Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. Review: Lincoln, Steam, and a Squad Pulled From American Folklore

Nintendo had a strange idea in 2015: hand a turn-based strategy game to the studio behind Fire Emblem, dress it in a Silver Age comic book, and let Abraham Lincoln lead the squad. Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. is that idea, and it nearly works.

Trailer, via Nintendo of America.

Lincoln, John Henry, and a Steamgate Bridge

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. — subtitled Lincoln vs. Aliens in Japan — was developed by Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD Production Group No. 2, and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS. The story is set in an alternate steampunk history and drawn in a Silver Age comic book style, with a cast pulled from American literature and folklore.

The framing device is that you are reading a comic book. The story opens in a steampunk version of London on the opening day of the Steamgate Bridge. Henry Fleming, taken from The Red Badge of Courage and voiced by Adam Baldwin, is running security at the American Embassy when an unknown enemy force hits the city.

Fleming escapes and meets his old friend John Henry, voiced by Michael Dorn. The airship Lady Liberty rescues them both. Its captain is Abraham Lincoln — presumed dead, alive, and voiced by Wil Wheaton — who explains that aliens are attacking and conscripts the pair into S.T.E.A.M., short for Strike Team Eliminating the Alien Menace.

From there the game recruits steadily. Queen Victoria is rescued with help from Lion, of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, voiced by Fred Tatasciore; Tiger Lily from Peter Pan, voiced by Kari Wahlgren; and Tom Sawyer, voiced by Jeremy Shada. The team eventually abandons England and retreats to America. A giant monster delays them, and Lincoln kills it himself in his giant mech, the A.B.E., short for Anthropomorphized Battle Engine.

They stop in Boston, meet Queequeg (T.J. Storm), and answer a distress call from Professor Randolph Carter (James Urbaniak) of Miskatonic University, S.T.E.A.M.’s expert on the occult. Lion’s friend Scarecrow (Paul Eiding) joins on the way. The team evacuates the university with Carter — until a creature called a Starface steals Carter’s notes and flees.

Steam Is Ammo and Fuel at Once

The gameplay blends turn-based strategy with third-person shooter elements, in the same vein as Sega’s Valkyria Chronicles. You command the Agents of S.T.E.A.M. against an alien invading team.

Every action burns steam, the resource held in each character’s backpack. Movement drains it. Firing drains it, and how much depends on the weapon. That single constraint is the whole game. You are always deciding whether to spend your turn closing distance or holding ground, and the answer is rarely obvious.

Save enough steam for a character’s weapon and they can fire an overwatch attack during the enemy’s turn, hitting anything that walks into their line of sight. A successful overwatch can stun a target for the rest of the turn. The aliens can do the same thing to you, so caution is the correct posture.

Before each level you pick up to four characters, with more unlocking as the story moves. Each has a unique primary weapon suited to a different play style, plus a secondary sub-weapon you can swap between characters before a level.

Each character also carries an innate ability that stays active even on the enemy’s turn — moving crates, passively buffing nearby allies, surviving a blow that should have killed them. And each has a special move usable once per level that costs no steam, ranging from area-of-effect attacks to temporary buffs or healing.

The campaign runs in chapters divided into levels. Objectives vary: reach the goal, save a number of civilians, escort a character.

The Comic Book Frame Does Real Work

The art style is not decoration. Presenting the whole thing as a comic you are reading gives the game permission to be ridiculous — a dead president captaining an airship, Tom Sawyer and Tiger Lily on the same squad — without ever winking at you. Intelligent Systems and Nintendo SPD commit to the bit.

The voice cast commits too. Wheaton plays Lincoln straight, which is the only way that part functions. Dorn’s John Henry and Baldwin’s Fleming carry the opening, and the roster keeps growing as the story moves.

The roster is also where the strategy lives. Four slots, a stack of characters with genuinely different weapons and abilities, and objectives that reward different picks. Choosing the team is as much of a decision as anything you do once the level starts.

Where the Steam Runs Out

The problem is pace. Overwatch attacks, steam management, and four-character loadouts make every turn a small negotiation, and the game is generous with reasons to play slowly. Levels that ask you to save civilians or escort a character punish that caution hardest, because the objective clock and the steam clock are not the same clock.

The aliens mirroring your overwatch trick is a fair design choice, but it doubles the waiting. You spend enemy turns watching the same line-of-sight math you just ran, and the tension that should come from that symmetry flattens into routine.

The London opening is the strongest stretch — the embassy attack, the Lady Liberty, the rescue of Queen Victoria — because it keeps introducing. By the time the team reaches Boston and Miskatonic, the campaign feels like it is mostly moving pieces to the next fight. That is our read, not something the game states. The Starface stealing Carter’s notes is a good hook, but it arrives late.

What Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. Gets Right

The core idea holds up. Steam as both fuel and ammunition is an elegant constraint, and the Valkyria Chronicles comparison is earned rather than marketing. Overwatch attacks give defensive play real teeth, and the innate abilities mean a character’s identity persists through the enemy’s turn, not just your own.

The comic book framing and the literary roster are the parts people remember, and they deserve to be. Few games have put Lincoln, Queequeg, and the Scarecrow in one squad and meant it.

6.8 of 10

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. is a smart game that asks for more patience than it repays. The steam system and the overwatch layer are genuinely well built, and the Silver Age presentation is one of the more distinctive things Nintendo published on the 3DS. But the turn-to-turn rhythm drags, and the campaign’s later chapters lose the momentum the London opening earns. It is worth playing for the mechanics and the sheer nerve of the premise. It is not worth rushing.

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. at a glance

• Title: Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. (Lincoln vs. Aliens in Japan)
• Developer: Intelligent Systems / Nintendo SPD Production Group No. 2
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Platform: Nintendo 3DS
• Release: 2015
• Genre: Turn-based strategy, third-person shooter
• Modes: Single player
• Critic aggregate: 6.8 out of 10, from 12 outlets, per IGDB
• Clay Tribune score: 6.8 out of 10

Code Name STEAM · game review · Intelligent Systems · Nintendo 3DS · steampunk · turn-based strategy