Gunscape is probably one of the most challenging games I have ever been sent to review. It’s not that the game itself is hard, it’s that this is more of a platform for you to upload and download community-created FPS games and levels as opposed to a traditional video game. It’s more like Roblox with fewer child predators and weird roleplayers, a smaller player count, and some of the more genuinely diabolical creators I have ever run into online.

If you are the creative type, you can easily hop into a Minecraft-ish world to quickly make the 90’s era shooter of your dreams, all using legally safe knockoff assets of games such as Turok, Wolfenstein 3D, Quake, Doom, Bioshock, and many others. There are a fair amount of pieces from each of the categories, but in most cases, it is some textures, a couple of weapons, and then a few skins, but I think there could’ve been some more in each category. I originally set off with the hopes of making at least a few of the early areas from Bioshock with the old-school aesthetic, which I am sure someone will do, but there really wasn’t enough from this specific area to meet my high standard. At the end of the day, if you can build something in Minecraft, you can do it in Gunscape. The only issue I personally had with this area was the tutorials, which are not essential to the experience if you’re into trial and error, but being able to clearly read the directions would’ve helped me a bit and sadly, they are presented in a font that is about an eight-point size on a 60-inch display and completely illegible in the Nintendo Switches handheld mode.

When it comes to playing content that others created, there is a campaign courtesy of the folks at Blowfish Studios, but it’s nothing to write home about – it felt a little unfinished and could’ve been fleshed out greatly. I struggled to make it beyond the first level, as it was basically finding a terminal, opening a door, shooting some baddies, rinse and repeat. However, it is possible I missed some directions due to the previously mentioned font size making reading the narrative that is drip fed via terminals a bit of a challenge.

The real meat of the game for me was playing community-created content, which was mostly tributes to previously released big-name titles with my favorite being an almost play-for-play remake of Goldeneye that actually worked compared to the recently ported Nintendo 64 version that is a trainwreck of epic proportions due to the wonky controls. While we’re on the topic of controls, they are a little wonky as looking with the right stick felt a little imprecise and would occasionally drift further than I would’ve liked, but it was serviceable enough to get the job done. Despite being more blocky and featuring less rounded areas, I was able to tell which level I was playing, where I needed to go, and what my objectives were without much frustration. Obviously, some liberties had to be taken, such as not being able to destroy the gas tanks in The Facility, or how I was shooting Nazis instead of Russians, but it felt like Goldeneye and that was the creator’s goal I am sure. As of this writing, there are also campaigns structured around Quake, Tomb Raider, and what I am pretty sure is supposed to be Doom. 

This review is a little later than expected because I wanted to see how the online play worked, which at pre-release on the Switch was empty and I’ve only encountered a few players in the days that followed. Sadly, the player base is so small there were times I would either have to play with the one or two other people active or hope someone within my household was up for some deathmatch. One of these lobbies centered on the host playing their obvious self-creation, an open level with a machine gunner nest that they spawned into, with everyone else right in their line of fire with no cover whatsoever. Needless to say, I was mowed down time and time again, only to find he was the only active user at the time. Sir or madam, if you’re reading this I sincerely hope you step on every single Lego that makes up the 2,807-piece Mighty Bowser set daily for the rest of your life.

Regardless of how you play the game, there were some minor annoyances that struck in every mode. There are some excessively long load times, no matter how basic the level itself is, at times taking multiple minutes to get into a retro-looking shooter which shouldn’t be an issue with modern consoles. Additionally, once you’re into the level, after a few moments everything just freezes up for a few seconds, almost like it didn’t finish downloading. Additionally, if you’re like me and only have one Nintendo Online subscription for the household and can’t use it when you wish to play this, you’ll be bombarded with adverts asking you to upgrade every time you select anything within the menus.

Gunscape is a game that may end up being successful, but it will hinge on how much the player base grows. Unfortunately, this may never happen since this released on other platforms almost a decade ago and is just making its way to the Switch. I can’t help but think if this was released as a free-to-play game with asset packs being sold as DLC it might encourage more players to take the leap. As it stands, there’s a fair amount of content and your only limitation is how badly you want to look for it, or if it comes down to it, make it yourself.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Being Able to Relive Tributes of Classic FPS Games
• Freedom to Create The FPS of Your Dreams

Cons

• Ads Soliciting Nintendo Online At Every Turn
• Long Loading Times
• Imprecise Looking
• Regular Freezing

Gunscape was developed and published by Blowfish Games. The game is available NS, PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on NS. If you’d like to see more of Gunscape, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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