X and RX5700 for this) but here I had no issues. Early drivers maybe?
Expansions coming.. Sister game is Scythe which with it's expansion provides 5+2 factions of which only 3 are shown in Iron Harvest. I guess it just depends how many DLC' add ons the studio is gonna package it as. Same universe.. Scythe is the strategic level turn based game.
I remember how a few years ago on FB the creators asked people what direction they should go, I suggested a mix between W40k dawn of war 2 and sudden strike, give up building buildings, just better to capture checkpoints and receive unit support after a time, then each of the unit would be valuable,but of course everyone wanted a company of heroes,good game and would be a good mix with sudden strike too
I gotta be honest the last line made me crack up “If that’s not the case then the future of Iron harvest will look just as bleak as the world of 1920 it inhabits” I liked Iron Harvest but I agree with all points you’ve mentioned. It has a lot of potential, but it didn’t quite hit the mark. I still have hopes for it with upcoming updates and even a sequel, if it happens
Sure enough, I'm enjoying it as somebody who does not care about MP. It also likely helps that I wasn't following the hype at all and went in with effectively zero expectations.
Never played much of CoH, for some strange reason and even though the RTS genre is my favorite videogame genre,I never could get the hang of it,kept getting rekted by the AI even on normal.After playing Iron Harvest's campaing,skirmish and multiplayer I feel more appreciative of this style of RTS and will give Company of Heroes another chance.Great review by the way,you just earned a sub XD
Thanks mate. Out of interest, could you elaborate on repetitive at all? Do you mean in this video specifically, or compared to other videos? Always looking to improve my content any way I can - I'd appreciate it! :)
@@Zade_95 honestly I only had time to watch this one this afternoon, so it's not in reference to your other reviews, but I do enjoy Skill Up reviews if you want to check him out (also streamlined with tons of no repetitive content IMO). I noticed you have other rts reviews for games I used to love (command and conquer generals) so I subscribed and added some of those for watch later. Overall, I did think this was a much better review than the IGN version for this game (I wasn't super trusting of their stock 'its great')
Cheers, appreciate you writing that out! Skill Up is great - definitely a goal to be on his level one day. Would love to hear what you think of other videos if you watch them :)
@@Zade_95 no problem, there's a lot to love about your reviews. Question for you, as someone who's favorite RTS of yesteryear is command and conquer generals, which other command and conquer game would you recommend (if I haven't played any others but I do own the collection)? I'm looking for some good rtses to sink my teeth into once I finish my plathrough of the Frostpunk DLC (which might be my favorite strategy-like game of all time)
@@Zade_95 they play their cards right then hopefully. I like the game, I just hope that we may see it pull CoH2 where it gets better over time and then IH2 has features from the first and new ones for the second
@@Zade_95 Lots of changes, most of them good. Devs are pretty good with regular updates, and have already addressed a number of your points. Hope you like it!
If I had the money I'd support this game, seems like it should've been in the 30-45$ range for this base with regular expansion packs and free updates to really flesh out different mechanics. For instance a stealth demolitions team that can lay traps for mechs that can do a lot of damage but are very weak if caught or sniper team that could pinpoint different parts of mechs and cripple weapon systems.
Between this and Crusader Kings 3 launching same day it's tough to pick. I miss the old RTS campaigns this one is emulating but I'm not sure I'm ready to put down $50 for it. Especially if the game loop doesn't hold up. And this is with CK3 being on PC Game Pass where it's basically free.
I like the cutscenes but not the mechs in live gameplay, I'm sorry it isn't better cause I've been playing and watching a loooot of rts and I'm from Poland. But thanks for the honest review, the graphics mostly on the mechs doesn't do it for me...
Is it just me or did RTS stopped looking better since something like CoH1 / DoW 2? At least from zoomed out view. Anyway, this video confirmed my suspicions and Ill be looking out for a sale. Coop campaign is smthn I am interested in. The missions I played in beta seemed quite well done. From what I've gathered, the game is somewhat light on content and a lot of features are coming at a later date.
They showed off the new textures and models for Age of Empires 3 recently and compared them to the old models. Alot of guys thought that the old models always looked as good as the new ones, but they never realized how blocky they were since they never zoomed in.
@@rubz1390 Yeah they look a tiny bit sharper in the trailer but really both are about the same. Whereas AoE2 DE vs the HD edition is completely night and day
@@rubz1390 Ah fair dues, yeah I've seen those models too. They look quite a bit better even though they don't add up to much when viewing at normal zoom.
I played the free beta with a friend and, at the time, we were quite interested. But after some considerable play time and the release of version 1.0, we didn't really care to buy it. Both of us kinda shrugged and said we'd buy it later, probably.
i had high hopes for the game when they did the survey stuff some time ago (was it 1 or 2 years ago?) i was under the impressions that they would create something new from CoH series to spice things up, i have no issues with the SP element of the game but imo it feels too clean/simple, i cant really explain it in english but will see how it goes i suppose, i didnt have the time to grab their beta.
I have this dread feeling that we are going to see a lot more of this marginal base game with expansion packs to enhance. For more bucks of course. I appreciate your honesty and sincerity in your reviews. Happy Gaming and thanks for sharing. One of the best selling games of all times was "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri". I don't think that this game will make the list. I do think it would make a good list to pull selections for "should you play this game in 2020".
If I wasn't tired I'd love to explain how this game needs what CoH2 had where you could upgrade a unit to have certain weapons and how the game NEEDS ANIMATION KILLS FOR MELEE. You know, like Warhammer TW like you mentioned or Dawn of War
It's just sad sometimes when a game is amazing aesthetic and sensory wise but very empty internally. Like if they added the levels of depth and dynamic game play from coh this game would be masterpiece
I knew it. The whole "base building" advertising point was a half truth. For some reason I thought that might end up being the case. Sucks because I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.
