Showgunners

Very good game with excellent level design, style and OST. Turn combat is fun and addictive like in modern XCom games. Traps and Puzzles are a welcome and well crafted addition.

A well-crafted turn-based RPG with damn-good looking design. In Showgunners. every battle bring a new form of challenge to the table, keeping the experience fresh and allowing for different play-styles. All of that until the grand climax bring all the characters together for an epic showdown. The game splits in experience between combat, exploration with some fun puzzle along the way, and moments of rest where you can get familiar with your teammates. In addition, the main characters are voice-acted, the soundtrack engaging and sound design satisfying. All of this make for a very fun, challenging and immersive experience, making the 20 hours I spent to complete the campaign and Security Breach DLC 100 % worth my time.

Running Man, the '80s movie with Swarzenegger, used to be one of my favorites as a kid. In it, he's a man stuck in a television show in which a bunch of over-the-top villains try to kill him. In Showgunners, you play as a show participant. The game mixes three styles of gameplay: - You participate in the game with a partner. There's some easy fights and some fun puzzling. - X-Com style combat. - Between two levels, you can chill at your base and talk to your partners. The puzzling part is a fun intermezzo but the combat is where this game shines. You play with three characters from a cast of six and have to get through stages of progressively harder enemies. It uses the two step system: move your character or use a special ability and then fire your guns. Each character looks nice and they're all unique. You have your melee fighter, tank, support, sniper, mini gunner and hacker. It's just great fun. A typical turn could be to let your minigunner soften a few baddies. Your close combat fighter can then chain kill a few. And your hacker can switch places with the worst baddie. Next turn the enemies will then all fire on him. I'm not the best at this genre but the combat difficulty was great for me on normal mode. I could usually get through it without too much trouble but had to reload a few times. You can see that this game was made with love. Sounds and looks good, the combat is satisfying and I kept wanting to play more. The story isn't much but well, who cares? Highly recommended if you looking for a ~18 hour x-com style game.

The combat is similar to x-com, but sufficiently unique from a heavy reliance on showy, character-specifc special abilities. There's nothing shocking mechanically. The story is linear and compelling enough, but sadly is just a basic vengance plot in a generic sci-fi dystopia. The writing surprised me as it actually had a few good jokes. The devs leaned heavily into the gameshow theme, perhaps a little too much with an announcer that comments on every action and fans that heckle you from the sidelines. There were a few glitches, but nothing game-breaking. The two noteworthy ones was once the camera got stuck under the map floor until I told a unit to attack, and a few times the enemy AI got stuck when calculating where to walk, pausing for a few seconds. The music is quite good, and graphics are generic but not ugly. Overal the game is fun and does its job. There's nothing amazing or horrible about it.

This is a great little indy game using an XCOM inspired formula for a dystopian reality TV romp. Each Episode of the show (episodes being the maps you play) is hand crafted and well made. Of course this means that there is nothing random. Once you have played through the game, you have likely seen everything. The only thing that changes is how you interact with fans and thus what sponsors you can choose for small bonuses. But that one run will be fun. The main improvement I would have liked, would have been more named, unique enemies. A boss fight at the end of each episode with an opponent who has personality. It would have given a chance for some more, fun exposition by the TV host.