Hey all, Mandarax here, posting on behalf of RareOrchid herself. I'll just describe Iron Grip like I do to my friends when they ask what I do in my free time.

Iron Grip:The Oppression is the first game in a new fiction universe being developed by friends of mine and myself. It pits a barely-organized militia resistance of first-person players against the forces of the RTS-perspective-played Rahmos empire which has invaded and "civilized" (read: conquered) Kathos, a territory of small principalities reminiscent of Germany pre-unification.

What makes the game interesting is the new gameplay style, which pits RTS *against* FPS, unlike all other cross-genre games such as Empires or Natural Selection. While the FPS side is relatively traditional and easy to jump right into, the game gets more complex when the RTS general enters the picture. The RTS general gets control of a command train from which he deploys troops and tanks and purchases upgrades and, in the future, special powers/superweapons. The troops and tanks he builds are AI bots who follow his orders.

The basic game objectives usually revolve around Rahmos trying to conquer several control points scattered randomly around the map. Often, it also involves the Resistance actively hunting down the Rahmos general. If he's assassinated, the Rahmos forces will have to retreat and regroup, granting the Resistance a victory in their fight against the occupiers.

Now, the important part: how the game feels.

For the FPS side, it's an incredibly different multiplayer experience. It feels more like some sort of steam-punk version of Call of Duty in massive co-op mode, where everyone needs to work together and coordinate their weapons to successfully thwart massive attacks of soldiers and tanks coming at you from potentially any direction, and guided by the expert hand of a human general. I've yet to play a multiplayer game that can offer as much action as quickly and constantly as Iron Grip can, and never played a campaign where the enemy actually WILL intelligently respond to your tactics. For me, it takes the teamwork and group experience of multiplayer, and adds in the epic combat that is normally only reserved for a game's story missions.

On the other hand, for the RTS general, which is my favorite side, it's an often delicate balancing act in which you have to outsmart and outmaneuver intelligent human enemies with your own armies. You can use tanks to clear a path down a road, you can coordinate your infantry to use flanking and pincer moves on Resistance defenders, and it can really be satisfying when your tactics pay off. It's hard to describe the feeling you get when you distract a group of Resistance with a riot tank, then flank them with Grenadiers and wipe them out before they have a chance to yell "OMFG WTF?!"

Hope this helps! If you have any more questions, I'll keep checking back!