Yeah, saying it has base building is like... Eh. I wish they went for a world in conflict style unit system and had forgone the lack luster base building entirely
I was born with strategy games And I Don't have any shooter games I have just cause games but those are open world games And I consider JC3 to have a funny yet Well built story And city skylines cuz why not And my first game was age of empires Also my dad used to play the old C&C Can't get more convinient than that
Tried the beta... Just made me miss CoH2 lol ... But in all seriousness, I felt there wasn't enough of a difference between the 3 factions and I was disappointed in the lack of melee mechs. Plus it isn't clear what exactly each unit is good at - like who should I send into melee range and who should I keep back? Is there even a difference?
Say it with me people: Publishers. Kill. Games. Iron harvest is by no means dead. Yet. But if any of you have been noticing, whoever is in charge here forced the release on a fancy date, and then spent a nonzero level of budget on sponsorships, ads, and marketing to a game that would have self-marketed had it been good enough. That budget could have been spent hiring people to help with the game.
I backed the game and I am satisfied with this result. It's fun, cool looking, and for the most part delivered on its promises. It's my hope that they continue to support and improve the game going forward in the same way Snapshot is supporting Phoenix Point post crowdfunding.
After playing the beta i thought the campaign was pretty bland with a few totally overacted characters. Interested to hear if others agree with him on the campaign.
Ok the only thing i dont want in the game that is on coh is the mobile lmg teams I like the lmg team here thay is basically a faster mg team thats not running and gunning with it and need to setup Game play wise idk im a casual that dosent like multiplayer And im not sure if some infantry needs to have anti mech bomb stuff i will expect polania to have that special units than the rest of the faction
This game is actually quite half-done, there are even some better details in the beta version. Optimization is also lack of work, it can’t get full fluent 60 fps on my friend’s gaming computer, and it has texture glitches, path finding problems for bigger mechs... still, let’s wait for the mods. Mods can fix almost everything.
The demo on Steam was generously long with enjoyable story line, characters, mechs, and atmosphere. Really fun, but actual strategy seemed sparse. It's on sale for $34 @ Steam, and is a "must buy" for me, but only if it drops down further in price, interesting dlc single player content is added, or more sophisticated strategy elements are added. (sorry, devs, it *is* very cool)
People forget this game came out less than a year ago. But I agree on some of its issues. I do have high hopes for a second one or what they will do with dlc. Just give it time, it will either improve and become something awesome, or it will fade away along with its AU, which of course would be a a shame, as its AU could sustain multiple games.
Only got this because I love Scythe and RTS games. Have only played it for a couple of hours tho. I so much wish it wasn’t a CoH/ DoW 2 simplified rip-off
Yeah, really wanted to like this game and I do think the mechs are freaking awesome. But it does just feel like a watered-down CoH. Ancestor's Legacy felt the same way. They both can't seem to capture the feel of CoH.
I bought Iron Harvest at launch. My current play time is 10.6 hours and I last played it on 17th October 2020. Sadly says all you need to know about the game. :(
Researching into this game is just a reminder of how great Company of Heroes is. I might still get this game, but it's disappointing that all they did was COH lite in a different setting. They could have taken the opportunity to expand on COH mechanics or otherwise done their own thing. I also REALLY don't like day 1 DLC. They might plan to expand on the game in the future, but that alone does not make it worth buying now. The single-player game looks well done though. Might be worth it just to play a quality RTS campaign again, or just to relive some COH nostalgia in a different setting. Then again, I can just boot up COH.
In the UK the game is £47 that's more than CK3 that's a bit high for me it's in the £35 range, from what i hear its a mix of coh and sudden strike but it should off tipped a bit more towards SS so i will give the game a go just for the SP campaign.
It took months to patch in a ping. The coop campaign is an insult being neither coop nor a campaign. You need to finish the campaign in sp first and can then splitscreenplay the individual levels without the story with a friend. Skirmish Ai is non existent and not fun. IT IS SUCH A SHAME but it is still not worth more than 15€
So, there is still nothing even comparable to Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, or even Total Annihilation. Makes me sad to say this, but RTS as a genre is pretty much dead.
see here is the problem .. YES Iron harvest costs 50 dollars and that´s a lot, so i personally would wait for a pricedrop .. but you are comparing it to a gameseries made by a well known studio with a pretty good trackrecord that´s going to tackle the next installment of Age of Empires, .... first thing i would have to ask ... who is King art games? you already mentioned how CoH had 14 years to more than just establish itself and pretty much define and refine a certain style of more Tactical RTS in that genre then this game also originally was a Kickstarter which made 1.3 Million dollars .... that´s a LOT ... right? ... nope it is but a drop what a solid RTS would require these days (15 to 20 million has been mentioned by some veteran RTS developers, and that also was years ago so it might need even more now) .. so i´m not surprised King Art games got Deep Silver as a publisher eventually getting more backing that way ... but relic still had Sega for most of their games .. ... i´m not here to defend the game ... but considering what you are exactly comparing the game to made by whom .. i sometimes have to question peoples expectations ( well of course most people only give a shit about the endproduct and otherwise move on but ..) ... like it´s unrealistic to expect a brandnew game to bring in the EXACT amount of content, features and complexity of something that had the chance to grow over 14 years ... i´m playing the Demo right now (which has been extended till January 10th 2021, so jump in to judge yourself by any interest) and for me personally the game does give a solid enough impression even despite it´s lack of content (couple more factions and unique units specifically infantry, maybe some supportpowers) and complexity ... but sometimes i rather take something easy to digest than a game i have to tackle for hours and hours until i may understand it´s entire convoluted complexity *looks at supreme commander, particularly FAF* .. especially since i no longer play games as much i used to years before .. i´d say it would be a decent entrygame for people interested to get into the RTS genre
I've put quite a few hours into this since yesterday. I think, at the moment, it's a great purchase for some people but not for everyone. Notably, the campaign is quite good, better than most RTS stories which are usually poorly told and poorly written. I won't say it's Starcraft 1 or Warcraft 3 quality, but it's satisfying and makes me care about more than just the mission objectives. I should note that, while I've played many (perhaps most) RTS games released since Age of Empires 1, I somehow missed CoH 1 and 2, so I can't really make a comparison between Iron Harvest and those titles. Buy now if: -You like the board game that serves as its source material (Scythe) and you also like PC strategy games -You like the pseudo-historical setting (industrial, WW1) and alt history -You like well-told RTS campaigns and stories -You appreciate a solid core RTS experience Wait if: -You were hoping for co-op campaign. This is a big problem. As of release, the steam page still advertises several features that are NOT included at release, like the co-op campaign. While I understand that COVID and/or publisher pressure probably caused delays and forced the developers to release now, there should have been better communication about these delayed features, and the Steam page NEEDS to be updated to reflect this -You want competitive ranked online (not yet implemented) -You want replayability in the form of many different maps to play vs friends or AI -You like extremely asymmetrical factions, a la Starcraft. There is some asymmetry here, especially among the mechs, but less so in infantry selection. I haven't yet decided if this is something I can deal with, i.e. if the mechs do turn out to be the real "core" gameplay and the infantry are just sidepieces. The mechs are, after all, kind of the game's big selling point.
