Steel Harbinger

***Steel Harbinger*** is the fifth episode of Just Bad Games. It was released on July 16, 2019.

## Transcript

**Shane**: *Steel Harbinger*. Developed by Mindscape, the game is a 3-D 8-directional sci-fi shooter released for the PlayStation in 1996.

**Adam**: This was a huge year in gaming. We had wonderfully realized, three-dimensional worlds thanks to the fresh Nintendo 64. We also saw the launch of classic sci-fi shooters like *Duke Nukem 3D* and *Quake*, games that pushed their genres and new tech forward in great ways.

**Shane**: That's right. And then, there was *Steel Harbinger*.

*(gameplay shown)*

They can't all be winners.

**Adam**: The game takes place in war-torn North America in 2069.

**Shane**: Many lives are lost, stupidly.

**Adam**: Unbeknownst to anyone, an alien species attacks. They rain death and destruction through specialized pods that assimilate any creature nearby.

**Shane**: The aliens seem to be assimilating on a budget. A tight, tight budget.

**Adam**: Much of *Steel Harbinger's* story is told through cutscenes, through an interesting mix of live-action, CG, and- awful.

**Shane**: Here we see the science lab, where the scientists are doing science. You can tell they're doing science because they have bubbly science liquid in science glass.

**Adam**: Turns out, the lab is managed to contain an unsprouted alien pod.

**Shane**: That's right. Get nice and close.

**Adam**: The inactive pod suddenly comes to life, attacking the main scientist's daughter. But before she can be assimilated, he-

**Shane**: USES THE AXE OF SCIENCE!

**Adam**: Ah yes, the ever-convenient science axe. Kill it with slicey physics!

**Shane**: After this harrowing event, the daughter is transformed into a half-alien, half-human hybrid... Muppet!

*(The scientist facepalms in the cutscene)*

Her hair is made of the scrubbies from a car wash.

**Adam**: Her obese eyebrows make her look like she's in a constant state of surprise.

**Shane**: If I had to make someone look like an alien, I don't think I would have drawn all over their face with a Sharpie, but here we are.

**Adam**: Bad makeup and costumes don't stop here, though. Outside the lab, every soldier looks like they're decked out in paintball gear.

**Shane**: To no one's surprise, they're extremely ineffective at fending off the aliens.

**Adam**: "Jimmy, let's see your war face"! Oh- Jimmy.

**Shane**: The humanity! Death, destruction, bad CG, and- vomit. And that, folks, is what happens when you eat a pizza pocket fresh from the microwave.

**Adam**: The lab is destroyed.

**Shane**: But now that the Steel Harbinger is free-

**Adam**: Harbinger of what?

**Shane**: Bad RoboCop impressions, clearly!

**Adam**: Immediately after this scene, we're thrown right into the gameplay, and- oh boy.

**Shane**: There is a lot to take in here, folks, so bear with us as we try to explain everything that is wrong.

**Adam**: As we stated, this is a multi-directional third-person shooter.

**Shane**: But it's like no other shooter that we have ever played.

**Adam**: Firstly, though the game uses polygonal 3-D assets, we can only see from one perspective. We can move the camera back and pull the camera in, but can't- and I stress this- can't turn the camera at all. Why is this a problem?

**Shane**: Because unless you're walking straight forward, you can't see where you are going in every other direction.

**Adam**: Also, you can't see anything that's coming at you from any other direction.

**Shane**: This, combined with poor controls, makes it a chore to traverse stages, and that's before we even get into how bad it is to simply shoot at things.

**Adam**: You've got very poor control on the direction of where you're firing, and even if you happen to be looking at an enemy head-on, your bullets sometimes spread out and miss. Sure, you've got a lot of weapons to pick from that are slightly different- a touch, but no one feels more powerful than any other- besides one:

**Shane**: The Canadian Disco Ball of Death, eh?

**Adam**: Made by Canadians on the Moon during wartime- no joke, this is canon- it's the most powerful weapon in the game, the only interesting weapon in the game, and you'll only get, like, four shots in your entire playthrough.

