Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam

By: Derek Yu

On: June 29th, 2008

Dirk Valentine combines sweet pixel art with mustachioed gentlemen and steampunk. And a chain cannon. I feel like it could be great instead of just good if Nitrome would only:

1. Take out like 3/4’s of the messages from “Monty,” the irritating old fart that enjoys telling you things like “avoid the deadly green gas!” and basically spoiling the fun of figuring anything out for yourself for the first dozen or so levels.

2. Add a little variation in the level artwork. As good as it is, it gets a bit tedious toward the end.

I also wish that secondary objectives like collecting medals and rescuing gents were meaningful gameplay-wise, but that’s a minor quibble. Otherwise, I had a good time with this one – the chain cannon’s abilities are pretty interesting, and the puzzles inspired by them are well thought-out.

Plus, pixel art and steampunk.