Video Game / Steel Harbinger

Daddy's Little Girl is Out to Save the World.

In the year 2041, the great Trade Wars began...
For 28 years the North American continent was wrecked by a series of brutal wars.
But as terrible as it was, it was only the beginning...
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Steel Harbinger is a Run-and-Gun video game depicted with a 3/4 perspective, developed by Mindscape for the PlayStation in 1996. It's also one of the games whose animations are depicted in live action full motion videos portrayed by real-life actors, part of the Motion Capture craze in the mid-90s.

Set in a future ravaged by war, humanity is unexpectedly assaulted by robotic alien pods - hundreds and hundreds of them - dropping into earth's cities. When inspected by curious bystanders, the pods suddenly unfurls tentacles and began grabbing civilians, assimilating humans by the dozens and turning them to mindless, human-machine hybrid creatures. Unfortunate assimilated humans - called "converts" - have no purpose other than to destroy everything in sight, and soon enough the assimilation began spreading across North America and the rest of the world.

A few decades after the outbreak, in a biology lab in Kansas, a team of scientists led by renown researcher Dr. Bowen and his daughter and assistant, Miranda Bowen (Wendi Kenya, a supermodel), is inspecting one of the captured alien pods. Unfortunately, a temporary lapse in security allows said pod to grab and assimilate Miranda, partially. Dr. Bowen managed to retrieve Miranda by hacking apart the tentacle grabbing her leg, but she has become a human-convert hybrid without memories of her past, and gaining superhuman strength, stamina and durability in the process. But Miranda is still on the side of humans, and mankind's last hope against the outbreak.

Unrelated to Harbinger.

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A Steel Harbinger of Destruction is on the Loose!

