Indie Focus: The Showdown Effect

I have a deep love for anything with over the top, acrobatic gunplay. I would imagine it stems from the Matrix, which blew my mind when I was nine or ten years old. The Matrix needs no explanation, so I won’t bother, suffice to say that slow motion, bullet dodging and diving around shooting people are all among my favourite tropes. Naturally, any games that take advantage of any of these things is something I am willing to try.

The Showdown Effect is one such game. It’s a 2.5D multiplayer shooter based around frantic, fast-paced combat with guns and melee weaponry that embraces over the top, stylish action like that of The Matrix with open arms. It’s full of back flipping, wall jumping, mid-air slashing goodness and it’s a ton of fun as a direct result.

[drop2]The game parodies action films and does it so very well. Even characters are references to action movies, such as Dutch McClone who is trying to get his identity back and return to his own time and job as a kindergarten teacher. McClone also happens to a remarkably Schwarzenegger-like accent and was born in Austria. The backstory of each character doesn’t affect the game other than the sound bites they say after getting a kill or winning the match but they’re amusing to read and fit in with the rest of the parody well.

Each map is a location much like those you might find in an action movie, from the bright neon lights of Tokyo to a castle that’s littered with swords and other medieval weaponry for you to disembowel and behead as you see fit. You do have two weapons already which can be customised in your loadout. The weapons you can choose from are everything from things like throwing knives to a rocket launcher, but only the machine gun and the katana are available from the off. The others must be unlocked using AC, which you earn by playing matches. You earn AC at a rate that is sufficient to get you all the weapons within an hour of play even if you’re not doing too well, so it’s not a problem.

Similarly, only two characters are unlocked to start with, Dutch McClone and Hailey Skye. The others are unlocked in the same way as weapons but it will take longer to unlock them all as they’re considerably more expensive. Each character also has a special ability, such as Dutch McClone’s personal shield which will deflect all damage for a few seconds or Mr Shur Foo’s flying kick, which moves directly ahead for a few seconds or until hitting a target or wall, dealing damage on contact. Each of these abilities are unique to the character unlike the weapons, any of which can be used with any character.

You can also spend real money on entirely cosmetic additions to customise your character. Whether it’s clothing for them to wear or skins for weapons, they’re reasonably priced for what you get if you’re interested in doing so and as they’re cosmetic it doesn’t really affect the game in any negative way. Should you want to customise your character like this without spending additional cash there’s also plenty of stuff (more, in fact) to choose from that you can buy with AC as well, so you’re not left out. Personally, I’ve dressed up Mr Shur Foo with a long leather coat and like to pretend I’m Morpheus (if Morpheus died every 3 seconds), but that’s just me.

Combat itself is heavily focused on mobility. To stay alive and have even the slightest chance of killing someone you will need to be moving constantly in as many directions as possible. Running up and jumping off walls, sliding along the ground (whilst shooting, naturally), backflips, swinging through certain platforms to reach other levels (like going through platforms in Super Smash Bros), all tools you’ll need to get accustomed to if you’re to do well in the frantically fast paced battles of The Showdown Effect.

You’ll need a good aim, too. Unlike other side-on shooters, your aiming reticule must be on an enemy for your shots to hit, otherwise they’ll harmlessly decimate the background, whether it’s destroying innocent crates or tearing chunks of stone out of the walls. That looks cool and all, but you’ll be a bit too dead to admire the scenery.

Gunshots are bright flashes and explosions are vibrant and smoke-filled, making each battle very pretty should you happen to be spectating. This is no more obvious than the final kill of a match, at which point the game zooms in and shows it in slow motion. The game is certainly good looking enough and you’ll need a decent PC to handle it as there’s no way of changing any settings beyond resolution, V Sync and FXAA. Mine handles it fine and isn’t new by any stretch of the imagination so there shouldn’t be much trouble if you have even a remotely modern system.

The titular showdown effect actually references a gameplay feature. In deathmatches, to end the game you go into something called a showdown which turns the regular, respawn-based game into a last man standing affair where the victor gets a point bonus. It’s a pretty fun way to end a match and can lead to some pretty intense face-offs, particularly for the final couple, and then it shows the winning kill in slow motion, which is always fun to watch.

Another interesting game twist is the expendables mode, in which one team plays as their regular character and the other team plays as henchmen. The expendables team has their usual weapons and health but, every time one dies, the respawn time for their entire team increases by five seconds. The henchmen spawn with one randomly selected weapon and have a smaller health pool, but respawn quickly. The game ends when the final expendable is killed before another team mate can respawn. It’s an interesting formula that’s a lot of fun, though pretty impenetrable if you’re against a team that’s really skilled, but then most games are.

[drop]Perhaps the only real problem here is the userbase. It can take a few minutes to get into a ranked match as presumably there aren’t that many people playing, but there is also a custom server option where there’s always at least a few matches to join (at least in my experience). There are never a lot of servers though, usually fewer than 10, but I am yet to see the list with no servers even when playing late at night.

There can be a little lag sometimes due to the peer-to-peer nature of the game’s servers, but nothing that seems to affect gameplay to any frustrating degree. Regardless, if you’re worried about it all you need is a group of friends to cut in half, or perhaps some kind of organised meet via an online community.

The Showdown Effect is £7.99 from Steam. It’s also available on Gamersgate for the same price, or from a selection of other retailers listed on its official site. There is also a deluxe edition available for £14.99 that comes with an extra character, two weapons skins, two wearable bundles (one of which is a wizard robe from Magicka), a giftable copy of Magicka, 3% boost to all AC earned whilst playing and the official soundtrack (which is great, lead guitar-heavy metal).

If you haven’t already played Magicka (normally £8 but often on sale) and are interested in both games it’s definitely worth getting the deluxe edition if you like extra content. And who doesn’t love shooting people with an SMG whilst wearing wizard robes?