Iron Meat – PlayStation 4 Review

Overview – developed and published by Retroware, Iron Meat is a run and gun arcade style shooter set in an apocalyptic future. The Earth and Moon have been overrun by “The Meat”, an extraterrestrial mass that mutates all that crosses its path and taking over the world, with only one hope to save the world from the Iron Meat. This title is available on all platforms, with a link to each version of the game at the bottom of this review.

Disclaimer: before I get into the review, I would like to thank Retroware for providing the copy of Iron Meat that was used for this piece, via the Keymailer service. The provision of this software has not influenced the contents of this review, all thoughts and opinions contained within are my own.

Now with the introductions out of the way, let’s get into the review, starting with the story.

Story – in a secret labratory moonbase, scientist Yuri Markov has been conducting experiments resulting in the base and earth being overrun by “The Meat”. This inter-dimensional biomass consumes all in its path, corrupting and mutating all that is assimilated. To combat the fleshy invasion and the terrors it has spawned, two soldiers set off on a mission to save the world. Take on the mutated corpses, machines and the world itself to stop the terror of THE MEAT.

Gameplay – Iron Meat is an arcade style run and gun, where players must make their way through hordes of monsters, traps and pitfalls. The game plays out over multiple stages, in a traditional 2D platform action style. Moving through various environments, horizontally and vertically. To accomplish the goal of eradicating the meat, players must blast their way through hordes of monsters that explode like gore filled balloons. But this is not an easy task, as there are dangers that will appear from all directions.

During a stage, grunt enemies will rush the player from the front and back, killing the player if contact is made. Mutant snipers and mounted guns will appear, shooting at the player from various angles to try and take the player down. There are even walls of flesh that will halt the progress of the player, blocking the way forward and needing to be shot down. These are but a few of the deadly threats that will be encountered during the battle with the meat.

As players make their way through stages, they will be able to fire their weapons from all directions. Starting off with a standard blaster, additional weapons will appear for players to pick up with the ability to carry two at once. The weapons can be collected by shooting weapon boxes, which drop the weapons and from support boxes and NPC characters that appear. Players can increase the power of their guns by picking up a second copy, making it even stronger.

The arsenal that players are able to carry is restricted to two weapons, which can be switched freely during the action. But be aware, since players can only take one hit before death, the equipped power-up weapon to be lost reverting to the standard upon death. Luckily there are lots of weapon drops, giving players upgrades constantly through the stages. These will come in handy when players get to the end of the stages, reaching the goliath mutants.

At the end of each stage a warning will show up on screen, alerting players to the grotesque threat that is approaching. The UBER MEAT, horrific bosses that will test the limit of player skills, featuring multi-phase battles that get increasingly difficult. These battles can easily fill the screen with attacks, often leaving players with their backs to the wall. The monstrous meat mutants take many forms, including a train and tank, but they all explode into a meaty mess upon defeat.

When the player clears a stage, they will be shown a breakdown of their performance, with the number of kills, lives lost and final score. This score will be added to the players experience bar, increasing the rank when milestones are reached. As each milestone is met, the player will be given new skins as rewards for each rank that is obtained. These skins go from standard military styles, to more weird choices like a shark, dinosaur and banana in a suit.

Last to discuss is the replay value of Iron Meat. The player can freely replay any stage that has been cleared, which will provide the option to be able to grind out points. There is also a list of accomplishments that add to this, where players can take on challenges like clearing stages without dying or destroying specific enemies. These challenges, along with the unlockable skins give players more reasons to return to the game aside from the solid arcade action.

Now with the gameplay covered, it is time to move onto the other aspects of Iron Meat, starting with the controls.

Controls – Iron Meat has a super simple control scheme, where players only need to focus on using two buttons for the majority of gameplay. These being the jump and shoot buttons, but there is also a static button, which allows players to shoot in all 8 directions and weapon switch. The movement and action is nice and responsive, with no issues during play. Controls can also be remapped, allowing players to use a variety of controllers including arcade sticks.

Difficulty – this is a tough game, with a challenge that is as brutal as the games that inspired it, with no checkpoints meaning failure starts the stage over. There are three selectable difficulty options, letting players choose between Easy, Normal and Hard. The different settings affect the challenge in a few ways, altering the number of lives at the start, the enemies/hazards that appear and the strength of bosses. This makes for a challenge that is tough but satisfying.

Presentation – visually, this title is straight out of the glory days of the arcade side scrollers, but with the violence and gore turned up to 11.  The on screen sprite work looks good, with the variety of enemies, player skins and the boss monsters working well with the environments. Everything looks good, with the only minor issue being the camera zoom in some places. The sound for the game is excellent, with a rocking soundtrack that really enhances the carnage on screen.

Final Thoughts – when I first saw this game, I was reminded of the Konami classic Contra, so I was very interested in getting to grips with this game. After getting my hands on Iron Meat, that pick and play feel was there immediately, with movement and action that was smooth and responsive. The further I got, the more the game stood out more than just the inspirations that were behind it. Especially when it came to the UBER MEAT boss battles.

There is a lot of replay value with this game too, with the challenges and skins that can be obtained through play. I was not able to get all the trophies while playing, but I look forward to putting the time in to get them. There is also a 2 player co-op mode, but I was not able to put much time into this, but what I was able to play was fun. I have no issue with giving this game a recommendation, as it is an excellent run and gun shooter, with a tough but satisfying difficulty.

In the end, I give Iron Meat a final score of 4.5/5. This is a difficult but satisfying run and gun arcade shooter, offering a gameplay experience that scratches that gory action itch, with lots of characters skins to unlock and creatively grotesque UBER MEAT boss monsters. If you want to check this title out for yourself, a link to each version of the game will be below. Please note, the game releases on September 26th, so some store pages may be unavailable.

Link to PlayStation version (HERE)

Link to Nintendo Switch version (HERE)

Link to Xbox version (HERE)

Link to Steam version (HERE)

Link to EPIC version (HERE)

Link to Physical version (HERE)