System: Oculus Rift, Rift S
Price at Time Of Review: £29.99 ($39)
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement)
Genre: Beat ’em up
Input: Oculus Remote
Best Playing Position: Sitting, Standing
Multi-Player: Yes
Age Rating: PG
Description: Take control of giant robots and engage in steel-to-steel combat! Steel Combat is a robot fighting game built from the ground up for VR. Choose from a roster of metallic warriors each with unique abilities and go on heated battles with rival ‘bots!
Review: Are you one of the few people who watched Real Steel (a robot fighting film starring Hugh Jackman and Evangeline Lilly) and did you enjoyed it? If you did then I have good news, because Steel Combat is exactly like that only you control the robots. Choosing from several robots and fighting in several areas you must duel to the last and knock ten buckets of bolts and nuts out of each other. You can walk, fly and execute short and long-range attack moves, with each robot being good as certain styles.
You have your basic arcade system CPU fighting here but online is where the real action is. Working your way in a group (you can also watch other people’s fights). While a little jumpy at the moment I can only hope that it improves over time. Graphics wise this game looks pretty cool the robots look massive and very well animated. But the fast-paced gameplay is what makes it so much fun. Sure, the training mode could have been better, but with a bit of button bashing using training mode you can soon work out most the big moves.
If you love big robot films like Real Steel and Pacific Rim you will surely love this game. There isn’t a massive selection of robots or arenas (that we discovered anyway) but this game has to be all about that multiplayer. We only played a few matches, but it seemed to run pretty smoothly and there was no sign of lag on the games we played, but this might well depend on how good each player’s connection is. This game is designed to be all about fast paced action and I would imagine two computers and two headsets networked together would be a real laugh, but you might well experience some issues with the online fights.
