gunbound trades section

gunbound's review:

Platform: Windows
Developer: Softnyx
Publisher: Softnyx
Reviewed By: Clayton "Alkaiser" Chan



If there was a video game Bible lying around somewhere, constantly being updated, you'd probably find a verse in there that went something like: "And Artillery begat Scorched Earth, which begat Worms, which begat Pocket Tanks, which begat Gunbound. Then Someone Important said, 'And let Gunbound be infested with a plague of hax0rs.' And so it was."

Gunbound is the latest in a long line of games that adds something to a basic concept first pioneered by Artillery. Take two enemies, or teams of enemies. Give them weapons. Allow them to adjust their angle of fire and the power of their shot. Throw in some wind. Voila. Game on. It's a game of "Betcha can't hit that!" boiled down to its simplest form.

So how does Gunbound stack up against its predecessors: Direct hit? Or is it a 90 degree shot in the air without noticing there's no wind?

Gameplay

We've already seen this game six ways to Sunday, so what makes Gunbound different? First off: the really bad English. This game's going to be super hard to get into. Hopefully you've got a friend already playing the game, because the developers are Korean, and don't seem to have any intentions of actually fixing the English to the point where its coherent. (I asked if they'd send me the text files so I could fix all the English for free. They never responded.) If not, you face a steeper learning curve than you should. You can consult a guide over at Gamefaqs, or the in depth info courtesy of the guys at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

The overall concept of the game is simple. Move your character on a 2D plane across a 2D game board, choose your shot type, adjust your angle and shot power, hope you hit...and that it isn't a teammate. Gunbound adds a couple of little tweaks. First, you have different mobiles you can use, which have varying shot powers, nemeses, and shot types. For example, the Grub unit fires out little balls that bounce and roll or detonate on impact. The Boomer, on the other hand, shoots boomerangs. Each mobile also has a different firing arc. The Bigfoot has a very narrow firing arc, while the Boomer gets a near 90-degree arc from which to fire.

Learning the mobiles is a BIG part of getting good at Gunbound, and another is knowing what shot to use in what situation. You have your basic shot, your alternate fire, and your Super Shot. Basic tends to do less damage, but generally has a larger explosion radius, which is good for chewing up ground underneath enemies and dropping them to their deaths. It also typically has a shorter delay, and does less damage. The alternate shot tends to be more deadly with a longer delay, and the Super Shot has the longest delay, but dishes out the most damage, and generally eats up very little ground.

In addition to this, there are items available for purchase. These also affect your delay and shot powers, and range from healing your unit to allowing you to teleport out of a bad situation.

There are four types of gameplay. Solo is basically a Team Deathmatch with no frills. Tag is Team Deathmatch with a twist. Specifically, you can hit F7 to tag into a different vehicle. That vehicle starts at 1/2 strength, though, so it's only useful as a last resort, unless you plan for it. Score mode is Team Deathmatch, but it becomes a game of first to (players per side + 1) kills. Jewel is the lamest mode of all, requiring you to shoot little targets that drop onto the ground and repeat parts of your conversations.

"Nice Pants".

Occasionally, when you stroll into a game of Gunbound, you'll realize that the other players are dressed noticeably different than your character, possibly in a samurai outfit and shades or in a pirate getup complete with XBox...I mean anchor. That's because in Gunbound you earn "Gold" during fights for doing things like shooting really high angle shots or killing two people in one turn. You can use Gold to buy clothing for your avatar. These items will have effects in the "avatar on" servers, but not the "avatar off" ones. The Avatar off servers only grant players the bonuses for style points. (More Gold earned.)

You can also buy these items with cash...which you obtain with, you guessed it...real world cash. I think the ratio is like 100 cash per US penny, so it's not that bad considering it's a FREE game. Comparing this to Big Rigs, which demands $10 up front for their so-called "game", there was no way in good conscience that I could play the game as much as I do and NOT pay the guys at Softnyx some money for this solid of an effort.

Graphics

The graphics are lacking in the Avatar Shop, but nearly everywhere else, they're pretty top-notch for this type of game. Each of the mobiles has a funny little animation during its idle state, death, and fire modes. The maps look exceptionally good as well, merging some nice pseudo 3D into the game to make it look more demanding than it actually is. The avatars actually look good in their new digs, too...it's just in the shop that they're lacking.

Sound

Overall, sound is pretty good. The music isn't anything memorable, but it isn’t horrible either. The sounds for attack, wind direction change, and weapon impacts are pretty good, too. There are no voices, but that's a good thing, seeing the range of players from overseas, and the poor level of English of the game makers. The last thing we want to hear is another Zero Wing.

