Iron Meat

If we were to construct the Mount Rushmore of run ‘n gun shooters, who would make the cut? Certainly, Contra deserves a spot, as does Gunstar Heroes and the Metal Slug series. But what would the fourth game be? If I had my way, I would go with Iron Meat. Sure, it’s brand-new and made by a first-time developer, but this recently-released run ‘n gunner is easily the most fun I’ve had with the genre in years. In a year when Konami released a new Contra game, this indie shooter leaves Operation Galuga in the dust. Find out why when I review Iron Meat from Retroware.

Iron Meat is an easy game to pitch: It’s just like Contra, only with a real emphasis on body horror. When an interdimensional gate is opened up, a bunch of monsters known as The Meat invade our world and begin merging with cars, trains and pretty much anything else it comes in contact with. With our biggest cities overrun and humanity on life support, it’s up to a small army of soldiers to fight through nine gruesome stages to defeat The Meat ... assuming they have the stomach for it.

If you love run ‘n gun shooters, then you’re going to feel right at home playing Iron Meat. This is one of those throwbacks that doesn’t mess with a good thing, it plays by the genre rules and gives you exactly what you want. You take control of a customizable soldier who can run, jump and shoot a bunch of big guns. That’s it. There are no motorcycle races or annoying overhead levels, just straight-forward side-scrolling action. The way you like it.

This allows the levels to really shine, both in their design and grotesqueness. All nine of the stages are incredible looking, using gorgeous pixel graphics and layer upon layer of bloody mayhem. Without saying a single word, this game excels in world building and showing you the destruction that was caused by these meaty monsters. What’s more, you’ll find that many of the levels will add an alternate path or something unique that sets it apart. For example, one of the stages will have you platform jumping while on a giant flying ship, while another will want you to dodge laser beams by hiding behind crates of boxes.

At first, these levels will seem incredibly hard. You get sixteen lives per level on the default difficulty, and at first it will feel like you’re going to need all of them. However, when I played the same level a second time, I was ready for it. I knew what to expect and barely even needed those sixteen lives. And that was true for all nine stages. This is one of those games that seems impossible at first, yet it won’t take more than a second try for you to become an unstoppable killing machine. It’s a combination of the levels being incredibly memorable and the difficulty not being cheap and punishing. The challenge is fair, not frustrating. When I died, it was often because I misjudged a bullet or didn’t jump in time, not because of factors outside of my control.

Even if you have to play some of the levels a couple times before you can advance, you aren’t going to complain. What it does is give us a chance to admire the wonderfully detailed backgrounds and gruesome horror elements. This game is gross, and I mean that as a compliment. It’s not just the weird enemies you fight, but the way The Meat has turned normal everyday items against us. It reminds me a lot of John Carpenter’s version of The Thing, only that this alien is willing to merge with cars and crates and apartment buildings, not just humans.

The result is bloody and gory and so much fun.

And you better believe this extends all the way up to the boss encounters, each one more memorable (and disgusting) than the last. It’s not that you’re fighting a helicopter that aliens have taken over, but rather that the alien literally fused with the helicopter to create an unholy union of meat and metal. And you just know that something terrible will be waiting for you at end of the train level. Every boss has been lovingly drawn and animated, given an unsettling design that is both familiar and alien at the same time. They are also lengthy battles, too. Many of the bosses will have multiple parts, requiring both memorization and skill. Iron Meat has at least two of this year’s best boss battles, which is incentive enough to keep you playing through to the end.

Speaking of incentives, this game is constantly rewarding you for replaying levels and completing challenges. There are 34 playable characters in all, which you’ll earn from leveling up through experience points and beating the game and levels in different ways. These heroes don’t play any differently, but there is a pretty great variety of character types, including space marines, cowboys, superheroes, a cyclops and even a banana. But even without these incentives, I would have had a lot of fun playing and replaying this game over and over, if only for the exciting action and great sense of atmosphere. As somebody who loves both run ‘n gun shooters and horror, Iron Meat is a dream come true.

This is one of those games where every single element comes together to create something truly special. It looks incredible, the gameplay is spot-on, all nine levels are memorable, it’s full of creative bosses and it doesn’t hold back on the blood and gore. Developer Ivan Suvarov has been working on this game since 2017, and it shows. This just feels like the kind of game somebody has lived and breathed for seven years. This is a game where you can tell that every inch of the levels has been carefully considered and designed. This is a strong and confident debut game that not only matches the greats in the run ‘n gun genre, but will exceed all expectations.

If you insist on me finding something wrong with Iron Meat, then prepare to be disappointed. About the only complaint I have is in the firepower, most of which feels like it was lifted directly out of previous run ‘n gunners. You get the usual machine gun, missiles, spread shot and so on. You can also upgrade each of these weapons once, though that won’t make a huge difference. You can hold two different weapons at once and switch between them, similar to most shooters in this space. While it all works perfectly well, I did find myself wishing for more interesting weapons. It’s a minor issue that definitely won’t get in the way of your good time.

It's worth mentioning that Iron Meat is being published by Retroware, whose previous game was last year’s Prison City. That was a phenomenal throwback game that mimicked Taito’s Power Blade series to great effect, and Iron Meat is the perfect follow-up for the publisher. This is an equally exciting shooter that understands what made those classic 8- and 16-bit games so much fun. Forget about that new Contra game, because Iron Meat is the year’s best run ‘n gun shooter. And it’s not even close.