**Shane**: Besides the magic rainbow ball, you'll waste pounds of ammunition trying desperately to fend off incoming attackers. All of the other weapons just feel hollow and weak.

**Adam**: Now, a steady stream of ever-present enemies is constantly going to be spawning and tracking you down.

**Shane**: Some might be easier to kill than others, but they all hurt you badly. You'll lose health so fast, you won't even have time to react.

**Adam**: Remember how we said the camera was a problem? Well, because you can only see in one direction, you'll be pelted with bullets, projectiles, and other harmful things long before you even see an enemy on your screen.

**Shane**: Among all this chaos, you'll need to avoid shooting humans. You're told to save them, but more often than not, you'll accidentally eliminate them.

**Adam**: The innocent bystanders you'll lay to waste is incalculable. You won't mean to do it, but the game will alwayslet you know when it happens.

**Game**: Human killed. (x7)

**Adam**: Do you get docked points for this unwilling massacre?

**Shane**: Nope! You don't even get anything for saving people. But, believe it or not, there is a perk to killing humans.

**Adam**: You can ***eat*** their bodies!

**Shane**: Blech.

**Adam**: You see, that's one of the few ways to get your health back. You actually, and we're being serious here, eat the remains of humans and aliens alike.

**Shane**: That's clearly the hero the world needs: the woman sluggishly roaming the battlefield chewing on your neighbor's shin.

**Adam**: It doesn't even need to be flesh. It could be little metal bits and pieces the Harbinger eats, and the sloppy, wet smacking sounds of her chowing down- no, they never get old. Never.

**Shane**: So, when you think alien enemies, you're probably envisioning little gray men and stuff, right? Well, you're not really getting that here.

**Adam**: What you do get is a bizarre roster of baddies.

**Shane**: Robotic bullet dogs.

**Adam**: Fire-breathing alligators.

**Shane**: Little glowing babies.

**Adam**: Canadian Moon Patrol death robots.

**Shane**: Gigantic missiles spitting evil heads.

**Adam**: And cows.

**Shane**: Cows?

**Adam**: Yes. They lay landmines.

**Shane**: These enemies don't seem to fit at all. Eventually, the game developers just appear to stop caring about any kind of structure or sanity in any of the levels.

**Adam**: When you get to one of the later areas, you get to fight off gigantic, sentient pump jacks.

**Shane**: They look like this.

**Adam**: Now, I know what you're all thinking: can you eat the pump jack?

**Shane**: Yes. By all that's holy and good in the world, you can actually eat the pieces of a freshly destroyed pump jack.

**Adam**: So, everything you're seeing here- the world and how you view and traverse it- seems like a total mess.

**Shane**: But you do have things you need to accomplish to complete each stage.

**Adam**: For example, you gotta find a switch to activate a satellite defense network which will stop alien pods from dropping in an area. You do this on each and every level.

**Shane**: Maybe you'll find the switch, but you'll not be able to turn it on, because you likely don't have the keycard. So, you head back out on the worst scavenger hunt ever looking for it. Then, you'll run into a locked gate. Surprise surprise, now your hunt for the first keycard has to be put on hold while you find the switch that will unlock this gate. Hopefully you find that switch, but that switch is also locked, so now you have to find the key for that switch, which happens to be- a dismembered human hand? Shouldn't be too hard in a world where body parts are tossed around like sprinkles on a birthday cake! Oh, it's not even one hand you'll need to find, it's several, for multiple gates. It's a never-ending nightmare of a fetch quest!

**Adam**: Finding these items can take hours because the graphics are so poor and muddy, and everything just tends to blend in. Oh, and it doesn't help that there's absolutely no indication on the map of the locations of these items, or even a vague direction of where they could possibly be.

**Shane**: Look, let's say you collect everything. Don't you think the challenge of finding all of these stupid items would be enough to get to the next stage?

**Adam**: Nope! Once you turn on the satellite, you'll need to head to a teleporter to go to the next level. But here's the kicker, folks: the teleporter charges you money to let you go to the next stage.

**Shane**: Ugh! So now you need to go back out to the level to find actual freaking credit cards that give you enough teleport credits to use at a teleporter to finally get to the next stage.

**Adam**: And then, there is the drudgery that is saving your game.

**Shane**: To do this, you'll need to use the teleporter to go to one special spot in the whole wide world that has a save point. You'll need to transport multiple times, loading stage on stage, which takes way too long to do.

**Adam**: To break up the sheer monotony of all of this awful, awful gameplay, tossed into the mix are a bunch of choice live-action and CG cutscenes.

**Shane**: Grab some popcorn, folks. It's time to watch some cinematic art!

**Adam**: Here's a news broadcast.

**Jeff**: It appears that we're getting more and more stories in about these pod sightings. Here in Houston, Kansas City, and Denver.

**Jane**: It looks also, Jeff, like we're getting sightings in Europe.

**Jeff**: Well, I guess there goes my summer vacation, then. We at station KBOT want to remind you that at this point, these sightings are unconfirmed. We have no solid information as of yet. It's important to stay calm. I wanna repeat that these sightings are unconfirmed. Jane? Oh my! No!

**Shane**: Are you serious? How did you not hear her screaming to death?

**Adam**: Let's keep going.

**Jeff**: In the footage you are about to see, farmer Wilma Johnson is being attacked by a cow. Fortunately, her husband, Zeb, was there to capture the tragedy on video.

**Wilma**: Zeb! Help me, Zeb! Put the camera down, you old fart, and help me!

**Shane**: Is- is this supposed to be funny?

**Adam**: And here is how they end the broadcast.

**Jeff**: Despite our dwindling staff, we at KBOT intend to follow and report this story to you as long as it is physically possible.

*(Jeff is attacked by an alien)*

**Adam**: Oh, but he's not dead, folks. There's one sequence more:

**Jeff**: This is Jeff Darley reporting to you from the Twin Lakes district. I'm standing next to what appears to be a pod. Eyewitnesses report it streaking to the ground at about 5 AM this morning. The- wait a minute, I think something's happening.

**Female Broadcaster**: It appears we're having some technical difficulties.

**Shane**: I just wanna stop this for a second. This newswoman is holding her temple. That's not how an earpiece works!

*(Scene where Jeff is assimilated)*

**Shane and Adam**: Acting!

**Shane**: Also scattered throughout the game are terrible commercials that make no sense at all, like this gem of a product:

**Female Announcer**: Are you tired of your head getting sunburned? Would you like to look years younger? Try Headworms. Scientists at the Nematode Institute have discovered a revolutionary treatment to reverse the balding process. These genetically-engineered worms will burrow into your head with very little pain. And, in less than 24 hours, you can have a full head of worms and look 20 years younger!

**Adam**: Clearly, they're going for comedy here. But then we witness other video clips of people being just randomly killed by lasers with absolutely no context whatsoever. The tone is all over the map here, people.

**Shane**: Obviously, they had actors for all their full-motion video sequences, but we're getting a sneaking suspicion that the cast was only available for an afternoon or something.

**Adam**: When you successfully run the crap gauntlet that is this game and defeat the final boss, you're gifted a tremendous "screw you" in the form of the worst cutscene in the game.

**Shane**: They didn't even make use of the live-action actress. Now you've got a CG character that's rendered in stale, colorless beige.

**Adam**: The background of the Earth looks like it's painted on a board that's a few inches away.

**Shane**: We don't even really know what is happening here.

**Adam**: Does the Steel Harbinger return to Earth? Does she stay on that flying planet thing? Does humanity ever rebuild?

**Shane**: We don't know.

**Adam**: And we don't care.

**Shane**: **IT'S JUST BAD.**