Simple mention of cheesey over acted cutscenes and my brain instantly jumps to Tim Curry's "SPACE"
THE ONLY PLACE CAPITALISM CANNOT FIND US COMRADE
@Aleksa Petrovic 'tis METAL BAWKSEZ, 'umie
Oh, yeah. Though I preferred RA2's, they were like a B-movie from the eighties, delightfully cheesy but not TOO cheesy. Notably, the uniforms in RA3... *rolls eyes*
SSSSHHPACE
I love how close he is to laughing during that scene.
You can tell they've tried to record it multiple times and he's cracked up every take 😭😭😭
Looks like it makes sense to wait on this one. Doubly so when their roadmap has new features like a map or glossary coming out every week after release. Gives me the feeling that the game wasn't done when they put it out.
Same
It's true, I love the core, but that's about all it has at the moment, I wanted to play coop campaign with my friend, but that's still a week away on the 'roadmap' 😐
Yeah I was surprised to see that - especially so soon. I really hope they didn't decide not to delay because of their fancy release date of '1.9.20' lining with the games title - could've used even just another month in the cooker
Hey mandalore, will we ever get a chance to see you review this game? I would suggest when they start the works to add the other 3 factions via dlc
The dev poses a major red flag for me, IH's already out and the pre-order rewards/backer rewards are still unfinished, on top of the missing features that was supposed to be there at launch like co-op.
"Those who like solo experience and don't care much about the multiplayer"
Yup ! That's me !
Hope you enjoy if you pick it up! Or wait for a sale at least
@@Zade_95
I'm waiting for a sale :D
I'm actually playing the StarCraft campaigns. I've just finished the first game, its extension and the first chapter of the second game :D
I'm not sure how valid this is as I am all in all a garbage RTS player, but to me the campaign is pretty difficult but someone who actually knew what they were doing could probably get it done (Can't help that I'm currently playing mostly germany against the AI [which on medium seems a bit easy seeing as even I can kill it, which is something i found almost impossible in CoH2]) Otherwise, I'm rather enjoying the game, seeing as the somewhat cut down mechanics make it so that I can actually play the game without losing within 5 minutes.
Hmm, ill wait for a sale. I'm interested but not 50 buck's interested
I think I’m only -75% interested. See you in 5-6 years?
Ya $50 is wayyyy steep. Cut in half and I think you've got a compelling product
@@Zade_95 agreed
I think you can find it for 24 euro on some websites
@@littlefinger4509 carefull with codesellers...
It is such a gigantic pity. The whole draw for me when it came to CoH was how it had a gratuitous amount of tactical options even at the most baseline first installment basic factions skirmish. Each 'tech tier' introducing huge components for your battle-order, asymmetry embraced whole-heartedly to create flavour and appeal, extensive defensive mechanics which allows you to dynamically reshape your battlefield into a web of emplacements and/or forward bases.
And then this.. so pretty looking and full of potential.. wearing it's heritage proudly.. only to then REDUCE that crucial complexity that brought us to the table.
Ugh. At the very best I'll consider getting it at some very deep discounts.
Thought about buying it, but dear God the price is pretty high. Not to mention the Deluxe Edition. Will wait for a price cut.
Yeah this should really be a $30 game at most. Price yourself like AAA, get judged like AAA
From what I've heard the deluxe doesn't even get you anything extra. In that section of the store page it says "Comes with artbook and game soundtrack (both things you could get for pre ordering the standard version) and [something about TBA features]
@Xeraser Alright, get rid of all the mech animation, get rid of any sense of balancing, get rid of the asymmetry of the various factions, and have no plans for any more advancement post-launch.
You say this like CoH was perfect at release. It had years of DLC and updates and piles of content added down the line each costing 20 bucks. Just because now it's cheap because the franchise has basically been abandoned doesn't change the initial value. I think the idea it is only worth 15 is utterly absurd personally. IH has far more content than CoH, DoW 1, and CoH 2 had at launch and far more balanced gameplay than those games began with. It is not there yet, yes, I think it should more be described as early access in its current state, but you are comparing a brand new, just released game with the greatest games ever released which cost notably more at time of release for much less when they first launched. I think you guys are rather overharsh.
@@mrdoge9508 no no the deluxe is supposed to have an extra smaller campaign or if im wrong should be at the least extra single player missions
@@ShadowWolf149 It's _supposed_ to. From what I can tell it currently doesn't provide that.
I approve of this historical simulation. Praise the Omnissiah!
There is definitely a machine spirit in each of those beasts.
A few other things CoH does better that this game does worse:
You *can* station units in buildings, but their offensive capability is severely stunted, basically guaranteeing a death if the enemy boxes you in.
Units almost always go for melee over staying at range away from each other, which ends up causing most units to run out from behind cover while being fired on by other infantry or mechs.
The game doesn't teach you that you can make mechs walk backwards so they don't expose themselves, leaving your weak spot up for grabs due to some fairly bad pathfinding.
Base buildings have so much health that it's almost hilarious. Killing just one can take literally minutes.
I was always awful at CoH but I thought the base buildings took forever to kill in that too?