• After the End: Most of the game is set in the aftermath of an apocalypse where alien robotic pods had assimilated most of humanity, with converted humans in the streets, the cities in ruins, and abandoned buildings in every corner.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The research facility where Miranda, post-assimilation, is kept in the opening scene gets attacked by humanoid converts, until Miranda escapes and begins shooting back. The game also ends with one of these with everyone in the research center, Dr. Bowen included, getting massacred by the mutant pods, and sadly that one will likely remain unresolved.
• Apocalypse How: Class 4, with most of the world's population converted into assorted monsters after the alien pods are released on mankind. There are however some tiny pockets of survivors remaining and still trying to save the world.
• Assimilation Plot: How the alien pods reproduce, by landing in cities, grabbing passing life forms (humans and animals alike) and turning them into their kind. And at the start of the game, most of the world has been assimilated with hardly any survivors.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: Alien pods will hatch after converting enough humans, revealing their true selves to be gigantic, insectoid monsters.
• Bottomless Magazines: Miranda can obtain assorted pickups during gameplay, but her default automatic blaster has infinite ammunition.
• Bowdlerise: The European cover of the game somehow turns Miranda's stripperific one-piece metal frame outfit into a bodysuit, covering much of her skin. Compare this cover with the one on top of the page.
• Came from the Sky: How the alien pods landed on earth in the opening cutscene, with hundreds and hundreds of them raining on Earth's cities from above the clouds. Then one pod in California hatches and began assimilating humans, followed by the rest.
• Cliffhanger: You'd expect the game to end with Miranda putting an end to the assimilation plague, after she wiped out the alien core in the final stage. But what we get in the final cutscene is a shot back on Earth, with Dr. Bowen and the scientists in headquarters suddenly getting attacked by multiple tentacles, Bowen getting killed in the process as he drops his locket containing a picture of Miranda, pre-assimilation. The camera zooms into the locket, the screen turns black, cue credits. And as the game doesn't seem to have a follow-up since it's 1996 release, this could overlap with a Downer Ending.
• Combat Tentacles: The alien pods and most of their non-humanoid monsters have tentacles used for lashing out at their targets, and in the game Miranda have to blow up pods while avoiding tentacle slashes. The opening cinematics in fact shows a bunch of civilians in California getting stabbed and absorbed by those tentacles, en-masse.
• Cursed with Awesome: The effects of the assimilation on Miranda, basically. On one hand, she's no longer human and doesn't have memories of her past life, and is reduced to a mindless killing machine. On the other hand, she's capable of killing hostile alien monsters by the dozens.
• Deadline News: There's an in-game cutscene depicting two news anchors (a man and a woman) reporting on the assimilation. A tentacle from an alien pod suddenly grabs the woman, while the man, oblivious to what's happening, continues with his report as the camera focuses on him. Suddenly he realizes the woman beside him is now a half-human convert, and the screen goes dead.
• Energy Weapon: Miranda can obtain a powerful laser blaster called the Canadian Icarus beam for vaporizing enemies.
• Escaped from the Lab: In the opening cinematics, after scientists in the Kansas Lab decide to have the partially-assimilated Miranda locked in a stasis tank for observation (despite Dr. Bowen's protests), an attack from hostile converts suddenly occurs. And in the middle of all the chaos, the tank holding Miranda gets shattered, where she then steps out and instinctively starts killing enemy converts before getting out of the lab.
• Exposed to the Elements: One stage is set in wintery Canada, and Miranda is still clad in her skimpy metal-frame one-piece outfit. Justified since she's no longer human and all that.
• Giant Mook: Insectoid monsters hatched from pods and oversized sand worm monsters are several times larger than either Miranda or the common converts, and can take far more punishment before they blow up.
• Gorn: The graphic violence in the game can be pretty over-the-top at times. Expect some really bloody deaths with each onscreen kill.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Miranda, the Player Character, after her assimilation with the alien pods.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: More often than not, humanoid converts will explode into sizeable chunks after being killed, leaving behind just an upper torso with a limb missing. There's also areas where Miranda comes across the aftermath of mutant monsters feeding, with their victim's upper bodies being all that remains.
• Heroic Willpower: One of the implied reasons why Miranda, post-assimilation, is still on the side of humans unlike the other converts. Which is a good thing, otherwise there wouldn't be much of a game left.
• Human Weapon: The alien pods managed to turn most of the human population into half-mechanical creatures serving them. They nearly succeed with Miranda, but she survives and starts fighting back.
• Kill Sat: There are various levels where Miranda gets assaulted by malfunctioning satellites, which drop laser bolts from the stratosphere at her. Unfortunate monsters caught in these bolts will be sliced into chunks as well.
• Little Dead Riding Hood: In the opening cinematic, Miranda is wearing a red dress when she gets assimilated and forcefully converted into a half-mechanical machine, losing her mind and most of her humanity in the process. In contrast, every other scientist and personnel in the facility wears the typical Labcoat of Science and Medicine attires.
• Live-Action Cutscene: How the cutscenes are depicted, from the opening sequences to moments where Miranda checks on transmissions during gameplay and also between each levels.
• Locked into Strangeness: Miranda pre-assimilation is blond, as seen in the opening cinematics. Getting converted turns her into a machine-human hybrid, and although she gets to keep her hair, it's now silver-white.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: Miranda is a part-convert herself and a heroic example of the trope, where she gains extra lives by devouring slain converts and monsters.
• Monumental Damage: The opening cinematic have The White House getting blown up during the invasion. One later stage have Miranda fighting the assimilated forces in DC, and she can come across the ruins of what used to be the White House.
• Motion Capture: How Miranda is depicted in the game, by strapping Wendi Kenya in a mocap suit. Most of the humanoid converts and allied soldiers are played by real actors superimposed into gameplay as well. Check out the behind-the-scenes stuff available on the internet.
• One Riot, One Ranger: Despite the availability of an army, Miranda is pretty much sent alone on solo missions to combat the alien pod attacks. Then again she's a one-woman army.
• Precious Photo: Dr. Bowen keeps a picture of Miranda, his only child, in a locket that shows her pre-assimilation, before she's converted into a weapon. Back when she's still his daughter. The game ends it's last shot with a close-up on said locket, just as Dr. Bowen and the rest of the scientific research personnel, gets killed by the alien pods.
• Redshirt Army: The Marines and Home Guard that accompanies Miranda in most random levels. Don't expect them to last long onscreen against entire swarm of converts and monsters in the streets.
• Sand Worm: The largest enemy variety in the game, alien sandworms spawned by the pods which appears in desert regions.
• Scenery Gorn: The cities isn't looking pretty in the aftermath of the pod infestation, to say the least.
• Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: Miranda is, but you probably need not worry unless you're a converted mutant.
• Stripperiffic: Miranda's default outfit once she's assimilated, consisting of bits of metal forming an impromptu backless one-piece with most of her skin exposed, and some Shoulders of Doom over her Cleavage Window.
• Super Drowning Skills: Owing to her half-machine biology, Miranda can be damaged by water. Falling into saline water can in fact kill her instantly.
• Teleportation: Teleport machines are used for Miranda to travel between levels and occasionally access secret areas.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: This seems to be the only expression Miranda is capable of, after becoming a near-mindless murder machine post-assimilation.
• Torso with a View: This happens to Victim Zero of the assimilation in the opening cinematics. Curiously trying to get a closer look at a dropped pod in the middle of California, the pod suddenly skewers him through the midsection with it's tentacles, and as said victim turns around to reveal the see-through hole in his guts, it's suddenly filled with metal as the victim becomes a human-machine convert.
• Unlikely Hero: Miranda the scientist and researcher, who never wants to get her hands dirty, ends up a ruthless killing machine slaughtering hybrid monsters in entire droves and becoming mankind's last hope against the assimilation.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: Basically the fate of every convert, be they humans, animals, or even plants, after they're assimilated by the alien pods and having their flesh converted into machines, losing their minds and humanity in the process.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: This game doesn't penalize Miranda for killing civilians or her own fellow soldiers, save for denying her bonuses. The worse that could happen is a yellow textbox announcing "HUMAN KILLED" reminding her to focus, but that's pretty much it.
• Vulnerable Civilians: There are occasional civilians caught in the cross-fire between the Home Guard and hostile monsters, and they can be killed. However allowing Miranda to tag them will have them exclaiming "thank you!" (presumably for the rescue) where they then disappear onscreen.
• Was Once a Man: The converts used to be human civilians prior to their assimilation. Same goes for the heroine, Miranda, a former human and now a human-convert hybrid.
• Weaponized Animal: Besides human converts, the alien pods also assimilated dogs in the neighborhood, resulting in numerous Robot Dogs hybrids with turrets attached to their backs.

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