We were lucky enough to be invited to the preview event of the year just a couple of weeks ago. Hosted at Roadtrip & The Workshop, in London’s Hoxton, we spent the evening playing Steel Rats before being treated to an intimate performance from the band behind the soundtrack, the 5, 6, 7, 8’s. The bar itself is already one of my favourite places in London, clearly that pub has seen some interesting nights!

It was great to see that money was being raised for SpecialEffect by giving members of the public the chance to buy tickets to come along to the event, play the game and watch the band later on.

For those of you that don’t know, Steel Rats is Steel Rats is a evolution of the 2.5D action arcade games combining destructive, octane-fuelled motorbike combat and death-defying stunt gameplay, set in a retro future world. The Steel Rats are a larger-than-life punk biker gang, who once ruled the streets of Coastal City who now find themselves as the last line of defence against an invading horde of destructive and constantly evolving army of junkbots. Choose your character and unlock new special abilities and customisable bikes to fight with style through vast areas of the city in a deadly mix of speed, agility and firepower.

At first it’s hard not to think it’s Trials with a story, you’ll need to master the realistic physics based of the motorbikes you drive as you move through the different areas of the retro future version of 40’s and 50’s Americana. You will be traversing up, down left and right as your bike speeds fluidly in and out of the game world, over rooftops and through enemy-infested tunnels. It took a little bit of getting used to but after a few minutes I felt fully in control of the bike. The control system is well implemented and I’m looking forward to taking full advantage of it next month.

It’s great being able to use your bike as a weapon, the bike has flame throwers, saw blades and no doubt plenty of more to cause pain for any enemies headed your way. You can even use the bikes to manipulate he environment, opening gates and creating new opportunities to move around the environment.

After we spent some time playing the game, we were treated to a live performance from the 5.6.7.8’s which was superb, we can’t wait to hear the full game soundtrack.

Keep an aye on the site for a full review later this year.