Steel Beasts

Steel Beasts is a tank simulator 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 (SB) is distinguished by a realistic feel compared to other simulations; the sound samples are mostly authentic and many of the controls are conceptually similar to those in real tanks, specifically the American M1A1 Abrams and German Leopard 2A4. Players can also direct support vehicles such as M2 Bradleys, Humvees, and Marders, and call in various types of artillery, from conventional smoke and high-explosive rounds, to DPICM and FASCAM.

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.

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 for 2008.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator Game Rankings, the game had an average score of 87% based on 21 reviews. On Metacritic, the game had an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 13 reviews.

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.

Bruce Geryk of GameSpot gave the game a rating of 8.8 out 10.

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

• eSim Games - Company site
• SteelBeasts.com - Official fan site