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Whenever I feel like playing a sidescrolling run and gun shooter, the Contra series is always the first to come to mind. One-hit kills, fast-paced action, challenging gameplay, and a ton of aliens to blow away. They’re fun and intense and have left an impact. Over the years, we’ve seen the release of several games that try to imitate Contra’s style. Some of the ones I’ve played include Blazing Chrome and Super Cyborg and a more recent entry, Iron Meat. Developed and published by Retroware, Iron Meat was released for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and the Xbox Series systems in September, 2024. For this review, I played the PC version. I discovered Iron Meat shortly after it released and was immediately impressed with what I saw in the trailer. To me, the visuals, gameplay, and music conveyed a kickass, headbanging, Contra-inspired good time and I wanted in on that lifestyle.
I’m going to quote part of the game’s description on its Steam page which perfectly summarizes the story. “Iron Meat is a run-and-gun arcade shooter that immerses players in an apocalyptic future overrun by ‘The Meat,’ an iron-ravenous mass mutating everything in its path.” And there you have it. The game launches to a wonderfully animated cut scene and story beats are conveyed through in-game cut scenes. There’s no dialogue but it’s not hard to see and understand what’s going on. It’s a simple setup for the gameplay and The Meat as an enemy force makes for some creative enemy designs and visual storytelling. You can see it taking over structures and things in the environments and backgrounds and the death and destruction it leaves behind. It’s pretty cool.
Iron Meat is a run and gun sidescrolling shooter. You might even call it an action platformer. Clearly inspired by the Contra series, the action is fast-paced, can be frantic, and avoiding death will require practice and memorization. There are multiple difficulty levels, you die in one hit, and death results in losing a life and whatever weapon pickup you’re holding. Lose all your lives and it’s game over. The game does support local co-op, although I was only able to experience it solo. There are nine levels to play through and you can unlock a Mirror mode where the levels are simply mirrored. As you progress through the game, you earn points, rank up, and are awarded skins. Before jumping into a level you can customize your character. You can choose from any of the skins you’ve unlocked but what’s really cool is you can swap out different parts of your character with parts from any skins. So there’s plenty of options in how you want you character to look.
I have three complaints with Iron Meat and, thankfully, none of them affected my enjoyment of the game. One is there’s no bestiary or knowledge base in-game so I have no idea what the hell anything is. For example, weapon pickups are identified by letters but that doesn’t really tell me what they are. I can only assume the “M” weapon is a machine gun but I really don’t know for sure. Second, there’s no hoverbike or vehicle levels. It’s not really a problem, I guess, but I expected some kind of high-speed action in the vein of Contra III stage 4 or the sea stage in Contra: Hard Corps. Iron Meat is a pure run and gun shooter and a pretty damn good one.
My third gripe is the game is selling for twenty dollars (as of this review) and lacks content for the price. The nine levels are a decent length and it took me around ninety five minutes to get through all of them on Normal. But outside of the multiple difficulty levels and Mirror mode, there’s nothing else to do. Working to unlock all the skins and achievements can keep you occupied but they have no affect on the gameplay. So once you’ve beaten the game, you’ve basically experienced everything. Run and gun fanatics that want to master every level and try to get through the game with no deaths may be coming back for a while but I can’t see it keeping everyone else hooked once they beat all the levels. Don’t get me wrong, Iron Meat is fun and a great run and gun shooter but for a game released in 2024 selling for twenty dollars, I think it should offer a little more and I’m happy to report that more content is planned. I was browsing the game’s Steam forums and discovered the developer is planning on adding additional gameplay customization options.
