I picked this up on a recommendation from Joe at Tronix (a great guy, 
btw, but all of you have heard that by now). Anyway, I had expectations 
that this would be better than Loaded or Proj Overkill. The jury's still 
out.

It's the future, after a horrific trade war (including nukes), we've been 
invaded by pods. These pods are converting everything to biomechanical 
killing machines. You play the last big-busted blonde girl tragically 
half-transformed into the Steel Harbinger. With the help of your dad, you 
become the last hope for humanity. Go girl!

Fight your way through various American cities saving the remaining 
populace from the evil onslaught and eventually confront the head slime 
dude and save us all.

First Impressions:
If you play this game for only a few minutes, you're gonna think that 
this a pretty derivative 16-bit isometric, sprite-based shooter with a 3-
d background. You'll kick yourself for falling for the well-endowed 
mutated valley girl wearing butt-floss combat armor in the advertising. 
It does, however, get better.

Gameplay is more similar to Proj Overkill than loaded in terms of view 
and graphics. No strafing, but a button to hold you in place, allowing 
you to spin around and shoot things, which is actually more useful than 
strafing. Different weapons make a big difference. They vary based on 
ROF(single or rapid), strength(piddly MG to rocket launcher), area of 
effect (bombs, grenades), smarts (heat-seeking missiles and semi-homing 
plasma), arc(grenades can be thrown over some obstacles) and other 
effects (flare gun). Ammo is kept track for all. The babe can't run, but 
can jump. The view is zoomable. At close range, sprites are well-done 
(the actually drew whatshername's cleavage and the view from behind I'm 
sure will earn the wrath of some congressman somewhere), however, 
fighting from here is too difficult.

Enemies are plentiful and pretty much all they do is make a bee-line to 
you and shoot. The sheer quantity makes life interesting. BTW, she can 
replenish energy by eating the remains of the fallen.

The battlefield is pretty much 3-d terrain with pits and hills to climb 
and buildings you can go into. Level design gets better, with the option 
to drive trucks, hovercraft, tanks and ride hoverdiscs. Enemies also get 
better, graduating from sprites to more intricate polygonal enemies. Some 
cool effects can be seen on the Cape Canaveral level.

The objective is pretty much find a card to activate the SDI system to 
protect against further alien incursions. You'll also need to find enough 
telecredits to get to the next level. Along the way you may have to find 
the appropriate pass to get to certain parts of a level. All in all, the 
design ensures that you see almost every part of the level. Having to do 
the old get this pass to get to this area to get that pass to get to 
another area can be pretty tedious. God forbid you should overlook a 
house which contains the needed card to get off the level. MAKE SURE you 
search everywhere.

Along the way you can get find video clips of ads or newsclips done in a 
very low-budget Robocop style. Interesting, but nothing too great. I 
haven't reached the end but if I have enough patience I'll get there.

BOTTOM LINE:
It's a tough call for me. The game is providing plenty of playing time. 
Not all of it is high-quality. Loaded had a better splaterfest feel to 
it, with better lighting effects and artwork. However, SH has a much more 
involved environment with varied terrain and some very cool enemies 
(check out those conversion towers). Getting to drive trucks and 
hoverdiscs is interesting. The varied weaponry makes for some strategy. 
The cut scenes are cute but don't really add to the story.

I can't help feeling that they spent too much money on the FMV and not 
enough on the game itself. Both parts have there moments (the integration 
of live actors and computer backgrounds is pretty good and Washington DC 
is tough).

I'd definitely rent it first, but make sure you play past the first level 
to get an idea of how complex it can get. With all of the other titles 
coming out first, you may want to hold off.