[BioWare [http://www.bioware.com/games/shattered_steel/ Bioware's Shattered Steel page] , accessed November 11, 2007.] ]tory
The year is 2132. Deep space exploration and colonization have become reality. The human race is growing at an incredible rate; man's sphere of influence has been expanding unchallenged for 150 years. Man's universe has split into 2 distinct societies, the highly structured and lawful core worlds and the lawless frontier worlds. The Core Worlds represent the best that humanity has to offer; a peaceful application of technology used for the betterment of mankind.The Frontier Worlds hold the seamy underbelly that the Core Worlds want to forget; a greedy race for the elements the Core Worlds need for expansion. Huge mining and manufacturing corporations compete in the pillage of the outer worlds purely for the generation of profit. To maintain basic "order" on the outer worlds and to "compete" with rival companies each corporation maintains a private force for "problem solving".
It was in 2102 when these private forces reached the level of companies and fleets that the Core Navy stepped in at Tarnok IV. The Raw Materials division of Ford Toyota Co. wanted Tarnok IV for the vast minerals that could be stripped from the planet, while Universal Pharmaceuticals saw the planet for its industrial and crop potential. The legal ownership of the planet had been in dispute for more than twenty years so the Sato Group decided to take the planet by force and dedicated 75% of their forces to do so. Universal Pharmaceuticals also sent in their own force. As the first shots began to be fired, the 142nd Battle Fleet, commanded by Rear Admiral Davies, came out of HyperSpace. The Core Navies ships came out with their plasma cannons hot, and torpedoes locked. Without warning the ships opened fire. When the first barrage was over, they had destroyed over three quarters of the ships from both companies. Admiral Davies then demanded a cease fire from all parties.
His orders had been given days before when it was decided that such a precedent as mass fleet battles by corporations to decide planetary ownership could not be set. The repercussions of this were that the percentage of total employees of a corporation dedicated to security could not exceed 1%. Furthermore the corporations were only allowed to hire mercenaries if they did not employ their own security force, and even then they were restricted in the number that could be hired. Because of these restrictions it became necessary for the corporation to hire or employ heavily armored individuals. They needed to be able to send in one man where they had previously dedicated a thousand. Therefore each of these individuals needed to be a one man army. With enough fire power that they would not need to depend upon reinforcements, or help in any way.
The Planet Runner was developed specifically for this purpose. The Planet Runner could navigate over most terrain while carrying the fire power of a light armored division, and the defense strength of a small battle ship. A modified corvette class starship provided the living quarters for the one or two man crew, and a highly functional and adaptable computer that could also strip down and rebuild any Planet Runner operating out of the corvette. The back half of the corvette was dedicated to storing parts, and repairing and building Planet Runners. While these one man armies could pacify small towns and uprisings single handily, the Core Worlds do not see them as a threat and allow their existence.
You play the role of a freelance mercenary on a limited protection contract with a large mining corporation. You operate a Planet Runner used for deep recon missions and planetary pacification. You patrol a section near the edge of known space which is frequently plagued by pirates and subject to frequent raids. At the start of the game a mining camp on Lanios 3 (a planet under your jurisdiction) has stopped following the usual communication protocols. You are called in to investigate.
The corporation is quite certain that an extensive pirate raid is occurring on the surface of Lanios 3; there were numerous disturbances reported just prior to the loss of contact. As per standard defense protocol you have been given free rein to react to any threat.
Gameplay
The game itself mimics the style of the "Mechwarrior" videogame series, featuring mechanized combat in bipedal machines called "Planet Runners". Unlike "Mechwarrior", the Runners do not generally take humanoid shapes - only two of them, the Retro and Shiva, have a distinct human shape and neither of them have arms. Some of the Runners are based around animals, such as the Raptor, with a very overbearing appearance and "Chicken walker" style legs, with claw-like feet. The enemies are somewhat more varied but generally center around animals such as spiders, scorpions and the praying mantis.
The game shares more similarities with "Mechwarrior", in the fact all of the Runners have a specific weight limitation, and can have their weapons, shield generator and engines interchanged and removed based around this limit. Each of the runners has a primary weapon mount, and one or more secondary weapon mounts, along with a shield and generator bay. Primary weapons are mounted on the head of the Runner and most feature twin primary mounts for a pair of guns. Secondary mounts are singular and weapons can be grouped, single, or alternately fired independent of the primary guns.
There are specific sets of primary and secondary weapons, and they are not interchangeable. A set of three laser and three bullet weapons, with two special energy weapons round out the primary weapons. Secondary weapons range from dumb fire rockets, guided missiles and energy cannons to howitzers, mortar cannons and - very late in the game - nuclear missiles.
Energy weapons have a maximum ammo amount (up to 200 in some cases) and recharge when below this number. Bullet weapons however, do not recharge, nor are mid-mission reloads possible. Weapons can sometimes be picked up off the battlefield, at the expense of dropping the currently selected secondary (or current primary) weapon. One advantage of this is the ability to pick up a weapon too heavy for the Runner to normally use, at the cost of drastically reduced speed.
Missions vary from assaults, infiltrations, recon to defending bases or convoy escorts. Combat is fairly straightforward, with the ability to tilt and pivot the Runners "head" (and sometimes the entire torso) to target enemies not directly ahead of you. This is especially useful when attempting to take down rather frequent encounters with airborne units.
The two main features are locational damage and deformable terrain. Locational damage applies to all enemy units and buildings, allowing the player to target legs to quickly destroy or disable enemies, to destroying the head, which in most cases is not actually fatal, but has practical or comedy purposes. The basic bipedal walker enemy without its head has no weapons, but it will continue to walk around - blind - bumping into the player or buildings. Deformable terrain is primarily a visual pleasure, with little practical use. However, persistence or clever thinking can reward the player with a tactical advantage. shooting at the edge of a hillside can create a "notch" to fire down onto or up at targets. The biggest deformation possible is the nuclear missile. Accompanied by a white flash, it will not only obliterate almost anything within its wide explosion radius, it also creates a large crater and sends out a shock wave along the ground, using the terrain as a moving "wall". Not only does this serve to trap anyone surviving the blast inside a deep, burning crater, but it can be used as a mountain-destroying device, or to rip a chunk out of just about anything that stands in your way. Any terrain deformation can be seen on the games 3D, real-time map screen.
In total there are 7 Planet Runners available to the player: Gnat, Stormguard, Invader, Warthog, Raptor, Retro, and Shiva. Each class of Runner also has its own onboard computer, with its own voice overs and in some cases, a different view on things. The heavy runners speak in first person ("I have damage to my hull"), where the lighter runners are more formal ("Warning: Damage to hull").
The player is assisted by yet another voiced computer situated in its starship in orbit around the planet. The AINIC"(Artificial Intelligence Network Interface Coupler)" Mark 3, as it calls itself, provides all mission summaries, briefings and mid-mission updates with a full voiced backing, and is presented as a self-aware computer entity.
The game also includes multiplayer and a mission editor. Multiplayer can support up to 16 players, and a "single player anarchy" mode also includes options for co-op play, custom missions, bots, and playing single player missions with multiple humans, either with the aliens or against them.
References
External links
* [http://www.bioware.com/games/shattered_steel/ BioWare's Shattered Steel page]
