When it comes to digital distribution, you can't really do any better than Steam. Forever, it sits there, taunting you with deals you can't resist. Many a pound has been spent on games from Steam by myself, with the £5 spent on Lead and Gold being no exception. Had it not been for that 50% off sale I probably would have ignored the game completely.
Lead and Gold is a multiplayer only third person shooter, from FatShark, set in a caricature version of the American wild west. For starters there really aren't enough wild west shooters around, so that makes it stand out a bit already.
As for modes and maps the game comes fully stocked, featuring 7 gameplay modes and 6 maps. For a £10 game that's great. A few full price titles have less content than that.
The game modes themselves are the standard affair, with the typical team deathmatch, domination and assault modes being rebranded to fit the style of the game.
The only game mode which feels slightly disjointed and unfinished is the co-op mode called Gold Fever. 2 players stand off against increasing waves of AI enemies while also trying to steal gold sacks. To begin with it's only 2 players, which isn't enough in my opinion, but there is only one map for it and it's far too easy.
Maps come in a wonderful variety, ranging from a deserted frontier town at dusk to a railway bridge between snow frosted mountain peaks.
Playing Greed on the map "Jacob's Bridge"
Some maps do have some slight balancing issues though, with one in particular placing a gattling gun turret just a bit closer to one team spawn than the other.
Now, some people like to throw around the word "clone" for almost any game that features something that could possibly be in another game. In my personal opinion, people who do that should go flash their unmentionables to a honey badger. I bring that up because any game that has class based gamepay and stylised looks is going to immediately be called a Team Fortress 2 clone. To me, the game does enough differently to make it escape this dishonorary title. Too bad people are stupid.
As I said, the game has 4 classes to choose from. You can pick between the Trapper, who carries a sniper rifle and can lay bear traps, the Blaster, weilds a double barrel shotgun and throws dynamite, the Deputy, his weapon of choice is a repeater carbine, and my personal favourite, the Gunslinger.
The Gunslinger is the only class that puts me in the Wild West, in my view. The others are interchangable with classes from other games, but the Gunslinger features just a sixshooter and fast-as-lightning hands.
Each class comes with a secondary trait. As mentioned above this comes in the form of dynamite or bear traps, whereas the gunslinger unloads a mighty barrage of lead, unloading all six chambers in a matter of moments.
When it comes to taking out the enemy, it's not as simple as it seems. Non-critical hits only down an enemy, which can lead to extremely emarassing moments where you can be killed by the player you thought you just killed.
The game does have some flaws. For example the server menu is a bit cluttered and unorganised, and there's no friend/lobby system from what I can tell, which means trying to play on the same team as your friends is pretty hard. Even getting into the same server can be a hassle. I'm not going to dwell on these as even having a server list in these days of quickjoining and matchmaking is a credit to the devs.
All in all, this game is great fun. I don't think I've once found myself complaining or blaming the game for my own incompetance. For £10, too, you can't really say no.
Lead and Gold is a multiplayer only third person shooter, from FatShark, set in a caricature version of the American wild west. For starters there really aren't enough wild west shooters around, so that makes it stand out a bit already.
As for modes and maps the game comes fully stocked, featuring 7 gameplay modes and 6 maps. For a £10 game that's great. A few full price titles have less content than that.
The game modes themselves are the standard affair, with the typical team deathmatch, domination and assault modes being rebranded to fit the style of the game.
The only game mode which feels slightly disjointed and unfinished is the co-op mode called Gold Fever. 2 players stand off against increasing waves of AI enemies while also trying to steal gold sacks. To begin with it's only 2 players, which isn't enough in my opinion, but there is only one map for it and it's far too easy.
Maps come in a wonderful variety, ranging from a deserted frontier town at dusk to a railway bridge between snow frosted mountain peaks.
Playing Greed on the map "Jacob's Bridge"Some maps do have some slight balancing issues though, with one in particular placing a gattling gun turret just a bit closer to one team spawn than the other.
Now, some people like to throw around the word "clone" for almost any game that features something that could possibly be in another game. In my personal opinion, people who do that should go flash their unmentionables to a honey badger. I bring that up because any game that has class based gamepay and stylised looks is going to immediately be called a Team Fortress 2 clone. To me, the game does enough differently to make it escape this dishonorary title. Too bad people are stupid.
As I said, the game has 4 classes to choose from. You can pick between the Trapper, who carries a sniper rifle and can lay bear traps, the Blaster, weilds a double barrel shotgun and throws dynamite, the Deputy, his weapon of choice is a repeater carbine, and my personal favourite, the Gunslinger.
The Gunslinger is the only class that puts me in the Wild West, in my view. The others are interchangable with classes from other games, but the Gunslinger features just a sixshooter and fast-as-lightning hands.
Each class comes with a secondary trait. As mentioned above this comes in the form of dynamite or bear traps, whereas the gunslinger unloads a mighty barrage of lead, unloading all six chambers in a matter of moments.
When it comes to taking out the enemy, it's not as simple as it seems. Non-critical hits only down an enemy, which can lead to extremely emarassing moments where you can be killed by the player you thought you just killed.
The game does have some flaws. For example the server menu is a bit cluttered and unorganised, and there's no friend/lobby system from what I can tell, which means trying to play on the same team as your friends is pretty hard. Even getting into the same server can be a hassle. I'm not going to dwell on these as even having a server list in these days of quickjoining and matchmaking is a credit to the devs.
All in all, this game is great fun. I don't think I've once found myself complaining or blaming the game for my own incompetance. For £10, too, you can't really say no.
No comments:
Post a Comment