Loadout Review

 

Ever played an MMOFPS and loved a gun, but wished it had more stopping power? Perhaps a bit more stability, maybe sets your opponents on fire? In Loadout, by Edge of Reality, the world’s your oyster when it comes to guns, guns, and even more guns. Boasting a whopping 1.5 million weapon combinations, the game promises intense, action packed gameplay, filled to the brim with crude humor, comical loss of limbs, and did we mention guns? In a market that has been saturated with shooters as of late, how does Loadout hold up against the competition?

Locked and Loaded

There is very little in the way of character creation when you start Loadout; in fact, you can simply jump into the action right away when you log in. However, customization will be found substantially in weapon-crafting  You start with three weapons: an assault rifle, a grenade launcher, and a tesla shotgun. The former two weapons are stock; they cannot be dismantled for spare parts. The tesla shotgun is fair game, however.

In the beginning, you can only make a handful of simple guns. The game starts you with a few parts, but to make some of the truly fascinating weapons, you’ll require additional parts that you earn while playing. The starting weapons, however, are not bad by any stretch of the imagination; they are simply plain compared to what can be made through the weapon-crafting system.

Build a Better Gun

Since the main focus of the game is Weaponcrafting mode, you will spend a great deal of time piecing together weapons. While you may not have all the parts you need to make something truly amazing, Loadout provides the flexibility to create whatever you want right from the start, and test out your sinister creations on a practice range. In addition to the standard slugs, weapons can also fire Tesla energy that arcs between opponents, use pyro rounds to set them on fire, or heal and boost your allies.

When it comes time to put a weapon together, there are a few options if you find you don’t have the parts required. By using trial tickets (in bronze, silver, gold, and platinum varieties), you can borrow the weapon you’ve made for a period of three hours to seven days. If you have the coins, you can outright buy the weapon parts you need to craft the item, though this option seems to be rather expensive. Finally, you can save the weapon as a blueprint, allowing you to recall it when you do have the parts to finish its build.

+3 to Manliness

In addition to creating weapons, you can also edit the appearance of your. In your loudout section, you can change what weapons each loadout has, along with the type of equipment you use – you start with a grenade, and unlock more equipment like shields as you level up – and finally have the option to customize your avatar.

You will initially have access to two different looking characters. One looks suspiciously like Rambo, and the other like Mr. T. As you play, you can unlock various head, upper body, and lower body items for use, giving the wielder of your killing machines a distinct look. You can also set up to four different taunts to use from popular culture, including the Carlton, the Cabbage Patch, and Gangnam Style, all in the name of adding insult to injury.

Getting Into the Game

Loadout currently offers four different modes of gameplay. For each mode, having proper loadouts is the key to success. Blitz has you and your teammates capturing control points to score. After one team achieves a specific number of captures, that team wins. Death Snatch is like other Deathmatch style modes, but instead of just killing your adversary, you must also collect the vials they drop to score. This also means you can collect your allies’ vials in order to prevent the enemy from taking the lead.

Jackhammer is similar to Capture the Flag, but like all the other Loadout modes, it, too, has a twist. While the goal is to get the hammer from the enemy base to yours, the hammer is also an incredibly powerful weapon, and any enemy you defeat with it will increase the value of the hammer when it is turned in to your base. Extraction is a fairly unique mode where one player on each side is labeled the Collector, and must collect blutonium scattered across the map. The person that is the collector changes throughout play, so the battlefield is ever shifting.

Speaking of maps, you’ll find that maps in Loadout are relatively simple and straightforward. Clever players may find ways to get atop buildings or structures, using the environment to their advantage. Maps also feature scattered power-ups to help boost your game (or your enemy’s, if you’re unlucky).

Final Verdict: Great

While Loadout seems to poke fun of the FPS genre slightly, it is a very solid title at its core. Guns are balanced, and provide a good background for teamplay with healing and boosts taken into account. It is a bit difficult to get everything you want for your wonder gun, but with time and games well played, they will come along with additional equipment. Combat has been kept fast and furious, but functional, and enjoyable. While some people may not appreciate the crude humor, Loadout offers a great deal of fun and entertainment for anyone looking for a new MMOFPS to enjoy.