Gripes

There are only two major gripes with Gunbound. The first, Softnyx basically controls, and that's the game's stability. The first few dozens of matches I played, nearly everything was solid. Then they did an update early in February and game stability went to utter crap. They seem to have gotten it back on the right track, and I'm not sure that the stability problems might not just be being caused by problem number 2...the idiots that play the game.

The Idiots themselves can be broken down into 2 sub-categories...teh H4x0rs and just plain ordinary idiots.

The Hax0rs have apparently found every orifice possible to stick their little fingers into and pried the game apart. I've played in games where someone's running the cash slots that appear immediately after you die in a solo or tag match for the entire game to try and get extra money. I have also heard of people who turn invisible, are in a constant state of healing, have constant Super Shots (there's supposed to be a 4 turn wait in between firings.), and de-randomize the Random Mobile selection so they can get the super-rare 1/80 Dragon or Knight every time they play. (Those mobiles are EXCEPTIONALLY powerful.)

From speaking to one of the hackers in-game, it's apparently because EVERYTHING in the game is done client side, and the server doesn't check against any of it. If your client says you haven't fired a Super Shot, the server ain't keeping track...sure, fire away! That boggles my mind. How can you NOT have the server checking the integrity of the game? How can you let something like that out? Especially in games with rankings and ladders, the first thing people try and do is hack that stuff even if it's not for a real persistent game. People were hacking the online rankings for Dynasty Warriors 4 literally the week after it came out, and it's just a list! Blizzard runs all their stuff server side for Diablo and THEIR stuff still gets hacked regularly. A client-side full-trust interface is a quick way to turn your fun playground into the world's litter box. Softnyx needs to patch this stuff up, and FAST.

The idiots...you're going to run into those anywhere; they just happen to be exceptionally more pronounced in a turn based team game where every shot counts...and they're missing all of them...or away from the keyboard, diconnect during a game to make it 4 on 3, or set your own team up for the elusive triple death.

Aside from that, I've noticed that Softnyx is trying to patent their "GameBuddy" system, which happens to be one of the WORST in existence. It's nice that chat can continue from outside the games, in the lobby, into the individual games. However, having the chat window steal focus (it becomes where everything gets typed, and the space bar no longer fires.) and not be translucent is a SERIOUS issue. Skip the frivolous patent, Softnyx...work on making it functional first.

Something has to be done about the lag. If someone has lagged on their shot, it sometimes takes upwards of 5 minutes to get that player out of the game, so the rest of the people involved can continue to try and enjoy what fun there is left in an uneven game. The fact that there even is lag at all is troubling, considering the limited amount of data that is being sent, compared to say, a first person shooter.

My final complaint: why is there NO ninja outfit for the male avatars, yet there is one for the female ones? Ninja love for ALL, people!!

Overall

I'd like to give Gunbound an incomplete, because the fun level of this game is going to be ultimately decided by the hacking problem. This is only going to get worse as time goes on (Going through the keyphrase logs for the month...a disturbing number of people get to this review by looking for "Gunbound Aimbot Hack", "Gunbound avatar hack", "Gunbound hax", "Aimbot" and "Gunbound cheats".) As it is, without hacking, the game allows for enough loopholing to rig games in your favor from the get-go. Too much of this game depends on the players, and unfortunately, a lot of lamers are playing this game. Racists, cheats, hackers, and idiots...they're all there in force, sometimes with their own full clans.

If you're playing this with a full setup of 8 NORMAL people of average or above-average skill, there's almost no better way to kill a quick 5-10 minutes. Gunbound has addictiveness, fun, challenge, and that "chat-room" feel to it that MMORPGs boast.

If Softnyx can lock down the hacking, Worms 3D might drop for XBox Live...and not even make a sound when it hits the bargain bins.

~~~~the game is awsome better graphics than runescape it should deserve
a section here on syhte more sections = MORE MEMBERS get my point

the review was not by me i take no credit the credit gose to http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchreview.asp?reviewid=331324
~~~~~~

Sections I wish to get soon

Gunbound section:
hacks/bots
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Gunbound general chat
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Gunbound cheating
~
Gunbound trades

i realy hope this will become a reality
also to join the game go to http://gunbound.ijji.com/

,;:~CHEERS~;:,

 

Isn't there a other games section? If they were going to make another game section, it would be a better game than gunbound.

 

loL YA for sure gunbound is more like a childish game its all bout luck and timing nothing more not really something you can be super skilled at :S

 

well its challenging

 

It seems like a good game, just use the Other Games section etc. There would be no reason for a new forum just for one game.

 

i mean a new section

 

no gunbound sucks balls child game

 

you suck balls!

 

No. This would be stupid as this is a Runescape forum, not a Gunbound one. We have a forum for other games, go there with this.