Boo! BOOOOOO!

Check, check, check, and check.

Can it be? FOV?

This quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog just fine.

It doesn't take much for IB to look its best.

Just try not to switch off the power.

What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of GFWL sucking.

Double Fine's Iron Brigade might have slipped under your radar. Released a little more than a year ago to rave reviews , it was originally called Trenched and exclusive to the Xbox. This week, Doublefine announced the imminent launch of a PC version -- a lucky second chance for anyone who missed this excellent and chaotic action tower defense the first time around. But before I give an unconditional recommendation, I'm going to take a good, hard look at the PC port and find out if it takes full advantage of the platform, or if it's a sloppy console-to-pc kludge. Here we go:Though the installation via Steam is quick and straightforward, I was quickly confronted by the fact that Iron Brigade uses the always-odious Games For Windows Live. I'm not too surprised, as this was originally an Xbox Live Arcade game, but the ol' "sign in, reg key, Games for Windows Live Update, restart game, sign in again, reg key again" routine never ceases to frustrate.Getting into the settings panel, it's immediately apparent that the Iron Brigade port isn't a hack job. Graphics settings include the standard resolution and brightness settings, as well as a small selection of advanced options, such as antialiasing, SSAO (ambient occlusion), and bloom. Of course you're not getting the same level of customization as you'd get in a bigger game, but that would be overkill anyway here. The graphics in Iron Brigade are hardly cutting-edge, and most gamers won't need to worry about any setting other than "maximum."Outside of the graphics options, Iron Brigade includes options generally considered a "must" for PC games, including mouse sensitivity, plus one that's become a luxury these days: a field-of-view setting. There's not a lot to see in the audio settings beyond your basic volume sliders, which is fair enough, since the voice acting doesn't quite warrant a 7.1 Dolby Surround option, anyway.The keyboard and mouse controls in Iron Brigade are fully re-mappable, though you're limited to the standard keys and three mouse buttons, so any extra buttons on that gaming mouse of yours are going to be dead weight. As you'd expect, it's fully compatible with a USB Xbox 360 controller, but if you go that route you're locked into the default button mapping (which, in fairness, works quite well).As previously mentioned, the graphics in Iron Brigade aren't anything to write home about. What it lacks in technical wizardry it makes up for in character, and looks fine in motion, but it's just not designed to push your graphics hardware. As such, I was able to play it on a three-year-old gaming laptop at max settings with great framerate, and I'd expect that any gamer with a computer built this side of 2008 will be able to do the same.Iron Brigade is limited to 30fps.Saving in Iron Brigade is handled with a standard console autosave system. It's hardly ideal, but given the mission-based progression, I didn't find this to be a problem.Iron Brigade single-player is a good time, but it's at its chaotic best when you play cooperatively with three friends -- and that's where you have to deal with Games for Windows Live. If you want to drop into a public game you'll have to use a console-style, no-frills matchmaker, which lacks even basic filtering options. I'd prefer to see a matchmaker with some more control or -- gasp! -- a server browser, but at least this does what it says it does.Although Iron Brigade doesn't offer 100% of the features we like to see in a PC port, it comes pretty close, and none of the omissions are too egregious. Considering its excellent reception on consoles and competent transfer to PC, it's a go for any interested tower-defense players (who can stomach the GFWL baggage) when it comes out on Monday.: Damn you GFWL, why won't you let me game in peace? I still haven't been able to play the Batman: Arkham City Harley Quin's Revenge DLC because GFWL doesn't like...about my PC. Reinstalled and everything. Is GFWL a deal-breaker for you on Iron Brigade, or will you tolerate it for a great game?