Steel Beasts

"Steel Beasts" is the name for a family of tank simulators created by eSim Games for Microsoft Windows.

Its subject is contemporary combined arms tactics (with emphasis on modern armoured fighting vehicles) at a company scale. As a consumer game, it is a genre mix of strategy game, action game, simulation game, and wargame of fairly complex gameplay.

"Steel Beasts" (More colloquially known as "SB" to its fans) is distinguished from other simulators by a faithful reproduction of tactical manoeuvres and Fire Control Systems as well as various other military facets than when compared to other simulations.The sound samples are mostly authentic having been recorded from some of the actual Armoured Fighting Vehicles depicted in the sim.The two main crewable vehicles depicted in the original Steel Beasts are the German Leopard 2A4and the American M1A1 Abrams, However there are numerous NATO vehicles including M2 Bradleys and the Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicles, NATO Support vehicles include the HMMWV and the M113 APC.Warsaw Pact Vehicles include the T-72 and T-80 MBTs, BMP1 & BMP2 IFVs, BTR-80 APCs and BRDM scout cars.Steel Beasts Pro has added to this family of crewable vehicles these being the Bradley and M113 (in most of its more widely known guises), with more military training contracts has led to the creation of more vehicles being modelled in the sim, these include the newer Leopard 2 A5 model and the CV9040 IFV, both of which are playable vehicles.In addition Steel Beasts also models Helicopters, the CH-146 Griffon, CH-47 Chinook Utility and the Hind, Tigre Attack Helicopters.

As a tactical simulation artillery is modelled in the sim and player can call in various types of artillery, from conventional smoke and high-explosive rounds, to DPICM and the FASCAM minefield system.

"SB" also includes a scenario editor which allows for programming of random or condition-based behavior in the computer-controlled units. Well-designed SB scenarios therefore have a high degree of replayability. In addition to the scenario editor SB also contains an map editor for creating custom maps depicting various terrain types.

Customized versions of "Steel Beasts" have been adopted by the armies of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Chile, Canada, Australia, Spain and USA for training purposes.

Version History

The original "Steel Beasts" is no longer in production.

"Steel Beasts Professional" - Full version, only available to military clients.

"Steel Beasts Pro Personal" - Limited functionality version available to the public.

A mass-market game version based on the Pro PE engine, called "Steel Beasts 2", is planned.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator Game Rankings, the game had an average score of 87% based on 21 reviews. [cite web|url=http://www.gamerankings.com/htmlpages2/914278.asp |title=Steel Beasts Reviews |accessdate=2008-03-03 |publisher=Game Rankings] On Metacritic, the game had an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 13 reviews. [cite web|url=http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/steellbeasts |title=Steel Beasts (pc: 2000): Reviews |accessdate=2008-03-03 |publisher=Metacritic]

Critical response to the original "Steel Beasts" was quite consistent. Reviewers were initially put off by the substandard 640x480 graphics, then highly impressed by the gameplay, immersion and the intelligent-seeming behaviors exhibited by the computerized units.Fact|date=March 2008

Bruce Geryk of GameSpot gave the game a rating of 8.8 out 10. [cite web|url=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/steelbeasts/review.html |title=Steel Beasts for PC Review |accessdate=2008-03-03 |author=Bruce Geryk |date=2000-10-04 |publisher=GameSpot]

Awards

"Steel Beasts" collected the following accolades:

* SimHQ - Sim of the Year, 2000
* GamePen - Best PC Simulation of 2000
* IGNPC - Editor's Choice Award
* Wargamer - Best of the Year Award
* PC Gamer - Best Simulation of 2000
* Computer Games Magazine - Best Simulation of 2000

References

External links

* [http://www.esimgames.com/products.htm eSim Games] - Company site
* [http://www.SteelBeasts.com SteelBeasts.com] - Official fan site
* [http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php/Main_Page Steel Beasts wiki] - Official SBwiki for all things related to Steel Beasts