Yes thats defently annoying, they seems to barley shoot out of Buildings. The devs should fix this.
Not sure when you played last Time but the melee problem should be fixed mostly.
True, they should defently add an button in the ui (there is space for it) for the walk backwards command for the mechs.
Personally i dont think the base has too much HP, compare it to dow2. Now that bases takes literally minutes, even when full army shoots at it and with Commander artillery support.
@@CrusadioI think It's partly got to do with how the base infantry is designed. Instead of giving both long range and midrange/short range options for all factions, they split them across the factions giving Rusviets only short range with Polania got only long range and Saxony has midrange.
Ok 2 things here are present bunkering buildings is shit and walking backward part thought it was COH
I've been hoping for Tiberian Sun & Company of Heroes to have a baby. But sadly it looks like a premature delivery, and instead of Tiberian Heroes, we got Company Sun :(
Still, there's promise in there-good atmosphere, good visuals, and the mechs capture the TS vibe-I hope they learn and IH2 fulfills the potential.
loool what an excellent comment
And yes I agree!
I played it a lot but never thought tiberian sun was good. Graphics were dull and gameplay was a weaker experience vs red alert 1. But if they re made tiberian sun or made a red alert 4 that wasnt garbage id be game.
I have this gut feeling the inspiration for this aesthetic was most strongly drawn from a long forgotten piece of RTS history, the Vinci faction from Rise of Legends. There are many different games that each aspect of this seems similar to, but the Vinci has so many similarities all packed into one faction from that one game... I'd be interested to know if the developers never forgot about the brilliance of the concepts anad aesthetic that went into the Vinci.
Is that the game Seth reviewed that u need to have a pirate of a pirate?
the poor range of most units is underwhelming...
I noticed that with artillery! It has to get surprisingly close to really do anything :|
A positional COH style game does require some range diversity to really allow for some tactical positioning. COH Mortar teams for example traded damage and fire delay for incredible range. Certainly missing in a game like this where everything has to ball up to be effective anyways.
I agree. Especially when one of the points of making a mech/walker is unobsturction when firing straight at or more preferrable down on something without having to deal with the whole "arching your shots BS" we have to deal with.
That, in my opinion, is due to the map size being rather underwhelming. Sure, it's so games don't last too long, but at the same time, maybe they should.
Poor range, dumbed down cover system and underpowered infantry are the major shortcomings of the game. I still liked the campaign though it was nowhere near as hardcore as CoH.
A big thing to note, which you haven't said I noticed, is that this is their first true RTS and self-owned game the studio has ever made. So of course they're going to make multiple bumbles like the cheesy and at times messy voice acting, as well as not have everything ready to go at release. At least, I've found, is that the developers are extremely interactive with their fanbase, and look to them for new ideas. Especially on Reddit, they interact with fans on memes, questions and ideas, etc. on a daily basis. On a final note, the world the game is based off of (Scythe) is very bare in deep lore, so they have to come up with their own to supplement it, most likely why they share roughly the same weapon systems with no variation. It's their first attempt, be a bit lenient on them if you will.
I had high hopes for this one. Especially since they got a full fledged publisher. But I guess the publisher was only there to push the price to 50€ ...
GoG currently has a special offer, where you get Sudden Strike 4 for free, if you buy Iron Harvest ... but I will probably still wait for a price drop.
Ty for making the video ... Learnt that the era of RTS is not revived ... But rly good job in all the effort 💕
Thanks mate :)
I enjoyed Iron Harvest's single player the story and world really drew me in but you're right in terms of gameplay it really is Babby's first Company of Heroes fitting since this is King Art's first RTS. Here's hoping it actually geta better
Well put - yeah i hope so too!
Unless you’re really into mechs and the world theyve created, it sounds like a pass or wait for it to be 50% off. I don’t picture a thriving MP scene for this game unfortunately. What’s surprising is that other game journalists are lauding this game with praise, when any UA-camr who’s been backing or following this game for a while is disappointed.
To be fair, IGN seperated their review into a single player review and multiplayer review and they both are quite similar to what Zade said in this video great presentation and single player campaign held back by the shallow gameplay and lack of variety
To be fair the comparisons to CoH may ultimately have hurt the games chances, CoH are some pretty big shoes to fill after all and, if I recall correctly, this was their first RTS game.
I love the game so far. It is very small yes so I’m interested to see how it expands but for the base game, I think they’ve got something good with this one. I love rts games so whenever something new that looks good comes along like this I owe it to myself to check out.
Great editing and concise thoughts in this video. As an rts fan who likes campaigns but primarily engages in the multiplayer aspects, I think 50 dollars base is a bit too steep for now.
Thank you! I completely agree. Wait for 25-50% off imo at least
I mentioned this in the beta on reddit and ended up getting top comment for quite awhile.
The core issue of this game is related to its emphasis on quick matches. CoH matches are done in 40~50 minutes. Both 1st and 2nd games. IH games are done in 20.
Because of this. Maps are smaller. Unit engagement ranges are puny. Pathways on maps are limited. So forth.
The reason CoH has the depth that it does comes from how -big- the maps are. Bigger maps mean units need longer ranges to engage, it also means you can need transport, may want to build defenses, so forth.
I bought this game despite its issues because I want to support the developers and as a Gamer with money I need to support the genres I care about. Even if the game itself isn't fully worth the price- the developers genuinely care about the product and deserve a recognition for their effort. I just wish they learn from their many mistakes with this release. Hopefully starting with the fact that making a watered-down RTS will not earn you players.
Games like Dawn of War 2 dumped endless complexity into their systems even as they ditched traditional RTS formulas. Command and Conquer 3 was far more complex in nearly every way than Tiberium Sun, so on and so forth. Each of these games drew crowds of new players.
I love Iron Harvest, but I hope they make it better some day.
The campaihn is pretty good in my book. I've seen worse. Multiplayer however....is not so good. Nozhing a few patches and balance changes couldn't fix, and I also think for the teams first RTS it's decent enough.
