Steam World Heist Review

I got Steam World Dig on the cheap during a sale, I thought that it was going to be some kind of 2D MineCraft clone and well while that wouldnt have been the worst thing in the world it turned out to be something somewhat different and something I really enjoyed. Yes Steam World Dig had mining in it, but instead of building it had a story a very enjoyable story, once I started playing it I couldnt stop. It not only had a great story but it had what people often refer to as MetroidVania style gameplay, the sort of platforming action where you keep noticing places you cant reach for one reason or another and then you gain a tool which I noticed not long after finishing it that there was a game called Steam World Heist and I thought oh well that sounds cool but what I really thought it would be was just more of the same but with a slightly diffrent setting. Well I finally decided to get and play it and despite it not exactly being new I felt that I really should review it.

SteamWorld Heist may share a few small things in common with dig for a start it features the same kind of robotic characters, a very simmilar graphical style, a similar senseof humourand a great story but its a tottally different genre of game. If Dig was a metroidvania game with steam robots then I can best describe Heist as a 2d tactics game with steam powerd robots, think of it as 2D Xcom steam robot edition but with base building replaced with humour and character interaction and you'll be on the right lines.

So SteamWorld Heist starts you off as Piper the female robot steam captain of a pirate ship, yes she might be a robot but she is referd to as Ma'am and her and whats more she is a great character. I think its great that Piper is clearly a she and yet is in charge captain of the ship and is shown to be intelgenet resorceful but no doubt this will be ignored while people continue to complain all feminine characters in games are either damsals in distress or just walking breasts. To start with Pipers crew consists of her, a pilot called wonky and a tough old sea fairing robot called Seabrass but slowly you will start to recruit new and intresting robots to build your own merry band of bots. I need to stand and salute the game right here, they have pumped so much character into every recruitable robot that you cant help but grow attached to them and that really makes this game what it is. So many times I caught myself shouting out little snippets like "yes SeaBrass your da man" that I should be embarrassed about it but im not.

The game is the ideal handheld game or short burst game because it only takes minutes to complete levels, so you can do one on the bus on your way to work or just when you have 5 minutes to kill, yet honestly you can find youself blowing an hour on it without realisihng the time has gone by. Every one of the robots has its own skill set but then there is also a lot of choice when it comes to weapons, do you want a pistol with a long sight which will make it easy to hit your enemies but wont cause much damage or you could use a weapon which doesnt have a sight requires you to get closer but packs a heck of a wollop. One of the important things to note is that you can try levels again and again either to see if you can beat your score or simply if your stuck on a level and think you need to gain a little more experiance and level your chracters up or want to gain some more currency to buy a more powerful gun.

Now I dont think you should ever be over positive about anny game so I will try to look at faults this game has. SteamWorld Heist doesn’t have permadeath, if one of your robots dies then you take him back to your ship in pieces and he will be restored once you have completed the mission, the issue with this though is that downed robots dont gain any experiance at all, this can have a knock on effect as when you take them on the next mission they will still be weaker than your other bots, its not too bad though I guess as you can redo an earlier easier mission with some of your robots who could use a bit of levelling up so as far as faults go its not to big of a deal.

So in conclusion Steamworld Heist really won me over. The characters are all awesome, you really feel close to them after a bit of time, the sci fi robot plot line is great in my oppion and the gameplay has a real just one more go quality to it. It is a brilliant game and its worth every penny it costs. I should point out that at the moment as its part of the humble Indy 18 bundle so you can get it on steam for practically nothing and help charity as well, it can be found at the following link  https://www.humblebundle.com/humble-indie-bundle-18