DISCLAIMER: I received A Fistful of Gun from a giveaway hosted by the Dev. I've kinda followed Fistful's development since it's beginning as well.
A Fistful of Gun is an arcade styled shooter developed by Farmergnome, published by Devolver Digital, off his Original Jam title of the same name, A Fistful of Gun. The story, taken off of the steam page...
"When the evil railroad baronDISCLAIMER: I received A Fistful of Gun from a giveaway hosted by the Dev. I've kinda followed Fistful's development since it's beginning as well.
A Fistful of Gun is an arcade styled shooter developed by Farmergnome, published by Devolver Digital, off his Original Jam title of the same name, A Fistful of Gun. The story, taken off of the steam page...
"When the evil railroad baron Clayton Boon decided to build a track to Hell, he didn’t reckon on a crazed shaman raising a posse of embittered psychopaths from the dead to stop him. Now they’ll pursue him across the whole Wild West, fighting their way through hordes of bandits, bears, braves and boogeymen just to find Boon and repay their debt with… A FISTFUL OF GUN! "
The plot is as simple as it is. I'm not quite into spaghetti westerns, but the game, story-wise, proves to be quite like one.
Gameplay wise, the "remake" and the original retain the same twitchy horde based bullet-hell gameplay. So if the idea of dodging large walls of shots, perhaps try the prototype first. There's numerous different enemies, each with different types of weapons, like the characters, as well as a few animals who are all out to kill you in a single hit. The premise or one-hit one-kill, is in effect in Fistful, leading to a few... rage moments to say the least. You have 3 "aces of spades" or lives, that you can obtain more through story mode minigames, but the modes will be discussed later. There are also discoverable maps, and alcohol, which slows down the game and gives it a rainbow-y wave while a random perk becomes active, like extra points or explosive shots. Adds some variety, but may lag lower end potatoes.
The options menu isn't super detailed, but provides the basics. Controller schemes, screen resolution, pixel shaders, etc. It's the options menu. Fistful also has different adjustable control schemes for Gamepad, Keyboard, and Mouse on various characters, allowing up to 8 players co-op around a screen. Probably not hunched about your computer, maybe on a projector or television. But this mechanic makes Fistful an excellent party game with family or friends over. Adjustable when in game choosing characters.
The character selection has increased from an original 3 characters, each with different guns, to a total of 11 different playable characters, all with different mechanics and weapons abound. Each characters mechanics may be better or worse individually compared to playing in co-op but i assume that each character should be able to be survivable in single player.
Fistful has Singleplayer (+ Co-op) and Online Multiplayer with Arcade and a Versus mode.
The singleplayer is quite simple. The Story mode, where you traverse from area to area alone, or with friends, trying to reach the end objective whilst encountering minigames, duels, new characters, and various random encounters or ambushes. There's also an Arcade mode for local co-op or singleplayer that's basically score attack. After every round though, various perks are available for your character to choose. Quite simple really. Not much, but pretty much the premise of Multiplayer, just locally with friends.
The Multiplayer, has the two modes: Arcade, and Versus. Arcade is as explained earlier, score attack of killing enemies and collecting coins. Versus though, is like a duel mode. Over time, random enemies may wander in while you and your compadres are shooting each other senseless, and also, alcohol occasionally appears. Quite fun the more people you can get in without lagging out.
Personally, Fistful has been alright, probably because I've got a friend I can tag along on Arcade on, but if possible, get the game with some people you know, for the game is currently quite empty due to release week. The basic experience is really in the original prototype of A Fistful of Gun, and the new version truly just adds more content towards the game and adds online capabilities.
Some may not enjoy the fast pace of the game, but the game is kinda all about that. You may find your self running into bullets or having issues with the original base character mechanic, but you can get used to it over time, and the rebindable keys may help some of the issues.
The dev, Paul "Farmergnome" Hart, has been actively supporting Fistful and has begun adding more content since it's initial release. He also has recently hosted a National Drinkoff Day event, that I sadly missed out. Possible ways to bring up the community.
All in all, A Fistful of Gun is an entertaining quirky bullet hell game that has tons of replayability and a huge potential as a fun multiplayer party game. It just needs people to drop on in, like many multiplayer based Indie titles.… Expand
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