Am I disappointed as a backer? Kinda yes. To many promises weren't fullfilled, and it became clear that the development struggled internally.
However. With time, and that's probably the keyword here, the game can reach a much higher ground. Hopefully the Devs don't give up to soon.
Seems to be a trend in german dev teams. To build a game over time. With the exception of warhammer 40k gladius, i only know of german devs that are constantly working on their games. Like Egosoft and now KAG.
Tbh most games these days come half finshed on the Market not just german ones.
and then a GUNDAM dropped in from orbit ...
and all of the soldiers last words were "Oh Shi-"
*BEEEEEEEEAM CANON !!!*
Iron Harvest reminded me of a RTS called War Front: Turning Point. It an alternative history WW2 where Germany have jetpack trooper, mech and artillery Zeppelin; Allied have Nuke and force field; my fav is the Soviet which is tank focus and one of their high end unit is a 5 turrets tank.
Never heard of it, but I'll look it up!
@@Zade_95 To be honest it's quite an over looked little RTS gems. Though it isn't as deep or polished like C&C, Supreme Commander or World in Conflict, but its quite a lot of fun and consider how rare RTS are this days, those older overlooked games are worth checking out, though finding a legit copy nowdays might be challenging.
Soo... Play CoH and/or CoH2 instead. Gotcha
Unless you really like mechs or want a new campaign... Yes
I will be honest: I did not know this game and I did not expect something totally amazing about it, but it is good fun overall. Maybe it is not what the people expected / publisher promised, but we need to wait for this game to develop itself. Its kind of weird that we're living on a time were almost all games come out unfinished, and then the publishers finish them on the run. So, let's just wait a couple of months to allow IH to become great, and hope that they don't go down the road at the same time.
Shame. I have loved CoH since my friends got me into the first one in high school, so this looked right up my alley. Will defiantly keep an eye out for sales and updates on the game. Other than that I hope Relic can get past the snafu that was Dawn of War 3 and make CoH *3 and go to the Pacific Theater.
I'd love to see that - hopefully one day!
Aren't they working on Age of Empires IV at the moment? Hopefully it'll be a good learning experience for them.
well, CoH3 is happening, not in the Pacific though :(
Will you look back into it once the "Operation Eagle" Dlc hits?
I agree with the general review and am sadly disappointed by the game.
It looks cewl, *seems* fresh and has a little amount of innovation (the squad "pickup" mechanic is surely interesting for comp-play), but overall its very shallow and therefore feels repetitive (which is WEIRD for a RTS game, which is the genre of appreciated repetition lol).
It *is* a company of heroes clone, but its like the slightly *slow* bootleg version with a new tone/skin, feeling interesting for sure, but not interesting enough to get me super excited.
I was hoping to get this game and then be part of a new "competitive scene", which the Company of Heroes "style" works good for.
But unless they fundamentally expand their combat system, its a hard pass until a BIG sale
Small addendum though: my Beta experience in PVP was, that rushing anti infantry mechs wins you enough time to pump out several of these and squash your opponent. The polish MG-Mech for example hard-counters anti tank gunners too lel ;:).
@Xeraser Except at release CoH had less features, not much more maps, and an even larger price tag, and the rest came from DLC, and you're basically just saying it's not perfectly up to snuff immediately with one of the best games of all time. This is like looking at Shadow Warriors and saying "well it's not Doom II so in the trash can it goes." You guys are massively overcritical of a fresh release game that really should be described as early access rather than full release.
We could be being a bit harsh on them. This was their first rts game and CoH is up there in the convo for best RTS ever. The bar was a bit high maybe unreasonably so, but it’s a start
New info up on the Steam page:
store.steampowered.com/newshub/app/826630/view/2912095611694036382
- - -
"Road Map For September
Week 2 = New 3v3 Map and Campaign Coop mode.
Week 3 = New 2v2 Map and Glossary.
Week 4 = MP Ranked Mode and auto-cast abilities.
Week 5= New 1v1 Map.
This is a look at what lies ahead and should hopefully resolve some confusion caused by the mislabelling of information on the game-store fronts."
Interesting. Kinda wish it was pushed back a month and has all these included. Couldn't have the fancy release date in the trailers if that was the case though!
You should probably take it as early access if you’re considering buying since the devs have more planned for the future. I can understand wanting to get it out but they probably should have waited so that they had more content at launch.
To be fair, the game is new, plus, it took them 2-3 years to get here working off of the lore from a board game (surprise!) and inspiration from CoH. They have 5 factions technically, there's the main 3, Tesla (who I am convinced is going to be given for free to deluxe edition buyers before it's sold as a $5 to $10 expansion as a campaign following the events of the ending). And there's the villain faction (which if you know the ending, will probably be given as a faction to play in said possible dlc I mentioned I am convinced about, that or they're like Yuri and are given more as skirmish mode faction. Either way, IH is only in its beginning and it's already having gold shine through, all it needs is polishing and a bit of mining and soon we'll get a 24 karrot gold bar.
*FOR POLANIA!*
Very informative review. Good job 👏
Cheers mate!
Still can't wiat for the other 4 factions to be out, Crimean Khanate, Nordic Kingdoms, Clan Albion, and Tokugawa Shogunate.
I hope they add them! With more mechanics to go along with it too
Man... I was expecting "Company of Heroes WITH MECHS" but yeah... Not this. Seems disapointing. But maybe it'll get much better with updates and stuff. Also, maybe a fourth faction would be interesting?
The board game that inhabits the same 1920+ universe 'Scythe' has four more factions. Would love to see some of them added and have them be a lot more varied
I guess releasing unfinished games and waiting a few months to a few years to finish it with updates and patches is the norm now.
I think that idea is original, could be continue. I would like to see shooter game in the same universe, but still didn't played RTS version yet
Shooter rts hybrid when
I miss the old concept of RTS where you build bases, and produce units.
