Please, take my hand for a moment. We're going back to a time in video games when the closest thing to 3D graphics was Sonic Flickies' Island, and that wouldn't be for a few years! We're heading back to 1992, a wonderful thirteen years ago, so please... watch your step, the first one is a doozy…

Behold the Megadrive, also known as the much cooler Genesis. Some of you have fond memories of it and some of you were barely old enough to crawl. Either way, it certainly had a great deal of unique games [Wonderful console, so many gaming memories! Nostalgic Ed], and one of the bigger cult followings was for side-scrolling action shooter Steel Empire. Much like Gradius, at the time it was mightily impressive, but nowadays we rarely see shooters like this; if we do, it's almost sure to be of good quality, as developers don't spend time with a game of this nature unless they know people will want it... games like Gradius V and the stunning Einhander. The re-release of Steel Empire for the Game Boy Advance is puzzling, but nonetheless it's nice to see this style of game on a handheld for sure.

In Steel Empire you play as a pilot for the Republic of Silverhead, defending your country from an invading evil republic called the Motorhead Empire, who are not in any way affiliated with Lemmy Kilmister! I usually don't expect much story out of a shooter like this, but Steel Empire really tries, and considering when it was written, it's even more impressive - hell, there's even a plot twist! Unfortunately, the translation from Japanese to English is really dodgy and provides more laughs than it means to.

Gameplay is what matters in a game like this though, and for the most part Steel Empire delivers what it intends. To defend your country from Motorhead in a time when most of the world is nothing but ashes, players will select either a zeppelin or a biplane and take to the sky. Both can shoot left or right using the B & A buttons respectively, and hitting the R or L button lets off a huge electric bomb that kills or highly damages anything in range. Every time you fire a normal shot to the left or right, you also drop a bomb at a 30 degree angle, which comes in handy for taking out ground targets and comes into play quite often during boss battles. Like any good shooter of this nature, Steel Empire is also littered with pick-ups, which is where the unique experience system comes into play.

Outside of health pick-ups, weapon add-ons and money, you can grab experience points that increase the power of your normal attack and your special ability as well. The system isn't complex at all; you simply grab two experience pick ups to level up to level two, or three to reach level three. If you played this title on the Megadrive then Steel Empire will be a great dose of nostalgia, but prepared to be shocked when you find out what they did to the boss battles...

For reasons unknown, this port's bosses all have had one of three unforgivable changes applied. They're either missing attacks, look different, or don't even resemble the original boss in either look or attack. Did they do it to make them easier? Well, some are quite challenging, so it's doubtful. Perhaps they did it so players of of the original version had something new to experience? However, I'm sure most of them haven't touched the game in ages and just want to play the version they love!

Outside of the bosses, this game is a strong port of a good classic game; the graphics have been upgraded slightly but don't make much of an impact in this generation. The unique WWII inspired visuals and aircraft designs are a great concept, and you can't deny that the varied levels are still a nice touch, as you move through underground caves, seashores, above the clouds and even space. Each one has a different colour palette and setting, and I'm begging you not to judge it by the first level, as it's one of the worst looking in the game simply due to a colour scheme that is just too drab and repetitive.

A new thing for this port of the game is slowdown, and it's not something to be proud of. The GBA version can handle many enemies on the screen for sure, but when many explosions begin to hit you'll start to see it. Gameplay isn't affected much and it doesn't happen enough to ruin the game, but it definitely pops up here and there; you could always do what I do and just pretend that it's some sort of special slow-mo effect, like bullet time for 1992!

The sound in Steel Empire isn't something I can say I'm a huge fan of. Maybe I'm biased after the dreadful opening 'sounds' during the seizure inducing intro that resembles what sounds like a static cement truck recorded, distorted, and looped after 1 second for about a minute, then using it again before each level. The blaster blips and bleeps don't leave much of an impression (although I can't say they're too bad, either), and even though the explosions sound fine, you'll be hearing them to the point of hatred. The only aspect of the sound I can say is great would be the music, which is ripped straight from an age of MIDI songs that has since passed us by. I can really dig this type of music and it's nice to see it represented well here, with nice tunes and melodies that would make any mobile phone user proud to have as a ring tone. It would have been better if the sound had been upgraded similarly to how the graphics were, because the 1992 effects just barely cut it.

One thing Steel Empire definitely retains from the Megadrive version is the difficulty. Although you can now select between added levels of easy and hard, the fact that you can't pick up from where you left off (or died) is something we rarely see these days, but was obviously the norm in 1992. I was surprised to see that they hadn't added a save feature for the port, but it would have crippled the otherwise short game. In 1992, when we couldn't save, most games would force you to play from the first level each time, challenging you to play through familiar areas and perform better than last time so you had enough lives stored up for the unknown territory to come. However, it makes playing the game for long sessions a pain in the ass, but at the same time makes it a great pick-up-and-play game that you'll continually try to complete and get all the way through. If you don't make it, you simply dump your GBA and try again later; the absence of a save-feature is definitely for the best here, because otherwise the game is nowhere near as hard as the genre-leader, Gradius. The most obvious example of this is damage: in Gradius you die after one hit, here you can take multiple shots before exploding in a fiery mess.

A port of Steel Empire to the GBA is a great idea; this style of gameplay is perfectly suited for the handheld and hundreds of people will probably buy into it just for nostalgia value. Add in upgraded graphics and you've got a shooter worthy of your time, even with the unimpressive sound and boss changes that will put off fans of the original. However, this is a port after all, and it just can't measure up to Astroboy: Omega Factor, which features very similar side-scrolling aerial battles but with much greater depth in every aspect. Steel Empire is certainly worth a look and having in your GBA collection, but not before Astroboy, and definitely don't expect this to match the quality of modern side-scrolling shooters like the previously mentioned Gradius V and Einhander.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).