One of the greatest benefits of being a small or independent artist is the ability to carve your own path or incur some larger risk by taking current conventions to create a product which takes a genre into a different direction. With a blend of the 1984 hit, Rescue Raiders, along with a Steam Punk / Victorian-era influence, Pedestrian Entertainment's Steam Brigade is just such a game.

Using your steam powered factory, you must generate infantry and steam-powered mobile units with the end goal of disabling / crippling the enemy's factory. You control an airship (steam powered naturally), equipped with a powerful magnet. Moving around the level, you are able to swing down and transport units using the magnet to either hijack enemy facilities or to prevent enemy units from doing the same to you.

The missions have also been designed to be more objective-based than resource-based which provides the player with a bit of freedom in beating a level. In other words, you'll come across some maps with require you to control a facility for a period of time, or even to have an objective such as blowing up enemy gun turrets without the ability to produce any units of your own.

While there is "money" in the game, it is delivered to your doorstep in infinite supply. As far as I was able to figure out, there is no way (or need) to generate more money to survive the levels; the rate you're given money only directly impacts your unit production rate. Unless I missed a tooltip somewhere, I also wasn't sure if the speed of your income rate was impacted by the amount of installations you control. In other words, the speed of which money was given to my base didn't change if I won or lost control of gun emplacements on the map.

One game play issue I had was that on some of the maps which contained an enemy-controlled airship, it was quite common for my craft to get "stuck" (re: entangled) with the other airship if we got too close together. I'm not sure if this was due to the physics engine used, or an actual design decision (or even if I'm a terrible pilot), but it was a little bit distracting.

Another point that needs mentioning is that the first batch of levels in the Campaign Mode of the game are designed in a "tutorial" format, which does an outstanding job of presenting the various tasks the player can perform to conquer the levels. However, the slight drawback during this implementation is that there is no way to skip these levels. If you are already well versed in the art of steaming, it would have been nice to jump right into the first map after the tutorials. That being said, a handy feature of the game is that it does automatically save your progress in the Campaign.

The artificial intelligence of your computer opponent also seemed to follow the pacing of the Campaign quite well. In the early levels, I found it to be quite forgiving of any player "oversights" and gradually increased in difficulty as the Campaign continued. Such a nice change from experiencing either non-existent AI, or an AI so advanced that it takes obscene pleasure in punishing the player.

Graphics:
To be blunt, the graphics and artwork are phenomenal. Everything in the game maintains a consistent Steam Punk-ish theme. The individual unit animation was very smooth and there were quite a few different stylish backgrounds for each map. Although the "pencil sketches" inside the radar appeared at first distracting, after a while I didn't really give it a second thought and it worked well.

Sound:
The audio was very clear and crisp. The music had nice pacing and I think complimented the game quite well. The background music was audible enough to the point that it blended well with the action, but stopped short of being an annoying, repetitive mix.

Gameplay:
The stylish gameplay was quite enjoyable and unique. It was a nice touch of the game design for controlling a unit which has no actual weaponry other than the use of electromagnetics to drag n' drop units. The physics engine powering the game did a great job of properly simulating the environment.

Concept:
There are definitely not too many games similar to this one, being a blend of such eclectic themes. This makes the experience of Steam Brigade quite interesting and unique.

Value:
There is undeniable value in Steam Brigade. Not only are there many maps to work through in the Campaign Mode, but a quick and dirty "Skirmish" mode exists to create a battlefield of your own design. Although not in the version reviewed, Pedestrian Entertainment has acknowledged to working towards a multiplayer option in a future release.

Overall:
If you are a fan of the 2D side-scrolling-Rescue-Raiders type of experience, then this game is a near automatic purchase with its unique artistic style and physics-based gameplay. That being said, if you're in the market for a different "twist" in your game, then you might also find this to be right up your alley.