Aoe 3 remastered is coming in 2 weeks and they're making Aoe 4
Me too :(
Good review. Played a couple hour's so far and I agree with pretty much your whole review. Except performance. I have a GTX 1080 (a bit above minimum specs) and have resorted to running the game on the lowest settings, and the campaign still experiences frame dips into the 30s for extended periods. Maybe it's just the early missions I've played, but it was enough to make me look around and see if others were experiencing similar issues and many were. Skirmish single player seems to run much better. Don't know about multiplayer as I am not a multiplayer focused person.
Anyway, a very good, balanced review.
Thank you! Interesting to hear about performance, I know I had some issues with the beta on significantly weaker hardware than I'm running now (used a Ryzen 3900X and RX5700 for this) but here I had no issues. Early drivers maybe?
Expansions coming.. Sister game is Scythe which with it's expansion provides 5+2 factions of which only 3 are shown in Iron Harvest. I guess it just depends how many DLC' add ons the studio is gonna package it as. Same universe.. Scythe is the strategic level turn based game.
Hopefully they don't charge a ton of $ for it lol, wouldn't go down well after asking $50 for the base game I think!
I remember how a few years ago on FB the creators asked people what direction they should go, I suggested a mix between W40k dawn of war 2 and sudden strike, give up building buildings, just better to capture checkpoints and receive unit support after a time, then each of the unit would be valuable,but of course everyone wanted a company of heroes,good game and would be a good mix with sudden strike too
I disagree... something closer to DOW1 for me
I remember like over 50% of the results asked for something like CoH
I gotta be honest the last line made me crack up
“If that’s not the case then the future of Iron harvest will look just as bleak as the world of 1920 it inhabits”
I liked Iron Harvest but I agree with all points you’ve mentioned. It has a lot of potential, but it didn’t quite hit the mark. I still have hopes for it with upcoming updates and even a sequel, if it happens
Sure enough, I'm enjoying it as somebody who does not care about MP. It also likely helps that I wasn't following the hype at all and went in with effectively zero expectations.
Glad to hear it!
Never played much of CoH, for some strange reason and even though the RTS genre is my favorite videogame genre,I never could get the hang of it,kept getting rekted by the AI even on normal.After playing Iron Harvest's campaing,skirmish and multiplayer I feel more appreciative of this style of RTS and will give Company of Heroes another chance.Great review by the way,you just earned a sub XD
A little repetitive but a solid review. Glad I found your channel with this review.
Thanks mate. Out of interest, could you elaborate on repetitive at all? Do you mean in this video specifically, or compared to other videos?
Always looking to improve my content any way I can - I'd appreciate it! :)
@@Zade_95 honestly I only had time to watch this one this afternoon, so it's not in reference to your other reviews, but I do enjoy Skill Up reviews if you want to check him out (also streamlined with tons of no repetitive content IMO). I noticed you have other rts reviews for games I used to love (command and conquer generals) so I subscribed and added some of those for watch later. Overall, I did think this was a much better review than the IGN version for this game (I wasn't super trusting of their stock 'its great')
Cheers, appreciate you writing that out! Skill Up is great - definitely a goal to be on his level one day. Would love to hear what you think of other videos if you watch them :)
@@Zade_95 no problem, there's a lot to love about your reviews. Question for you, as someone who's favorite RTS of yesteryear is command and conquer generals, which other command and conquer game would you recommend (if I haven't played any others but I do own the collection)? I'm looking for some good rtses to sink my teeth into once I finish my plathrough of the Frostpunk DLC (which might be my favorite strategy-like game of all time)
I know
A *40k mod* that's what what this game needs
You going to do a Re-review or Update Review on the game?
One day, maybe. I'll revisit it in a year or so for sure and see how it stands - I'll see if I think it deserves another look :)
@@Zade_95 they play their cards right then hopefully. I like the game, I just hope that we may see it pull CoH2 where it gets better over time and then IH2 has features from the first and new ones for the second
Been playing since release and love it, any updates on your opinion with the newest changes?
Haven't played since launch, I'll certainly revisit it sometime down the line however! Glad to hear it's recieved some love
@@Zade_95 Lots of changes, most of them good. Devs are pretty good with regular updates, and have already addressed a number of your points. Hope you like it!
If I had the money I'd support this game, seems like it should've been in the 30-45$ range for this base with regular expansion packs and free updates to really flesh out different mechanics. For instance a stealth demolitions team that can lay traps for mechs that can do a lot of damage but are very weak if caught or sniper team that could pinpoint different parts of mechs and cripple weapon systems.
These devs took months to add a simple ping feature. I doubt they will add something like these suggestions for another decade
finally we get ring of red rts only instead of alternate post world war 2 we get post world war 1,amazing
Between this and Crusader Kings 3 launching same day it's tough to pick. I miss the old RTS campaigns this one is emulating but I'm not sure I'm ready to put down $50 for it. Especially if the game loop doesn't hold up. And this is with CK3 being on PC Game Pass where it's basically free.
I think the devs will update the game further because the devs actually listen to their playerbase
I hope so!
Zade im sure of it the game has a lot of potential still but I think they rushed it to realease it on a set date the 1 9 2020
Great review once again. Looks nice, but I think I'll stick with COH for now ...
Thanks! Yes, probably a good choice ✈
I like the cutscenes but not the mechs in live gameplay, I'm sorry it isn't better cause I've been playing and watching a loooot of rts and I'm from Poland. But thanks for the honest review, the graphics mostly on the mechs doesn't do it for me...
Is it just me or did RTS stopped looking better since something like CoH1 / DoW 2? At least from zoomed out view.
Anyway, this video confirmed my suspicions and Ill be looking out for a sale. Coop campaign is smthn I am interested in. The missions I played in beta seemed quite well done.
From what I've gathered, the game is somewhat light on content and a lot of features are coming at a later date.
Yeah I think because the field of view is so wide there's a limit to what improved textures can do.
They showed off the new textures and models for Age of Empires 3 recently and compared them to the old models. Alot of guys thought that the old models always looked as good as the new ones, but they never realized how blocky they were since they never zoomed in.
@@rubz1390 Yeah they look a tiny bit sharper in the trailer but really both are about the same. Whereas AoE2 DE vs the HD edition is completely night and day
@@thenayancat8802 I'm not talking about the trailer, there are detailed pictures of the models floating around.
