 Would a trench, by any other name, offer just as much protection? Steampunk warfare has been brought to a whole new level. In order to stop an evil broadcast, a small number of elite soldiers piloting mobile trenches must take on ever increasing hordes of tubes. This is tower defense, but you're the tower.
Usually when I complete a game I have a good idea of whether or not I enjoyed the experience. Some games I genuinely dislike, usually because I found at least one aspect so completely frustrating that it ruined the overall experience. However, Iron Brigade is somewhat unique in that I’m not sure exactly how I felt about the game. Parts were enjoyable, especially in its overall simplicity. But I believe I lost something significant in not playing this game cooperatively.  It's lonely at the top. Iron Brigade is a tower defense game. Waves of enemies will move towards an objective that the player must defeat. But unlike most tower defense games, Iron Brigade has an actual story. It’s fairly simple, but it allows for the introduction of the environment, the characters, and the enemy types. For this reason I definitely enjoyed it more than most tower defense games.  That's okay, I've got this. But it felt like something was missing from this game. Ultimately it the gameplay itself is almost exactly the same as the tower defense flash games I used to play in high school, except with Iron Brigade the player will end up doing most of the work and the towers are there to provide (sometimes minimal) support.  Told you I got this! It may have been that the offensive towers were so weak that, at times, they felt entirely useless. They were also very easily defeated by certain enemy types. It was usually better for me to grab the “fortification” legs so that I could sit like an actual turret and obliterate my targets with rapid reload weaponry. But after a while this was so repetitive that I was ready to put this game down upon completion. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy the game, but I never really was excited to keep moving on. With friends this experience may have been different. However, my single player playthough left me wanting something more.
The campaign for this game lasted around 6 hours. For a game of this type, it was a sufficient amount of time. I could go back and redo missions in an attempt to reach “gold star” on all mission ratings, but this would be fairly time consuming and ultimately wouldn’t have much of a point other than for the achievements. This game is designed to be played cooperatively, so the fact that no one was playing this game online had a significant impact on the replayability.
This game was fairly straightforward. As I mentioned before, it is designed for cooperative gameplay. Some of the levels almost required multiple players to be helping at any one time, so without this I felt like I was running around the battlefield a lot more. However, this game was relatively simple to complete. If the player runs into a difficult mission, he simply has to replay a previous mission to gain new weapons, more money, or more experience before moving on. 2. Parental Notices
Violence is constantly present in this game but it is overall very mild. The player will use a variety of ranged firearms to kill the enemy “tubes”. Most of these will be based on World War II weapons, such as flak cannons, artillery cannons, and machine guns. Hitting an enemy will result in some blue “fluid” that is basically a replacement for blood. However, I can’t say for sure that it is blood, since these creatures are designed to be mostly mechanical.  Is it blood, ooze, or fluid? I can't really tell. Either way, the amount of fluid produced by a hit is very small and quickly disappears. Almost all hits against enemies result in this blood. Dead bodies will quickly disappear.  This seems ineffective. Human characters, including the player, will never be injured. The player will never fight directly against human enemies.
Sexuality has a very minor presence in this game. Certain cutscenes included fake versions of magazines meant for men. These are designed to look like the men’s magazines of the 40’s and 50’s. They often include headlines like “Nightmare-To-Go: The Sex-Beasts of Route 66” and “Naughty Obsessions! Her Desires Knew No Bounds”. This is the only time sexuality is included in the game. 
A few of the characters can be seen smoking or drinking at times. The most obvious of these is the mission adviser. Despite being in an iron lung (seriously, an iron lung) he is always depicted smoking a cigar.  When you get to this stage, it's time to think about quitting. The player can sometimes be seen drinking at the end of a mission. It is implied that the drink is alcoholic, but it is never specified.  It could be root beer.
Gambling is not a factor in this game. 3. Other Factors
There are no modding tools available for this game.
Religion is not a factor in this game.
Anti-law is not a factor in this game.
I never found anyone in the online section of this game. As a result, the online community is not a factor in this game.
Extreme sports are not a factor in this game.
Originally I was going to state that this game doesn’t include any magic, which would technically be true. All of the enemies are designed to be mechanical in nature, deriving their abilities from electricity emitted by “The Broadcast”. However, there’s no way that I could see anyone ever creating these creatures using tube televisions and pure electricity. It goes beyond the realm of “science fiction” into “science fantasy” on a scale that isn’t covered by any facet of technology. As a result, magic is a factor in this game.  I knew the sphinx had lips, but I didn't know it had a mouth.
There are no additional factors in this game.
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