I think I like Loadout. It’s one of
those delights you don’t expect from a game where you play as an action-movie stereotype
from the 80’s. The point of the game is not only to turn Rambo into a messy puddle
of blood, pus, skin and childhood memories, well, that’s a pretty important and
hilarious part of the game, but another equally important part is your complete
freedom to customize the performance of your personal arsenal to your very
choosing. You can choose between different gun types ranging from bullet rifles
to rocket launchers, beam rifles and so on. Then you can switch between
different types of barrels, ammo clips, sights, stocks, triggers and bullets to
alter the range, accuracy, damage, capacity, fire rate of your gun and
including additional abilities. For instance, I built a plasma shotgun that
releases bursts of fireballs per shot, incinerating anything within range. But
your weapons don’t always have to cause harm; you can even design a gun to
create a stream of healing energies or steroids to aid your teammates in
battle. You can even test and experiment your custom weapons on fixed obstacle
courses filled with robots. But the effect your weapon has on the obstacle
course may not be the same when in a multiplayer match, where the things you have
to kill are actually shooting back. For instance, I built a rocket launcher
that shot three remote detonated land mines per shot, each mine designed to
electrocute anyone in range before exploding and sending off dozens of
miniature bombs in several frantic directions, it proved to be very useful on
the course, but when I went to war with it I discovered that it lacked in real
situations when you’re against real people who are smart enough to dodge and
steer clear of any land mines. So that means that no matter how you build your
weapon it can only be useful for very specific situations, because with any
weapon part that adds a positive attribute it will also add a negative effect.
Such as the bigger the ammo clip is the less damage the gun will do, or the
faster your gun can fire will decrease its accuracy. Another thing I discovered
was that I had limited parts to attach to my weapons, so I guess I can’t create
twenty different guns with sniper rifle barrels. It is possible to restock your
inventory by buying more weapon parts, but the only way to gain money is by
playing Spin-The-Buzzsaw after every multiplayer match and there’s a big chance
you’ll win anything other than money. Of course you can use real world money to
buy the parts, but if I was that desperate to get rid of money I would just
burn it. There are several matches you can play and I have to say, that the
creators of this game did a good job of recreating the cliché gameplay types
other multiplayer shooters use. In capture the flag you can do the usual “grab
their flag and bring it to your base” if you’re boring or you gain more points
by killing enemies with their own flag before capturing it for your team, and
for death matches, everyone who gets killed drops a strange, glowing vial and the
only way you can gain points for your team is by capturing the vials dropped by
the bad guys and confirming the kills, you can even capture the vials dropped
by your friends to deny the enemy team of their kills. Loadout is still very
much in the Beta phase, there are few gameplay types to play with, some of the
levels haven’t even been textured yet and it feels like they can add more to
the weapon customizing mechanic, such as paint jobs and such, because you know,
I want to feel pretty when I’m killing an army of Arnold Schwarzeneggers. Loadout’s
still fun even if it is unfinished and I can only wonder what they’ll do with
it once it officially releases.
