Blogcritics The critical lens on today's culture & entertainment
Found purely by chance when a friend referred the game to us, Loadout is one of the titles to which I am most looking forward from Pax East. It is part TF2, part Monday Night Combat, part OCD inducing goodness, and all fun.
The key selling point to Loadout is the gun design options built into the game. Everything can be customized on the gun giving you more options then you could ever hope for…heard that before? So have I, but trying the game out I was shocked to see that you can choose different versions all of these components: the shell, dispersal method, detonator, payload, propulsion, barrel, scope, chassis, magazine, trigger, and stock. It was a little mind-bending but can yield crazy results.
How about a full auto gun with tracking zoom and wide spread bouncy tesla rockets? Done! Single fire heat seeking plasma rocket with proximity sensor? Done! The combinations are endless and thankfully the options unlock as you play so you are not overwhelmed by choice all at once.
The game is a third person action title using a Free-2-Play model and according to the developer, Edge of Reality (great bunch of guys by the way), they will not sell balance killing items. The more you play the more you unlock, if you choose, new chassis options can be paid for as well as skins and customization options, but it can all be earned in game and you are simply paying for more choices to appear in short order.
Before we started playing the game proper we were able to select our weapon loadout, and man, that is a mode I could get lost in. I started playing around with plasma payloads with explosive shells, full auto rounds and corkscrew dispersal to the point that I was getting sucked in to the experience. One of the developers joined me with a grin and commented that this happens a lot. Together we built a gun I loved, I stuck with the plasma but made it a wide dispersal and a three shot burst, basically a long range plasma shotgun with some other tweaks.
Jumping into the game itself — they were featuring a team mode that had you trying to claim and hold a waypoint until the timer runs out and it moves to another location. It is a game type we have seen dozens of times but thanks to the speed of play and craziness of the weapons (no one seemed to have anything close to each other weapon-wise in the game) it was like I was experiencing the mode again for the first time. Respawns are quick and the action is blistering fast and over the top violent, bringing back thoughts of Rambo movies, and funny enough, the default character looked a lot like Rambo!
Many more game modes will be available as well as other character types and customization options that they were not quite ready to show off. This is a game to look out for and as it is in closed beta on PC right now and should have a public beta soon everyone can give it a try before long. Free-2-Play is becoming more and more relevant and a game like Loadout is a key selling point of the format and one I can’t wait to play again.
