Steel Horizon review

Sept 5, 2007

The absolute most exciting thing about Steel Horizon - and this is no exaggeration - is its misleading, deceiving box art. Steel Horizon’s cover shows us guns, a fury of planes in the sky, explosions, sinking battleships, and more guns. But, actually, Steel Horizon has few-and-far-between action sequences, shabby effects, awkward movement, and gameplay that makes the original Battleship game ten times more appealing, even if you’re its biggest loser.

Steel Horizon is a strategy game. Now, sometimes, strategy games may be perceived as slow and time consuming, especially from a story perspective - the plot is usually just an excuse to fight some more. Steel Horizon's plot, however, moves so slowly it feels like it’s sinking in an ocean made of molasses. You’re immediately placed into a battle with no initial backstory at all - we'll admit there is a decent explanation as to why, but it's still jarring. The plot eventually molds into something, but this “something” is not at allfascinating. To make matter worse, the gameplay movesabout as sluggishly and is just not even remotely enticing. You command a set of battleships, and while your objectives vary, you typically have to...well, sink battleships.