This is a transcript excerpt covering the score awarded to Showgunners on the So Videogames Podcast, Episode 477. For further coverage, please see my initial thoughts in episode 476.
BRAD: So quickly, let me get to ShowGunners — another circle back.
I talked about this for the first time last week. This is a coming out of nowhere tactical turn based, kind of like vaguely XCom style thing about a lady. Her name is Scarlett and she’s in a running man type of scenario. This is like a deadly game show, just like the Running Man where she’s in it to win it. There’s money and prizes. She’s got a backstory, which I think is really well told, and she goes through these, like, dilapidated cities that have been turned into game show arenas. Turn based.
So at first you just have yourself and then you find one other person you team up with. He’s kind of like a hacker type dude. And then as the game goes on, you get more and more teammates as you go. I think this is a really good game. It came out I think two years ago from the studio. I think it’s called artificer, I believe. I’m not sure where they’re from. I’m not very familiar with their work. I know they’ve done Sumerian six, which is another XCom style game which I’m very excited about, but it’s currently PC only waiting for it to come to console. But this one came out two years ago. Didn’t hear anything about it. It just came out now. Didn’t hear anything about it.
PR sent me a code, thank you very much. And I gotta say, this game has been a load of fun. I think the character design is really good. Everybody that joins well, almost everybody that joins you I think is pretty cool. There’s one guy where I’m like, okay, whatever. I don’t care about you, but the rest of the team is pretty cool.
I think the dialogue is handled just right. There’s like a little bit of dialogue between missions. The dialogue you get is pretty substantial and you can choose to take it or leave it if you wish. So I think that’s a great way to handle it in a scenario like this.
I think the action so far has been great because when you’re doing the turn based combat, I want to say it’s a little bit on the simple side, and I don’t mean that to be a negative because you’ve got to have a wide range of things. Not everything has to be like the craziest, most complicated thing. Um, but I think it’s fairly simple. It’s easy to approach, but I think it works really well. Like they have done a great job at like making it all work. Having the tactics work together, having your teamwork work together. And just like the arenas that you’re in, I think are all pretty interesting going through like sewers and irradiated places and like dilapidated, like building tenements and stuff.
It all looks great. And I think there’s also an interesting aspect to this, because when you’re not in combat, you’re walking around like freely, which is pretty unusual for the genre. So you can explore things you find hidden treasure chests, there’s lots of puzzles and the puzzles are all good. Like they’re pretty good. They’re for the most part, they’re fairly simple. Again, not not to be negative, but like simple as in I can solve this and have fun, but I don’t need to go to game facts or look for a YouTube solution because I can figure it out 99% of the time, and it really gives the world more depth. Like you’re kind of changing it up. Sometimes there’s a little trap you gotta avoid, then you need some combat, then you’re searching for some treasure, then you get a little bit of story.
I think the pacing of it is really good. I will say the main campaign has a great pace. Also, you’re constantly getting new abilities or new teammates. new enemies are revealed basically. Like, I mean, almost once a stage, every time you’re going to do something and some of it is optional as well. So you can kind of pace yourself a little bit. But by the time I got to the end of the game and I was like, kind of getting ready to be done with it, like the game also was also basically almost over. So I feel like that’s exactly. perfect.
So I think that’s great. I think the voices are great. Everything about it is done. Now I will say, you know, there could be a little more depth. So for example, there could be maybe more choices in the campaign. There could be a little bit of a wider skill tree when you’re building up a character. So how it is right now, by the time you get to the end of the game, every character has every ability, which is not bad. I’m not, I’m not mad about it. But you know, there could be like, do you want to build this guy as a quick light guy, or do you want to build him as a heavier tank guy? Like having a little bit of at least like two branches for each character would give it some replay and make you be a little bit more judicious with your skill points because basically everybody’s just like maxed out. I mean, again, not mad about it, but just like places to improve. a couple more enemy types, maybe a couple more things with the characters and stuff. More story bits maybe, perhaps, but it’s been really great.
I think the integration of puzzle gameplay has been really great. I think that some of the actual combat arenas are interesting. They’ve got weird little twists that pop up. They do the story integration. It’s just really great. Nothing about this game is really breaking new ground at all. Like when you look at all the elements, you know, they’re just solid and you’ve seen them before. But this is like everything here is done exactly right.
So it’s like I said this before, but it’s like a cheeseburger, right? Like a cheeseburger is not haute cuisine. Like you’re not going to go to a, a three star Michelin restaurant and order a cheeseburger, right? But when you get a great bun and you got some good sauce on there, the patties cooked right, you got fresh onion on there. You know, it’s just it’s done really well. And it’s not surprising or I mean it’s not innovative. I mean cheeseburger, cheeseburger. But when it’s done well it’s fucking good. Right.
Like it just can be fun. Fun can be fun. Exactly. And I’m looking at the screenshots and it looks just fun. And I’m thinking about that movie, the running man. It’s just it’s not, it’s not, it’s not Shakespeare. It’s not, you know, revolutionary, but everything it does, it does really well. And I think it’s just, it’s nailed perfectly.
So I will say also one thing that I think is cool is that when you play it on console, they give you the deluxe version. Or maybe I just got the deluxe version. It comes with the DLC. And so I will say as a, as a public service announcement, PSA don’t play the DLC, it’s not worth playing.
It’s cool because you get to the final area and right before you get to the final boss, you’re like, yo, here’s a thing over here that we can go check out. We should probably get some guns and experience. That would be kind of cool if we did that. Would you like to play the DLC now right before you roll credits? And I’m like, okay, yeah, let’s do that. And like, I think they, they went tryhard on it and they wanted to make it feel like it was worth your while. This must have come out, you know, a good time after the main game had come out. It’s just a slog. You don’t really get anything that’s worthwhile. They don’t add any good story to it. And all the arenas you fight in the DLC. Oh dude, way too many guys. It’s way. It’s just it’s just like painful. It’s painful and tedious. Yeah, it feels like they just didn’t really, they didn’t really nail that. So if you’re gonna play this game and I think you should, this game is absolutely 100% worth playing. Just skip the DLC. The DLC is not worth your time and effort and just go straight to the main final battle.
So I think in general this is like the most delicious fucking tactics cheeseburger I’ve played where it’s not anything surprising, but god damn it, it’s really, really good and I like it a lot. So this is my official review. I am currently currently in the middle of the final battle of the game, so I’m gonna finish it as soon as I get this podcast and then I will have seen everything. So I feel qualified to give it a rating. And I gave Showgunners, I feel like it earns an eight because that’s like what’s on the table here. But I like it so much and I really want to support them. And I really applaud that. They didn’t bite off more than they can chew. They were very judicious about their choices. They really did the most what they had. And I think they were just really smart about design. So I want to give them a plus five just because. So 8.5, 8.5 because I can. 8.5 I love Showgunners. It’s so fun. It’s so good.
So there you go. Congratulations. Showgunners 8.5. had a great time with it. And now I want a hamburger.
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Artificer and published by Good Shepherd Entertainment. It is currently available on PC, PS and Xbox. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed, including all of the DLC. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Language. It’s a Running Man-style ‘deathrow gameshow’ type of dystopian experience complete with plenty of kills, executions and bloody mayhem. It’s far from the most graphic thing I’ve ever seen, especially as most of the game is played isometrically, but still, not one for the kiddos.
Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available in the options.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is subtitled. The subtitles are not able to be resized or altered. The game is turn-based in all combat sections and there are no audio cues needed for play, so this game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable. The left stick controls character and cursor movement, the right stick controls the camera. Confirming/canceling are done with the face buttons. It’s a pretty standard setup common to most turn-based tactics titles.
Transformers fan. MOTU stan. Black Lives Matter, pro-LGBTQIA. Anti-fascist.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
