I've been looking for a fast-paced arcade shooter along the lines of Quake LIVE to play, and along came Loadout - Create, Customize , Kill! with its hefty bit of alliteration. At first I was skeptical if my low end laptop (4.1 on the Windows Experience Index) could handle such a new release, but I found that I could run the game smoothly on a lowered resolution.
Loadout is all about its namesake: your loadout. Your character can bring two of any kind of weapon and one utility item (grenades, sentry, shields, etc.). The idea is that you can create any kind of ridiculous weapon and bring it into battle and show it off to everyone else. And the game delivers.
redefining 'casual' gameplay
Once you customize and save your gun, you can then build them into a loadout by choosing which two guns to bring and what piece of equipment to bring to a fight. Synergy is nice, but not required. It's all about whatever you want to do.
support your team- be a medic!
Alright! Now you're ready to shoot at people, exploding them into gibs and sending their smoldering, electrified pieces back to their mothers with taunting notes attached. The game has a smooth matchmaking system which pairs you and your party up with other people of the roughly same skill level to form two teams of four. I was a little puzzled that the teams were so small, but when I went into a match I realized why: the amount of projectiles shot at you is overbearing.
Loadout is as much about mildly aiming at people (there's less of an emphasis on sniping, but it can still be done) and blowing them up as it is about learning how the fuck to get away from everything that is shot at you. You are going to have bullets, electrified spike balls, flaming laser beams, and rockets that shoot in clusters of six coming at you, all at the same time, all the time. Learning just exactly what the hell the different weapons do is key.
But really though, Loadout is easy to pick up. The movement of characters flows well. You'll be jumping, combat rolling, and shooting with ease in no time.
stop, hammer time etc. etc.
The game modes available are pretty uninspired for the most part.
Blitz- capture the point
Death Snatch- deathmatch with a kill confirmed mechanic
Jackhammer- capture the flag, where the flag is a hammer you can use to bludgeon people
Extraction- protect your extractor, kill the enemy extractor; comparable to VIP missions
And then there's competitive mode where it's just all of those game modes rolled into one.
Cookie cutter? Yeah, but it works. The formula is tried and true and holds up in Loadout.
After you have gibbed (or been gibbed) enough times (or if you play the objective), the match will eventually come to an end with the winners all taunting the ostracized, grade-A losers. You will then be awarded experience points and in-game currency known as Blutes.
Blutes are then used to unlock new equipment, more weapon parts, and upgrade existing ones. Experience is used to unlock new avatars, gun design save slots, and loadout slots. And after all of that, you're ready to hop back in and blow up more people.
The game's cartoon-like visuals alongside its crude humor and comedic, over-the-top deaths sets a fitting tone to the game. The map locations and visuals are presented very well. Day and night variations of the maps look and feel unique. The game is colorful and vibrant with a great level of detail being placed into each gun part. The guns themselves have a satisfying feel to them and handle well.
you can be just like any of these folks- and more!
Loadout is a free-to-play game, and like most free-to-play games out there today, Loadout relies on a microtransaction system. But don't worry, Loadout doesn't sell power. Instead, you can spend some money to buy SpaceBux which in turn can be used to purchase all kinds of cosmetic items for your character to make everyone know that you are, indeed, a pretty little butterfly with none other like you in the world.
What I'm mostly concerned with is the static percentage upgrades you gain on weapon parts. Leveling up weapon parts take a long time and once you do level them up, you are rewarded with seemingly minuscule upgrades: you'll get maybe +2% reload time, a +1.5% damage, or something along those lines.
It's easy to brush those numbers off as being minute and insignificant overall, and the fact that the only way to level them up is by playing only compounds that, but I feel that static percentage upgrades is a dangerous thing.
These numbers are small, but they do translate into direct advantages for only playing the game however many hours. In the short run it may seem insignificant, but in the long run the numbers begin to stack. Fortunately, Loadout has the matchmaking system that pairs similar leveled players with each other and the whole thing isn't a deal breaker, but the static percentage upgrades are something to keep in mind.
Team based tactics prove a minimal existence in Loadout. There isn't really any kind of class based specialization and everyone can do anything. Being the lone ranger is difficult as damage will just stack on your from multiple sources, so sticking together is still a good idea. That is until the cluster bomb homing rockets murders everyone.
Loadout: It's fun, it's polished, it's free, and I'm sure there will be future updates that will add new and exciting content. Grab a few friends and go check it out!
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