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This is fantastic, Iron Marines from Ironhide Game Studio just released today and they decided to get the Linux version ready to go one day-1. Disclosure: Key provided by the developer.

For those not familiar with the developer, this is the studio behind hits like Kingdom Rush and the various sequels. Their games are usually very stylish and this is certainly no different. Iron Marines is a sci-fi real-time strategy game and it's actually quite a bit different to their usual stuff. Take a look:

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The premise is super basic sci-fi stuff, with a Human colony under attack the Iron Marines are sent in to help. That's really it, seriously. While I've not had a great deal of time with it, first impressions are great! It has lush visuals and design work done on it, as expected from Ironhide, and some great audio work too.

I've been playing on the highest difficulty available to begin with (you can unlock one further) and it's been working nicely. It performs well and remains smooth at all times. It feels like a smaller indie Starcraft, complete with Hero units that you unlock and get to level up. Additionally, you also earn money as you play to purchase some handy extra firepower like bouncers which detonate in a small area to help you deal with groups of enemies.

The ability to double-click a deployed squad and change their load-out is a pretty fun feature too, meaning if you've sent in a sniper squad and suddenly a load of really fast enemies charge at you, switching them to normal fast-firing marines will hopefully keep them alive.

Seems like it's worth a purchase, especially if you really enjoy RTS games like me and the gentle touches of humour were quite well done too from what I've seen. It's more of a casual RTS though I would say, not one for those who love showing off their clicks per second, one for those after a more laid-back experience. You can find Iron Marines on Steam.

Hopefully in a future article in the "Play It Now" series, our contributor Scaine will have a look in some more detail.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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TheSHEEEP May 18, 2019
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Quoting: GuestNice, I’ll buy it once it’s available DRM-free. Hopefully it’s not impossible to finish like the Kingdom Rush games are.
What do you mean?
I'm currently playing KR Origins and so far I haven't encountered anything impossible (on Veteran, anyway, not the even harder difficulty).
Tchey May 25, 2019
Alright, i tried it. And Refunded.

I didn't dislike, but i didn't like neither.

It's way too close to a "very simplistic RTS", with quite poor controls over the troops, and even on PC i can see it's for tactile pads at first : trying to move my heroes in the middle of the melee is hard, as the cursor seems to often target an enemy instead of the ground.

Could be nice with this visual and idea of a RTS but with tower defense mind, if it was actually a PC game with a deeper gameplay.


Last edited by Tchey on 25 May 2019 at 3:36 pm UTC
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