Space - the last great unknown. Along with what lies at the very bottom of the deepest oceans, it's probably safe to say that space is one of the few things we still know very little about. Sure, we've sent a man to moon, and we have a few satellites and space stations in orbit fairly close by - but what do we really know about what's out there? When we're lying in our beds at night, or looking up at the stars pondering, how sure can we really be that something like Iron Sky: Invasion will never happen?
Based on the cheesy film of the same name, Iron Sky: Invasion tells the age old tale of a Nazi invasion from outer space. Having perfected space-faring technology just before the end of World War 2, and with their inevitable defeat in sight, a few remaining Nazi loyalists fled the Earth altogether rather than concede to the Allies, choosing instead to set up their new home on the dark side of the moon. With many years having passed, and the Nazi's technology having only grown stronger (albeit using rather 1940s designs), the Third (or is it Fourth?) Reich decide they've been lying dormant for long enough, and set out to complete what their fathers and grandfathers couldn't so many years ago, by conquering the world.
As you've probably already guessed, Iron Sky Invasion doesn't exactly win any realism points, but then it never tries to either. A space sim that puts you at the helm of one of a number of country-themed spacecraft, from the Australian Dundee, to the warhorse Spitfire, it's up to you to head off into the dark beyond as you try to prevent the Nazi forces from reaching the earth and completing their dastardly plan - although how you do this is mostly up to you. While you'll always have a main objective to complete, delivered by way of a mission briefing laid down by a real actor in a manner that's cheesier than a Frenchman's armpit, whether you're escorting a former Nazi to the moon in order for her to preach peace, or simply have orders to take down one of their giant Zeppelins, there's never a moment's peace, as the Nazi neo-war machine staggers constantly on.
Although several other computer controlled ships patrol the skies in between the Earth and the Moon, they're surprisingly useless when it comes to combat, despite being much more heavily armed than you are - so if you're going to stop the Nazi invasion, you're going to have to do it yourself. Pressing the Back button (Select on PS3) brings up a map that lets you see the position of any German ships in the sky, and their proximity to the Earth. While you may have objectives to go and take out a capital ship that's just set off from the moon, if there are a few groups of Nazi fighters about to enter the Earth's atmosphere, you probably ought to prioritise the latter, unless you want an earful from your commander.
Whether they're big and small, you have to stop them getting through.
Once you've decided which group of ships you ought to go for first, you'll enter a sort of hyperspace as you automatically fly to the enemy's location, ready to get stuck in. With a wide range of Nazi ships for you to take out, from the nippy Walkyr "fighters", which look like a cross between a Panzer and a stereotypical UFO, to the gigantic Brunhilde freighters, which seem to exist purely to tow a giant asteroid towards (and into) the Earth, each ship requires a distinctly different approach to take out. While you have a selection of ships of your own on offer, picking the right one for the job is essential - some are quicker, with fast firing lasers but weak shields, making them easy prey for the larger ships, while others are slow, yet armed to the teeth, and perfect for taking down an equally heavily armed opponent. With the ability to change ship at any time by flying to the relevant space station and switching over, it is possible to give yourself the advantage in any fight - but actually finding the time to do so is something of a challenge.
One of the things that takes a bit of getting used to with Iron Sky: Invasion is its unrelenting pace. With no set missions - it's effectively just one big invasion you have to constantly repel, with the odd special, compulsory objective thrown in for good measure, you'll find there's little time to breathe - or do anything else. Somewhere in between fending off wave after wave of Nazis, you're meant to find time to dock with a space station and repair your ship, upgrade it using the salvage you've collected by blowing other ships up, or change to a craft more well suited to the next wave of enemies - but you simply don't get chance. Take your eye off the game for more than a few seconds, and countless waves of enemies will have slipped past behind your back - in the time it takes you to dock at a space station, the Nazi hordes will be drawing ever closer to - or even entering the atmosphere - of Earth. Although it doesn't actually seem to do anything if they actually get by, bar taking a few points off your "reputation", and occasionally triggering a cutscene, you do feel like you're failing when you're letting all these ships fly past. A bit of a breather in-between the chaos would be much appreciated.
For larger ships, you can target individual systems - like cannons, or engines, to essentially disable the ship without having to blow it up. Or, if you're particularly sneaky, and flying a small craft, you can just slot yourself in out of the line of sight of its weapons, and fire away undetected.
But aside from the pace, a much more serious problem with Iron Sky: Invasion is its massive difficulty spikes. While one moment, you'll be coming up against nothing but a few small fighters, the next you'll effectively crash into a giant brick wall as you have to face off against an entire fleet of heavily armoured, and heavily armed Nazi war machines, including a giant armoured space Zeppelin on your lonesome. While you can make things easier by switching to a better craft, you seem to unlock more advanced ships far too slowly for the tasks at hand, and often your best ship just doesn't seem good enough. With most of your enemies packing lasers that can tear you to shreds in a few dozen hits (and with a rapid fire laser, that doesn't take too long), while being helplessly outnumbered in your quest to defend the Earth as you are, there are a few too many occasions when you find yourself being demolished by a superior opposition without being given time to react. Things aren't made any better by the save system, which doesn't let you save manually, and only actually records your progress when you're warping between battles. While you can then effectively save at any point by manually warping away from a fight, it'd be nice to have a manual save option, so you didn't end up losing 20m of progress every time you crash.
Another odd issue we had was that, initially, the game simply refused to load on our TV. Running on an Xbox 360 set to the native resolution of our monitor (1366 x 768), starting the game caused the signal to drop out from our TV, as it was presumably running at a resolution, or Hz that the TV couldn't handle. Even switching the resolution manually on the console to 1080i, 720p, or 720i didn't help - the only thing that fixed it was getting the console to automatically detect our TV, which meant it set itself to 1080i - and although that's the wrong resolution for our TV, the game then worked fine, even though setting it manually to that resolution didn't help. Weird indeed.
Although it may be a cliché, Iron Sky: Invasion is a bit of a mixed bag. With incredibly cheesy mission briefings punctuating the action (more a positive than a negative in a game like this), and the novelty of being a space sim - something we don't see anywhere near enough of recently, there's quite a lot to like - but the iffy difficulty level, odd save system, and constant Nazi assault can be something of a drain. While it doesn't have much competition, you'll need a lot of patience to get the most out of Iron Sky.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