@@rubz1390 Ah fair dues, yeah I've seen those models too. They look quite a bit better even though they don't add up to much when viewing at normal zoom.
I played the free beta with a friend and, at the time, we were quite interested. But after some considerable play time and the release of version 1.0, we didn't really care to buy it. Both of us kinda shrugged and said we'd buy it later, probably.
i had high hopes for the game when they did the survey stuff some time ago (was it 1 or 2 years ago?) i was under the impressions that they would create something new from CoH series to spice things up, i have no issues with the SP element of the game but imo it feels too clean/simple, i cant really explain it in english but will see how it goes i suppose, i didnt have the time to grab their beta.
Yah - reading the response they gave to that initial survey makes me imagine a very different game to what we got
I have this dread feeling that we are going to see a lot more of this marginal base game with expansion packs to enhance. For more bucks of course. I appreciate your honesty and sincerity in your reviews. Happy Gaming and thanks for sharing. One of the best selling games of all times was "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri". I don't think that this game will make the list. I do think it would make a good list to pull selections for "should you play this game in 2020".
Yeah for sure - the whole 'release now, patch later' kind of thing.
its funny that in iron harvest even a water tank i a mech
Even the desktop icons look 100% alike
If I wasn't tired I'd love to explain how this game needs what CoH2 had where you could upgrade a unit to have certain weapons and how the game NEEDS ANIMATION KILLS FOR MELEE. You know, like Warhammer TW like you mentioned or Dawn of War
100% - would add some much needed depth
It's just sad sometimes when a game is amazing aesthetic and sensory wise but very empty internally.
Like if they added the levels of depth and dynamic game play from coh this game would be masterpiece
I knew it. The whole "base building" advertising point was a half truth. For some reason I thought that might end up being the case. Sucks because I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.
Yeah, saying it has base building is like... Eh. I wish they went for a world in conflict style unit system and had forgone the lack luster base building entirely
Honestly it all feels flat, the plot and lore especially. So much room for creativity and we just got bizarro early ww2
My problem with Iron Harvest was that we already have enough Company of Heroes like games, and I don't think they can carry the genre
I was born with strategy games
And I Don't have any shooter games
I have just cause games but those are open world games And I consider JC3 to have a funny yet Well built story
And city skylines cuz why not
And my first game was age of empires
Also my dad used to play the old C&C
Can't get more convinient than that
Is single player bug free? I heard people mentioning path finding issues with AI.
Didn't notice anything game breaking on my end, a couple of crashes in the beta but asides that rock solid
It is buggy as shit but not game breaking. Just stuff like the cavalry generel riding sideways into battle
I commented on one post from the devs that this game looks and works exactly like Company of Heroes. They were furious.
yikes.... not much more unappealing that a dev who can't take feedback well :|
Tried the beta... Just made me miss CoH2 lol ... But in all seriousness, I felt there wasn't enough of a difference between the 3 factions and I was disappointed in the lack of melee mechs. Plus it isn't clear what exactly each unit is good at - like who should I send into melee range and who should I keep back? Is there even a difference?
Ya i agree - they're very similar asides from the mechs
Will you be doing any coverage on AOE 3: DE?
Yes! I'd like to review it on release :)
Say it with me people:
Publishers. Kill. Games.
Iron harvest is by no means dead. Yet. But if any of you have been noticing, whoever is in charge here forced the release on a fancy date, and then spent a nonzero level of budget on sponsorships, ads, and marketing to a game that would have self-marketed had it been good enough. That budget could have been spent hiring people to help with the game.
My boi mentioning Pacific Rim!
10/10 movie
You asleep UA-cam? Why didn’t I get notifications for this video.
come on youtube! deliver those notifications lol
It is ok for what it is, I will give them time to deepen the game. There is enough good bones to build on it
Yeah I hope so. Time will tell!
Great review
Cheers!
I backed the game and I am satisfied with this result. It's fun, cool looking, and for the most part delivered on its promises. It's my hope that they continue to support and improve the game going forward in the same way Snapshot is supporting Phoenix Point post crowdfunding.
I'm glad to hear it! Me too, I'll revisit every so often and hope for new things :)
@@Zade_95 The steam page has a road map for weekly updates for September! Saw it just now.
"It's like saying coke has health benefits because it's mostly water"
I was, uh, confused for a minute there.
Tell me in wrong 😏
Had a different coke in mind
feels like iron harvest saw the hype and was like "fuck it they're excited enough"
After playing the beta i thought the campaign was pretty bland with a few totally overacted characters. Interested to hear if others agree with him on the campaign.
The game isn't amazing but it certainly is fun and interesting. I cant wait for what updates bring. It's not worth the price yet, so get it on sale.
Good summary - I agree!
Pacific Rim should not be considered a guilty pleasure. It's a genuinely good film.
true that brother
Ok the only thing i dont want in the game that is on coh is the mobile lmg teams
I like the lmg team here thay is basically a faster mg team thats not running and gunning with it and need to setup
Game play wise idk im a casual that dosent like multiplayer
And im not sure if some infantry needs to have anti mech bomb stuff i will expect polania to have that special units than the rest of the faction
This game is actually quite half-done, there are even some better details in the beta version. Optimization is also lack of work, it can’t get full fluent 60 fps on my friend’s gaming computer, and it has texture glitches, path finding problems for bigger mechs...
still, let’s wait for the mods. Mods can fix almost everything.
The demo on Steam was generously long with enjoyable story line, characters, mechs, and atmosphere. Really fun, but actual strategy seemed sparse. It's on sale for $34 @ Steam, and is a "must buy" for me, but only if it drops down further in price, interesting dlc single player content is added, or more sophisticated strategy elements are added. (sorry, devs, it *is* very cool)
People forget this game came out less than a year ago. But I agree on some of its issues. I do have high hopes for a second one or what they will do with dlc. Just give it time, it will either improve and become something awesome, or it will fade away along with its AU, which of course would be a a shame, as its AU could sustain multiple games.
