The Wild West makes for a perfect setting for a video game. All of that barely-constrained machismo and free availability of firearms means that tension is thick and the slightest disagreement could easily turn into a shootout that has the locals ducking behind the counter of the general store and wishing they’d stayed on the ranch.
Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West attempts to bring the atmosphere of the frontier to a third-person, class-based multiplayer shooter. The art style is bright and colourful like a Saturday matinee rather than gritty and grimy like a spaghetti western and the four classes are suitably exaggerated in their characteristics.
First up we have the Gunslinger class. He is your typical, quick draw, rapid-reload shooter with a short-to-mid-range ability and a special ability which fires a spread of bullets. The Blaster is a grizzly, coal-dusted mine worker who carries a coach gun which is all but ineffectual at anything but extremely close ranges. Luckily, he also has dynamite to hurl at the opposition. The Trapper carries a long-range rifle which is slow to reload and mostly useless up close but she does have bear traps which stun opponents if they stumble into them. Finally, we have the Deputy, a mid-range rifle-wielder who can mark enemies so they’re visible to all.
Each class carries their primary weapon and a secondary which is usually a pistol (the gunslinger has no secondary) but they also have a “synergy” ability which enhances the traits of those that stand near them. The maps seem most suited to the Deputy or Gunslinger classes but each map has areas which a skilled Blaster could use to their advantage, coaxing in enemies and forcing things into a close-range fight. There are also multiple high-points in the maps which allow the Trapper a chance to do their thing.
The game is quick to flow, combating the most serious problem with any multiplayer shooter – the lack of rhythm to the gameplay – by making it so quick to spawn and giving you smart spawn points so that you’re never far from the action when you inevitably need to re-choose a class and head back into battle. There is also a flag at your base which can be picked up by one team member and carried as a mobile spawn-point.
The various game modes are fairly standard types for this kind of shooter. We have five-man teams for standard Deathmatch and Conquest game types as well as attack and defend using heavy powder kegs and an assault mode based on a bank robbery. There is a co-op mode which can act as a tutorial too.
The game looks good but isn’t going to challenge the graphical powerhouses of this generation. Each character is well designed in a stereotypical way and the maps seemed robust and intelligently laid out so that each class has its own chance to shine on each map. I definitely got the impression that the mid-range Deputy and, to a lesser extent, the Gunslinger were going to have a bit of an advantage over the short- and long-range classes though.
Look out for a full review on TSA soon.