The game is a solid first-person shooter with an interesting premise and good action. See, in Iron Storm’s reality World War I never ended – in 1964, it’s still dragging on. Now the German-Russian alliance is on the verge of building an atomic bomb. Who wants to put odds on the Western Alliance having one super-commando they can trust to sabotage the bomb? Well, you win a cookie. Lieutenant Anderson (the player) is given the task, and oh, he has to kill the top enemy soldier to boot.

So what’s the problem? The game seems to be lacking in some spark. I don’t want to disparage the folks at Dreamcatcher – Iron Storm is solid, but there’s no sense of joy. No “look at what cool thing I can do!” moments. No going wild with such an intriguing alternate history.

I think the last point is what bugs the most. First, we’ve seen what decades of war can do; witness African countries where the populace is starving and the economy wrecked, and soldiers tote AK-47s from pickup trucks. In Iron Storm, economies were somehow revived by making soldiers’ lives valuable commodities. Seriously, they’re now tied into Wall Street. Also, while World War I’s trench warfare is given a nod in early level design, the weapons and vehicles are based on modern counterparts. I kept hoping to see something specific to Iron Storm’s storyline, but apparently weaponry evolved on our terms and not those specific to the trenches of Europe.

(Okay, there are some stationary machine guns with nice artistic scrollwork, one nod to a time when weapons were both functional and artistic.)

Said weapons are the usual suspects. You’ve got your knife, your silenced pistol, your sniper rifle, your heavier weapons like automatic rifles and grenade launchers and RPGs. All are purely functional; it would’ve been nice to see some more detail like that mentioned on the stationary guns. In a nice twist, Lt. Anderson can only carry two of the heavier guns, leaving the player with some interesting decisions. Sure, the automatic rifles can take out a group of baddies, but you might need that rocket launcher later…

Level design is good, if extremely linear. The early stages feature trenches, but Anderson is soon slogging through ruined towns, enemy installations, an armored train and so on. The overall feel – partly due to the German setting – is that of a World War II game. Again, I’d liked to have seen something that reminded players this is not the usual world. Hell, throw a few ‘60s-looking cars around or something. There were times I could just as easily have been playing Medal of Honor. There’s a really annoying stealth level – I continue to beg designers to add a Thief-like light meter if they’re going to require a player keep the character out of sight.

Visually, Iron Storm is washed out, colored in greys and browns and pale blues, an intentional decision that conveys hopelessness and decades of war. That also means you won’t be seeing any flashy graphics displays, which is shame. I should mention that the player has the option of playing in third-person or first-person mode, but I found it easier to just play first-person throughout.

Sound is good, with the faint thuds and chatters of battle always in the background. The voice acting is passable to good; though Anderson is quiet, his superiors keep in touch via headset. There are also CNN-style programs displayed on remote monitors, where Anderson can learn enemy plans and the player can get hints on how to solve upcoming puzzles.

I know, you’re waiting to hear just what bugs me, but I still can’t put a finger on it. Maybe it’s that we’ve seen this before, despite Iron Storm’s quality. This isn’t a game where you can charge forward guns blazing; you’ve got to check out your surroundings with any of the scope-equipped weapons, because snipers are everywhere. Thanks to Iron Storm’s damage system, one head shot is all it takes. But see, this is not a bad thing.

Who knows? Maybe it’s that this is all familiar, with no flash to remind me I’m playing Iron Storm and not a different title. No matter what, the gameplay here is solid, and most shooter fans will be pleased.