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This could double as an Obscure Games You Probably Haven’t Heard Of post. I’m a huge fan of Iron Helix, and have been for a long time, but it’s completely forgotten by this point. This game is extremely important, for a few reasons I’ll get into. But first, this is the second of the two Sega CD games I made sets for! I made one for Kids on Site, and this. Someone might have made a Kids on Site set without my help, but no one would have ever made this, and that’s a promise.

Iron Helix is an early 90s PC-ROM survival horror game by Drew Pictures and Spectrum HoloByte. It’s possibly one of the FIRST modern survival horror games. It’s no Sweet Home or anything, but it has a lot of that Survival Horror style. You’re exploring a dangerous place, alone, and being hunted by an impossible to overcome force, while trying to solve mysteries and find clues to what happened here.

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Iron Helix starts with an intro that tells the story. Some Earth Force ships are doing military training on the edge of the neutral zone, essentially. But one of them, the Obrian (it’s gonnna be SO hard not to type O’Brien) suddenly veers off, losing control. It targets a peaceful neutral world of the other super power in the galaxy, the Thanatosians. We’re in a cold war with them, but this will make it run hot, and kill an entire planet of innocent civilians too. A message from the ship’s captain explains: They’ve been infected by an unknown virus that’s weakened their immune systems and changed their DNA. The ship’s AI Defender no longer recognizes them as Human, and assumes they’re invaders, killing them. Believing they’re at war, the ship goes to blow up some Thanatosians. Nothing can be donw.

Except… you’re the only ship in the sector! But you’re just a scientist, onboard the exploration ship Indiana. And it’s not like you can board the ship, you’ll get infected and killed too. You’re contacted by Earth’s Forces and asked to stop it, by sending drones into the ship, and blowing it up before it can reach the Thanatosians.

I think it’s a rather compelling plot. Then you’re hit with the sickest fuckin’ title theme of the early 90s, and you begin. Choose your difficulty level and dive right in.

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Iron Helix plays like you’re controlling a little drone through a computer screen, which you are. It’s clunky and awkward, because it would be. You move up and down the pathways of the ship, which you can see through surveillance maps that you’ve hacked into. You always know where the Defender is, though when you interract with things on the ship, it knows where you are too, and will hunt you down. You gotta dodge it by running through access tubes and running away, though you can also use battery life to jam the Defender and stun it for a time. The Sega CD version is quite clunky about this and slow paced, the PC version is much faster.

Your goal is split into chunks. First, collect DNA. The Humans were killed, but the ship responds to their DNA still, and not all of it has become changed. You can find hair follicles, chunks of skin, etc, all over the place. Scanning an area, you can release your access arm and pick up DNA, which will allow you through doors to deeper parts of the ship. Once you have all the DNA you need, usually by collecting the captain’s DNA, you can access everywhere, including the information terminals.

The Humans on the ship were trying to stop this before it began, but couldn’t. But they left breadcrumbs for you. They have access codes that they’ve set up to do different things, like blowing up the warp manifolds, or shutting down the Defender. You need to find a code for blowing up the ship, and a code for stopping the Defender, before proceeding. Then you shut down the Defender, then blow up the ship, in that order. Otherwise the Defender will just stop you. And once that’s done, you win!

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You can beat Iron Helix in like 9 minutes on this version. Way less than that on PC. If you know what you’re doing and where you’re going, it’s easy every time. Buuuut it’s not easy the first time. If you’ve been reading this review, you’re probably picturing the game in your head and going “woah that sounds sick as fuck???” and it is! On paper. But the Sega CD version is very flawed. The PC version shows you when DNA is nearby. The Sega CD version does not, you have to scan every single square of the ship. It’s also direction sensitive, so you need to check all four sides. It’s AWFUL.

And it’s not very replayable. Once you beat all three difficulties, that’s it. All the difficulties do is shift the DNA and codes around. The codes are different for each difficulty, too. In the first one there’s a code for just turning off the defender. But after that, you need to use yourself as bait to bait the Defender into the cargo bay, and then vent the whole thing into space.

Iron Helix is also built around an FMV base, which at the time was cutting edge, but is now MASSIVELY funny and outdated. You can barely make out these characters, the quality is so low. And their acting is Rather Rough. The best part is Commander Arbok though, your advisor, who after you succeed, rewards you with a job well done by… torturing you for information and killing you. Uh oh, we’re actually the bad guys.

Yes, there’s a hidden thread of information in Iron Helix. I’m telling you this because I doubt you will ever actually play it. You can find logs about destroying the ship, yes, but also ones about the Iron Helix, which is a secret weapon Earth is developing with the capacity to blow up entire planets. It’s highly dangerous, and highly illegal. So to keep their information a secret… they’ll need to silence you. It’s a downer ending! Yay!

Iron Helix is an extremely interesting game for the time, but all of its ideas will be done better down the road, and it’s pretty rough to play these days. I still love it though, it’s very special to me.

Before I forget though, here’s the PC installer for Iron Helix. Absolutely beautiful. It has a lot of charm to it.