So here’s how it works. You run through levels blasting away enemies. Reach the end of the level and defeat the boss to proceed to the next level. Rinse and repeat until you beat the game. I did play with a controller and can say the controls are solid. Everything feels good and there’s a nice chunkiness to the combat. Enemies will explode into a mist of blood, some deaths result in a shower of bone, blood will gush, and you can blow up and destroy things in the environments. The gameplay is very action-packed and a lot of fun. Your character is equipped with a default rapid-firing weapon and you can swap it out with another found in the levels and even equip a second weapon and switch between them on-the-fly. Some should feel familiar to Contra veterans like ones that resemble the machine gun, spread shot, and laser, along with several others. They’re all distinct and it’s fun experimenting but dying will result in the loss of whatever weapon you’re currently holding. Picking up the same weapon multiple times seems to upgrade it and you can acquire powerups that last for a limited time.
I’m happy to say I got through the game on the Normal difficulty on my first run through it. That’s not to say I never died but Iron Meat is not super relentless. I’m not the best at games like this so if I can beat this, anyone can. Hard, however, was really showing me whose boss. The challenge does ramp up nicely but it never feels impossible and boss patterns never become insane. I can’t say things get as intense as what Contra III or Contra: Hard Corps offers but it imitates the style well and is more accessible. For one thing, the difficulty determines how many lives you start levels with and on Normal you start every level with sixteen and whatever weapons you finished the previous level with are carried over. You earn points for killing enemies and can acquire bonus points from point pickups and earning enough does award you an extra life. There’s a lot of things in the levels that can kill you, whether it be enemies, hazards, or simply missing a jump and falling to your death but the gameplay never feels cheap. Avoiding death will require quick reaction times, practice, and memorization and everything I needed to see like my character, enemies, and projectiles were always clear so any deaths were always the result of my own mistakes.
Every level in Iron Meat is distinct and offers plenty of run and gun action mixed with platforming. Some levels are more vertical, others contain areas that are more claustrophobic, and none of the platforming ever feels tedious or cheap. Enemies can come from anywhere – the left, right, above, under the ground, and you’ll frequently come across enemy spawners that can be destroyed. You need to be vigilant because there’s all kinds of monsters out for your blood. They rush you, unleash projectiles, and some can fly. You’ll also have to be mindful of turrets, crushers, dangerous liquids, and other hazards, so you’ll have to run, jump, shoot, and aim in all directions to keep the enemies at bay, avoid threats and projectiles, and stay alive.
Iron Meat showcases a beautiful pixelated presentation with detailed environments, parallax scrolling backgrounds, good use of colors, and satisfying visual effects. All the important stuff you need to see is clearly visible and I enjoyed a lot of the little details in the backgrounds like friendly NPCs engaging The Meat, things falling from the sky, and a helicopter crashing and exploding. If you really take the time to look around (which may not be easy to do because of everything you have to be mindful of), you can really see how detailed the stages and backgrounds are and notice a lot of cool stuff going on. As for the audio, the sound work is good but you’ll want to crank up the music because Iron Meat jams. The action is backed by some phenomenal metal tunes with great riffs that really help get you pumped up and into the action. On the technical side, the game ran great and I encountered no issues.
Iron Meat is a great game and love letter to the classics. It’s easily one of my favorite Contra-inspired games to date. It’s also more forgiving while still offering a decent challenge. It does require practice to master but it’s not going to beat you relentlessy and chip away at your patience until there’s nothing left. I’m just going to assume most players should be able to get through it on the Easy and Normal difficulty levels and that’s a good thing. It’s accessible. I had a lot of fun with Iron Meat and I really like how it does character customization. It’s a small thing but its cool. The gameplay never feels cheap or unfair and it’s got all the staples that should make a game like this enjoyable. Fast-paced and satisfying run and gun action, a rocking soundtrack, cool weapons that are fun to use, plenty of violence, gore, and explosions, no handholding, no unnecessary padding, and it can be enjoyed with a buddy.
I absolutely recommend Iron Meat but I would suggest waiting for a sale or the price to drop or more content which appears to be in the works as of this review. While it’s a great game, I don’t think it offers quite enough bang for your buck. Twenty dollars seems a bit steep for what you’re actually getting. Still, it is a good time and a wonderful entry in the genre. Definitely check it out.