@@ATruckCampbell agree the AU is fantastic and I will definitely get it at some point.
Awesome review. Suggest to do act of war: direct action
Cheers! I'll have a look, thanks
Only got this because I love Scythe and RTS games. Have only played it for a couple of hours tho. I so much wish it wasn’t a CoH/ DoW 2 simplified rip-off
Aw that's a bummer, hopefully 3-4yrs down the line it's a much better game and heavily on sale
Ya hopefully some updates give it some more life
Yeah, really wanted to like this game and I do think the mechs are freaking awesome. But it does just feel like a watered-down CoH. Ancestor's Legacy felt the same way. They both can't seem to capture the feel of CoH.
I bought this game now as an investment in what I think (hope) it will be after another year or two of ongoing development.
I hope it pays off - for both our sakes! :P
aka you got ripped off.
@@CmdrSoCal lol maybe
I bought Iron Harvest at launch. My current play time is 10.6 hours and I last played it on 17th October 2020.
Sadly says all you need to know about the game. :(
:(
Researching into this game is just a reminder of how great Company of Heroes is. I might still get this game, but it's disappointing that all they did was COH lite in a different setting. They could have taken the opportunity to expand on COH mechanics or otherwise done their own thing. I also REALLY don't like day 1 DLC. They might plan to expand on the game in the future, but that alone does not make it worth buying now. The single-player game looks well done though. Might be worth it just to play a quality RTS campaign again, or just to relive some COH nostalgia in a different setting. Then again, I can just boot up COH.
I know right. COH is so good, I often forget *how* good. Replaying it for the iPad release a while back was really eye opening lol
The time has come
It's best rts since desert of kharak. Much better than DoW3. Nice vids, smooth gameplay, cringy mecha but very good voice acting.
In the UK the game is £47 that's more than CK3 that's a bit high for me it's in the £35 range, from what i hear its a mix of coh and sudden strike but it should off tipped a bit more towards SS so i will give the game a go just for the SP campaign.
Yikes yeah that's like 80 NZD lol. Needs to be cheaper
Agree 100% with the creator. I actually feel kind of insulted with this and the price tag.....
It took months to patch in a ping. The coop campaign is an insult being neither coop nor a campaign. You need to finish the campaign in sp first and can then splitscreenplay the individual levels without the story with a friend. Skirmish Ai is non existent and not fun. IT IS SUCH A SHAME but it is still not worth more than 15€
They stabbed themselves in the Achilles heel by making it for consoles.
So, there is still nothing even comparable to Supreme Commander Forged Alliance, or even Total Annihilation. Makes me sad to say this, but RTS as a genre is pretty much dead.
see here is the problem .. YES Iron harvest costs 50 dollars and that´s a lot, so i personally would wait for a pricedrop ..
but you are comparing it to a gameseries made by a well known studio with a pretty good trackrecord that´s going to tackle the next installment of Age of Empires, .... first thing i would have to ask ... who is King art games?
you already mentioned how CoH had 14 years to more than just establish itself and pretty much define and refine a certain style of more Tactical RTS in that genre
then this game also originally was a Kickstarter which made 1.3 Million dollars .... that´s a LOT ... right? ...
nope it is but a drop what a solid RTS would require these days (15 to 20 million has been mentioned by some veteran RTS developers, and that also was years ago so it might need even more now) .. so i´m not surprised King Art games got Deep Silver as a publisher eventually getting more backing that way ... but relic still had Sega for most of their games ..
... i´m not here to defend the game ... but considering what you are exactly comparing the game to made by whom .. i sometimes have to question peoples expectations ( well of course most people only give a shit about the endproduct and otherwise move on but ..) ... like it´s unrealistic to expect a brandnew game to bring in the EXACT amount of content, features and complexity of something that had the chance to grow over 14 years ...
i´m playing the Demo right now (which has been extended till January 10th 2021, so jump in to judge yourself by any interest) and for me personally the game does give a solid enough impression even despite it´s lack of content (couple more factions and unique units specifically infantry, maybe some supportpowers) and complexity ... but sometimes i rather take something easy to digest than a game i have to tackle for hours and hours until i may understand it´s entire convoluted complexity *looks at supreme commander, particularly FAF* .. especially since i no longer play games as much i used to years before ..
i´d say it would be a decent entrygame for people interested to get into the RTS genre
Codex is back in game
Thanks, will give it another look!
I've put quite a few hours into this since yesterday. I think, at the moment, it's a great purchase for some people but not for everyone. Notably, the campaign is quite good, better than most RTS stories which are usually poorly told and poorly written. I won't say it's Starcraft 1 or Warcraft 3 quality, but it's satisfying and makes me care about more than just the mission objectives. I should note that, while I've played many (perhaps most) RTS games released since Age of Empires 1, I somehow missed CoH 1 and 2, so I can't really make a comparison between Iron Harvest and those titles.
Buy now if:
-You like the board game that serves as its source material (Scythe) and you also like PC strategy games
-You like the pseudo-historical setting (industrial, WW1) and alt history
-You like well-told RTS campaigns and stories
-You appreciate a solid core RTS experience
Wait if:
-You were hoping for co-op campaign. This is a big problem. As of release, the steam page still advertises several features that are NOT included at release, like the co-op campaign. While I understand that COVID and/or publisher pressure probably caused delays and forced the developers to release now, there should have been better communication about these delayed features, and the Steam page NEEDS to be updated to reflect this
-You want competitive ranked online (not yet implemented)
-You want replayability in the form of many different maps to play vs friends or AI
-You like extremely asymmetrical factions, a la Starcraft. There is some asymmetry here, especially among the mechs, but less so in infantry selection. I haven't yet decided if this is something I can deal with, i.e. if the mechs do turn out to be the real "core" gameplay and the infantry are just sidepieces. The mechs are, after all, kind of the game's big selling point.
Not based on scythe but jakub rozalskis 1920 world design. Scythe is based on that too.
We need more rts games on iPad and are not paid
Ye it would be fun to play rts on iPad.