What is Shattered Steel?

In the future, feuding interplanetary mining corporations employ mercenaries. These warriors-for-hire strut across the alien terrain in heavily armed Planet Runners — walking machines suited to hostile conditions and swift attack. As one of the Mercs, you land for a routine assignment but find something entirely different. The machines attacking this outpost are an insectoid/mechanical hybrid whose agenda is unknown. Mission briefings tell you more about this cybernetic race (the Tergs) and its plans for humankind.

Backing up this premise is one really cool graphics engine. The texture-mapped terrain and structures are rich and varied, and the lighting effects — spotfights scan and swoop — are outstanding. The graphics might be a bit pixelated for some tastes, but the impending release of a patch for ATI 3D cards should remedy that.

While graphically superior to Activision’s genre-defining MechWarrior 2, Shattered Steel offers simpler, point-and-shoot action. If MechWarrior was a flight simulator with legs, then Steel is a pneumatic Doom. It is purely a matter of taste whether you view this as a benefit or a shortcoming.

The missions in Shattered Steel are exciting but uneven — often an infiiriatmgiy difficult mission will follow a ridiculously simple one. Maybe that’s life, but it doesn’t make for great gameplay. The game does allow you to make mission choices that have an impact on future assignments; take time to save some colonists, and another mission’s undefended enemy convoy will receive reinforcements. In all, the missions are good enough to keep the game exciting but will need improvement in future incarnations.

Shattered Steel's only glaring weaknesses are in its user-friendliness. The sketchy manual isn’t much more than a technical guide to each type of Planet Runner. Adding to the problem are a hard-to-find save system (it’s labeled Cryochamber) and a preference-setting interface that hides important controls.

The game has these faults, and it won’t appeal to players seeking a deep, complex simulation, but if gigantic walking tanks are your bag, Shattered Steel is worth a look. It delivers good, clean action.

Kramer, Greg. (May 1998). Shattered Steel. MacAddict. (pg. 50).

Download Shattered Steel for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.5

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver