Looking The Part

Customizing your character is done by purchasing items through the in-game store using cash you’ve either purchased with your credit-card, or earned during a match. You’ll be given choices between different guns, swords, daggers and clothes – all of which require you to be a certain level to equip. While I found there to be a decent sized collection in GunZ most of it can’t be used until much later in the game, meaning that you’ll be stuck with some very bland looking characters for quite some time. It’s not game breaking – but it’s certainly annoying considering how easy it would be to add a few hundred different clothing types and a few more guns – adding a great sense of diversity to the mix and giving players a more unique experience.

Epic Fail Here

As for the matches, you’ll be given the choice between the standard Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch options, alongside some newer games like Assassination and Gladiator. All of these game types will in one way or another have you simply killing enemies in a spectacular fashion – but the innovation of GunZ comes in its most intriguing game-type, Quests. Quests – or missions as I like to call them – allow up to 4 players to work together with a goal of killing all the enemies in a given level. This was essentially a fantastic addition to the game, allowing players to work together creatively to kill all enemies – unfortunately it’s hasn’t seemed to work out very well. Quests are far too easy, mostly boring and repetitive, give far too much experience compared to regular games, and if even one player drops out before the end – all players receive no experience at all. I’m sorry, but that’s simply not acceptable in today’s gaming world – not by a long shot.

Skillz To Pay The Billz

Once you’ve customized your character and chosen a game type you like, it’s on to actually playing the game – and its here that you’ll decide quite quickly whether or not you’ll be playing GunZ for very long. You see, unlike your standard shooting games GunZ revolves not so much on killing your opponents with deadly accuracy, but more on your ability to maneuver your character around the battlefield. This could be anything from simply double-tapping a directional key to dive in that direction – to running up a wall and back-flipping off to a nearby roof, running along the walls of a corridor and spraying bullets on the enemies below, or if you’ve chosen to play with a sword or dagger – sticking it into a wall and hanging down in an attempt to fool someone chasing you. Combine these abilities with a player that knows their way around a keyboard and you have a recipe for total awesome.

Small Crowd

Unfortunately, the animations and overall visual style look and feel hugely dated – giving the game a sub-counterstrike appearance – one that will no doubt deter a large number of gamers from spending much time with GunZ at all – and with such a small player base one can only assume that those that do play regularly will not only be superior in skill, but also in weapons and clothing purchased from the website with real money. This is a worrying prospect, considering that a new player to the game has a high potential to begin fighting against some already skilled and powerful opponents.

Swing and a Miss

To summarize, GunZ is a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, you have fun, fast, action-packed gameplay that allows you to kill your enemies in some truly awesome ways – and on the other you have dated graphics, limited customization and a low player base to practice with. Essentially, GunZ is a game that you can have some amazing fun with for 20 minutes – but afterwards you may find yourself wondering what to do next. Although some players, many of my friends included, live for shooting games and in this environment would excel with there being so much room to beat your opponent using skill, and not just by having the better gun. I’ve given GunZ a 2/5, based mostly on the severe lack of content and the dated engine – there’s a good game at the core of this beast – but just not enough meat to keep it alive.

Review Cody Hargreaves
October 9, 2009