Iron Meat takes the Contra formula, puts it on steroids, cranks the music to eleven, and has you violently exploding excessive amounts of extraterrestrial organic material you can drown in. In fact, I’m reminded a lot of Carrion, only on the other side of the conflict to see what the military dudes were going through. The game never takes itself too seriously, even in a post-apocalyptic setting, and Ivan Valeryevich Suvorov (Razz) and the folks at Retroware offer an fantastic run-n-gunner. By the end credits of Iron Meat, you’ll have seen so much meat, blood, and gore, you might just go vegetarian.
The story of Iron Meat is pretty light, even though the world is very dark and grim. Earth has been overrun by sci-fi horrors never-before-seen by this world. In response, the military is fighting day and night to repel what’s coming. But it’s clear that the war is slowly being lost, and that’s where you come in, you’re sent in to stop anymore loss of humanity.
Since this is a Contra-like, anyone who’s familiar will be right at home here. The gameplay of Iron Meat is super tight, everything from the moving, shooting, and platforming. I played a majority of the game on keyboard and mouse, the rest I did with a controller. As was the style at the time, playing with the d-pad offers a more precise experience. Platforming is excellent, and offers the player a lot of latitude (and longitude) when platforming through narrow corridors, nothing scummy happens to you as a result. There will be plenty of times you’ll need to go prone to avoid incoming fire or death traps. Your character can aim in seven directions (except down as the eighth). You can even plant your feet to shoot without moving. There’s a healthy amount of weapons, from shotguns to railguns to plasma rifles to grenade launchers. You get two weapon slots, allowing you to mix ‘n’ match weapons and styles. You can attain new weapons through power-ups found in a level, and acquiring the same upgrade increases its potency, signified by the different color. There’s no shortage of weapons or output damage in Iron Meat, and it thrives on that.
There are nine levels to Iron Meat, each with their own personality. The first level is The Forest, a solid introduction to the mechanics and the flow of levels and bosses, which are all multi-phased. Sky is a flying ship level, with precarious traps and drops. On Train, there are a lot of traps whether it be gaps or exposed electrical wires, this will mean instant death. It gets annoying, and can be easy to miss, even with the art being clean and clear. Skyscraper puts you in a slowly rising elevator with a tighter camera as enemies drop and fly in. Moon is a short level with an easy boss. Moon Base has a great nod to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game in its opening moments. City has the attitude of alternate 1985 Hill Valley where Biff Tannen is running things, but here is taken over bio-organic beings. As far as final bosses go, Iron Meat has a really good one, though the game leaves you wanting more.
There are three difficulty modes: easy, medium, and hard. Completing a level on any difficulty, unlocks it for all, so there’s no grinding or gating of playing a level how you want to other than completing it first. The chosen difficulty determines things like the placement of traps, number of enemies, and hit points required to kill said enemies and bosses. You’re given 30 lives on easy, 16 lives on medium, and 8 lives on hard. Easy does feel too easy, and I was able to complete the game on the medium skill. I finished the game in just under two hours, but there’s a lot of replay value to be found here. Levels can take five to ten minutes to complete, based on the difficulty selected, and if you get tripped up anywhere.
Enemies mostly consist of taken over humans who are no longer human, and must be put down. There will often be little grubs you have to dispatch, requiring you to get low or jumping over them entirely. Due to the bio-organic nature of these extraterrestrials, they have also taken over machines and inanimate objects, and made them bio-mechanical and more deadly. Much like the levels of the game, bosses have lots of unique personalities and designs. Each boss is multi-phase, and you’ll fight things like an attack helicopter melded with a crocodile. Or you’ll do battle with a mutated scorpion, or perhaps a biological-infused tank. With everything you’ll blow parts off of it, exposing an body parts or an eye you shoot. It’s all a horror to look at, but you can’t help but stare.
There are 35 unlockable skins and achievements in the game, with achievements a separate thing from the skins. You can start a game and select a whole skin, or mix ‘n’ match a style of your own. This is where a lot of the game’s replayability comes into play. Iron Meat is meant to be played and replayed, and it’s even better if you bring in a friend for two-player co-op.
Iron Meat features many destructible elements within a level. The fact that lights, signs, and things can be shot out shows much care and detail went into the game. As a tip, try shooting during the “Level Clear” screen, and see what happens. There might even be an achievement in it for you.
While there isn’t a leaderboard or anything competitive, there is a results screen that displays the time taken, threats eliminated, and lives lost. From there, you’ll receive a score based on that. The score adds up to a rank, and each new rank unlocks of skins.
You can go retro with ‘CRT Filter’ found in the game, where it adds a slight CRT monitor curve, scan-lines, and chromatic aberration. I wish it was customizable, such as intensity or specific elements on or off, but its inclusion is authentic to the experience. Audio also receives a similar treatment with a toggle for the soundtrack in retro mode, sounding like a midi or sound chip. Though I have to say that the default soundtrack is a perfect compliment to the gameplay.
This is a game with virtually no visual settings except the retro filter and V-Sync, it runs and plays perfectly on PC and the Steam Deck.
My PC Specs:
– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)My Steam Deck (OLED) Specs
– SteamOS 3 (Arch-based)
– Zen 2 4c/8t, 2.4-3.5GHz (up to 448 GFlops FP32)
– 16 GB LPDDR5 on-board RAM (6400 MT/s quad 32-bit channels)
– 8 RDNA 2 CUs, 1.6GHz (1.6 TFlops FP32)
– Steam Deck 1TB NVMe SSD
– HDR OLED (16:9 @ 1280 x 800)
Iron Meat is a bloody good time, offering a grotesque and beautiful arcade experience. Retroware once again nails the nostalgia of playing games like Contra while going above and beyond to deliver a retro experience on modern systems. Don’t let its short runtime be a deterrent, this is still a must-play because it is so well done. Iron Meat modern classic that’s accessible to everyone at any age to play and enjoy, solo or together.
A Steam code for Iron Meat was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes
