Strongman Cheick "Iron Biby" Sanou breaks Eddie Hall's world record with a 477.4 lb (217 kg) axle press.
Iron Biby, the Burkino Faso-born strongman, born Cheick Sanou, broke the world record for axle baling, which has been held by the world's strongest man, Eddie Hall, since 2017. Iron Biby broke the record by dropping 478.4 lbs (217 kg) on Albert. raised Hall in London, England, right in Hall's backyard.
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Strongman Cheick "Iron Biby" Sanou breaks Eddie Hall's world record with a 477.4 lb (217 kg) axle press.
Iron Biby, the strongman born in Burkino Faso, née Cheick Sanou, broke the world record for axle baling held by the world's strongest man, Eddie Hall, since 2017. Iron Biby broke the record by dropping 478.4 lbs (217 kg) on Albert. raised Hall in London, England, right in Hall's backyard. That didn't stop Hall from promoting the elevator on his Instagram feed and praising the strength of his strong peer. "I've seen him weigh 150 pounds while exercising in his home gym," Hall writes in his post.
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Iron Harvest Review: Real-Time Strategy with Feeling
"A fun real-time strategy game that is slowed down by a lack of polish and content."
A heartfelt story
Strong design ethos
Plenty of mechanics
Excellent destruction physics
Steep difficulty curve
Certain gameplay with no polish
A small selection of content
Iron Harvest is a real-time strategy game set in an early 20th century European alternate story where the wildest creations of steampunk became a reality. While the game attracts you with its huge, lumbering mechs, it's the surprisingly personal story at the heart of the campaign that keeps you going along with an excellent visual design.
With a variety of ways to deal with the various conflicts, Iron Harvest is a fun RTS. Still, its steep learning curve could put new players off to strategy games, and its rather limited selection of content could turn RTS veterans away.
Real-time strategy games are about controlling multiple units at the same time in large conflicts. Therefore, the campaigns included in these games usually work at the macro level and deal with the bigger picture of the combat forces. Iron Harvest shows these conflicts, but at the heart of its story is Anna Kos, a young citizen of the fictional Eastern European nation of Polania. At a very young age, her brother leaves her village to fight in the First World War. What was intended as a short engagement spans years, and the wreckage of mechanical war machines eventually pollutes the country and creates the eponymous iron harvest. Anna and her favorite bear Wojtek are embroiled in the aftermath of the crisis, which, like the story of the real world, ignites the flames for a second, even more devastating conflict.
While the game attracts you with its huge, lumbering mechs, it's the surprisingly personal story at the heart of the campaign that keeps you going along with an excellent visual design.
It's an emotional story of loss, duty, and sacrifice that fits surprisingly well with some of the game's crazier elements, such as the weirdly vicious Lev Zubov, leader of the opposing Russian forces. While the beats of the story can sometimes be seen from a mile away, strong appearances by the main characters help sell the narrative. Unfortunately, part of the voice of supporting characters and NPCs is far weaker, which detracts from immersion a bit. That, and the stiff animations during the cutscenes, made me wish the developers had a slightly bigger budget to iron out some of the kinks and provide a more polished presentation.
Provided by Deep Silver
The graphics in the cutscenes leave a lot to be desired, But when the game pulls out the camera for gameplay, the world really comes together, and some of the missing detail is lost in the wider, well-executed level design. What makes the world funnier is how destructible it is. It's incredibly satisfying to attack enemies with a mech and watch it storm through a warehouse, leaving a pile of bricks behind.
The game's aesthetic is inspired by the Polish artist Jakub Rozalski and his collection of paintings from about 1920. Playing the game is like bringing one of Rozalski's works to life, which is a visual delight as variations of brown contrast with the bright orange of exploding missiles or the deep blue of the Polish rifle uniform.
Provided by Deep Silver
Iron Harvest makes a point of taking cover and flanking the enemy, something few other games in the genre involve. Adding mechs to the fight that can wipe out that cover in seconds makes for an incredibly active RTS. There is always something to do and you will be constantly reacting to the turn of the battle. While in some strategy games you order orders, wait to see what the outcome is, and then mess up your armed forces, Iron Harvest offers no such respite, which makes it a refreshing entry into the genre.
It is incredibly satisfying to see real-time physics in action.
However, I often wish that my armed forces would respond with the speed necessary to carry out their duties. Sometimes I would click on a unit to offer an order and then watch as it took them a few moments to carry it out. When they finished, I needed something other than them. The enemy A.I. was also frustrating at times. I would have troops firing from behind cover at enemies who were only noticed in the open air and returned shots in vain. In some places they even took cover behind the same stone wall my troops were on, and I just had to wait and see which troop outlasted the other. Moments like this really spoiled my experience with generally decent gameplay.
The campaign is a slow introduction to game mechanics, and I highly recommend completing it before venturing into the standalone A.I. Battles – and certainly before you try to face another real strategist in multiplayer. Even so, the insane juggling of controlling the field of play, managing resources, maneuvering opponents, and building my army, even after getting familiar with the gameplay, was often overwhelming. Publisher Deep Silver offers a nearly 100-page guide that goes into the details of the various game mechanics. In order to face some of the more difficult encounters, it is necessary to understand all of them.
Provided by Deep Silver
In contrast to the wealth of mechanics, there is a poor choice of content. After I finished the story, I switched to the A.I. Conflicts and multiplayer offers and exclaimed audibly: "Is that all ?!" The game only has a handful of maps and mission types to choose from, which pale in comparison to many other RTS titles. Future content is planned for the game, but a fee will be charged.
After I finished the story, I switched to the A.I. Conflicts and multiplayer offers and exclaimed audibly: "Is that all ?!"
Those looking to explore the various game modes and forego the story will have a hard time familiarizing themselves with the many facets of Iron Harvest. It's easy to get annoyed at the difficulty, especially if a player is new to RTS titles. The difficulty can be in the A.I. Skirmishes and challenges on offer, but found the medium setting too easy and the difficult setting way too challenging. I was as dejected in the latter as I was in the former, and I wish the game was a middle ground between the two.
Iron Harvest is a solid real-time strategy game where the developer's passion for the genre flows into the story and design. However, there are some unfortunate missteps when it comes to the difficulty that will put off more casual RTS fans and a lack of content that might put seasoned players off.
The game is heavily inspired by Company of Heroes, which is a more polished game by comparison, but lacks some of the more exciting concepts like the steampunk mechs. Age of Empires II: The Definitive Edition is currently very popular with RTS players and offers one of the most extensive packages in the genre.
The campaign lasts around 15 hours, but as mentioned earlier, there isn't much variety with the additional missions. Only players who want to test their skills with some of the higher difficulties will play for ten hours.
Should you buy it?
Finally. Wait for the game to add more content and tweak elements like the difficulty curve and unit responsiveness.
Editor's recommendations
Iron Man VR Review: Bring the summer blockbuster home
"Iron Man VR is an entertaining superhero adventure that doesn't quite reach the summer blockbuster heights."
Satisfactory flying
Frenetic dogfighting
Creative motion control
A robust package
Fussy VR
Generic history
Unpolished graphics
Any other year, Iron Man VR would have flown under the radar. Despite all of the simulated exploits and explosions, it's the kind of licensed superhero fare that feels slim next to a muscular Marvel Studios movie.
But of course 2020 is not another year. Cinema-goers won't pack theater to see the next chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe soon. Iron Man VR could be the best thing that fans will bring to a summer blockbuster this year. It's not an ideal replacement, but the thought of traveling to a fantasy world where good always beats evil sounds more appealing when hope is so scarce.
Although Iron Man VR doesn't fully exploit its promising potential due to technical limitations and a general lack of polish, thanks to its creative control scheme, it offers enough fun and action film heroism.
Iron Man VR can best be described as a first person aerial combat game. Players step into the iconic red and gold armor to read an original story about a mysterious hacker who directed Tony Stark's deadly drones against him. Much of the adventure is spent flying around arena-like locations and blowing robot waves out of the air.
Both actions are carried out with different success using the PS Move controller. When flying, hold the moves straight down and press the triggers to drive forward. Turning the controller to the left or right moves the suit in this direction, while tilting it horizontally increases the height.
It's not the most seamless VR flight game, but when it all comes together, it's an undeniably cool experience.
It may seem intuitive at first, but gets more complicated when steering comes into play. Players can tilt their heads to rotate, but the most effective way to move is to press a button to rotate the camera. Flying becomes a difficult balance between controlling the character's position in the game and focusing on the PlayStation camera in physical space.
It is not the fastest learning process. In the game's early missions, I played with my arms and neck and tried to achieve a smooth flight pattern. It felt like I was playing a scene in a Spider-Man film in which a freshly bitten Peter Parker whirls around on the roofs and tries to learn the mechanics of his nets.
All this trial and error paid off when the controls finally clicked. In an outstanding mission, players fly through a rocky canyon to pursue a runaway villain. It's a standard video game chase, but it's also a sequence that rewards the player's mastery. As I raced through narrow passages and effortlessly snaked around rugged cliffs, I felt less like a youthful avenger. Instead, the PSVR headset felt like the Iron Man helmet, and the Move controllers became palm boosters. At that moment I was a superhero racing through the air with verve.
It's not the most seamless VR flight game, but when it all comes together, it's an undeniably cool experience.
The action side of the game has its own ups and downs. During the flight, the Move controllers can be raised to shoot enemies. When you aim a straight one like a sword, players can fire blaster shots from the palm of their hand while flipping down activates an auxiliary attack like homing missiles from the suit's wrist.
If everything works as intended, all the time you spent as a child playing superheroes was worth it.
As with flying, shooting takes a bit to get the hang of it. The nuance of the wrist placement makes it difficult to constantly trigger the intended force in rapid battles. Flying and shooting at the same time is a separate fight in which the players have to juggle two separate movements. If the flight feels like it is fully focused, it will be absolutely impossible to do the tandem action.
Even with the tricky controls, firefights are often fun and hectic. The waves of jellyfish-like drones offer players a lot of moving targets where they can test their skills. It is uniquely satisfying to blow up incoming enemies with the palm of your hand on the right and aim with the other five ships and destroy them at once with a barrage of wrist missiles.
Iron Man VR adds additional gestural gameplay to enhance the feeling of heroism. If you hold down a button and swing the controller, a powerful blow is triggered, which can throw opponents back. There are also many other well-known comic book moments. The players open incredibly heavy gates and release the stuck landing gear of an airplane during the adventure. This type of tactile design feels more exciting than tapping X quickly to achieve strength in an average game.
The overall fight can sometimes feel a bit simple, especially when compared to a superhero game that is as varied and fluid as Marvel's Spider-Man, but the physicality of VR allows for additional experimentation in combat. If everything works as intended, all the time you spent as a child playing superheroes was worth it.
Despite a creative approach to control, Iron Man VR stumbles across its presentation. The story itself is a collection of genre clichés, from tortured heroes to predictable red pegs. The constant jokes feel like they've been pulled out of a seminar on writing a Marvel movie.
The graphics don't look much better. Many of the textures wouldn't look out of place in an average Nintendo GameCube game, and the largest set pieces tend to fall flat with lackluster effects. That wouldn't normally be a deal breaker for VR, but superhero games live and die through spectacle. Iron Man VR has a lot of potential, but can't always deliver its blockbuster moments. Explosions are more often anti-climactic than they inspire.
It's not that the game doesn't feel complete. It's a weighty package with an eight-hour history, lots of bonus missions, and a full suit customization. The problem boils down to a lack of polish that feels uncomfortable for the genre.
Love her or hate her, Marvel films have made entertainment a science. These superhero adventures have been carefully designed to provide constant fun for fans. Even when they are the weakest, it is rare for this iron formula to crack.
Iron Man VR has a lot of potential, but can't always deliver its blockbuster moments.
Iron Man VR, on the other hand, is a game in which players constantly see the seams. The technical restrictions always prevail, whether in the form of recycled locations or incredibly long loading times. These limits are particularly noticeable in the game's home base scenes, where Tony Stark's arms tend to twist and twist in a way that makes a surgeon flinch.
The frequent interruptions in flight keep Iron Man VR from reaching new superhero heights. There are lightning bolts from Avengers Action, but the experience is more similar to that of Tony Stark, who controls his Mark I armor for the first time and tries to remove the kinks.
Iron Man VR is an entertaining escape that finds creative ways to turn motion controls into heroic stunts, but lacks the thrill and polish needed to make it feel like a real Hollywood spectacle.
Marvel's Spider-Man is still the gold standard for modern superhero games, and Eagle Flight is a more elegant (but disgusting) VR flight experience.
The story takes approximately eight hours and the game features races, combat attempts and free flight to add weight to the package.
Yes, if you have a PSVR and a Move controller. If you don't have one, a killer app isn't enough to justify a full VR investment.
Editor's recommendations
