izigame.me

Gambling on the edge.
Story:
You play as a degenerate gambler (AKA yourself), you awake inside an underground night club, with techno music blasting through the speakers, however you're not here to dance. Opening the door you're greeted by The Dealer, he gives you a contract, explains the rules of the game and tosses a shotgun on the table. It's time to play.
There's really not much story in Buckshot Roulette, there's some minimal storytelling, but most of everything is hidden outside of the game with ARG's and whatnots. But you don't really need story here, the intro tells you everything you need to know and that is that you're going to play Russian Roulette with a God damn shotgun.
Graphics:
Mike's games always have that rusted nightmarish feel to them, from Concrete Tremor, Carbon Steel all the way to Buckshot. From the moment you spawn in the bathroom stall, to the nightclub and finally the Dealers Den, the opressive atmopshere oozes not only substance, but style as well.
I love the low poly look and I especially love the Dealer's design. When his demented grin emerges from the shadows the first time you see him, it just sets the perfect mood and I just love everything about it. I also have to give props to the animations, every time you interact with items there's a ton of personality involved, makes the game feel even more lively.
Audio:
The audio design in Buckshot Roulette is some top notch work in every department, but I have to begin with the music. The music is some adrenaline pumping techno and it gets you pumped up every single time. Each round has it's own unique music and it gets more intense as it goes on and not to mention with the current multiplayer update, the new music tracks are just absolutely amazing.
But the overall audio presentation here is suberb. There's a lot of care to put into the audio effects, when you saw off the barrel of the shotgun and you hear the metal scrape of the knife, or the burning of your cigarrate it really immerses you, but the most impressive is the shotgun. Whenever you fire a live round, it's so meaty and impactful, it really gives you that extra oomph, no matter if you shot yourself or the dealer.
Gameplay:
The basic gist of Buckshot Roulette is that it's a game of Russian Roulette, but instead of a Revolver you're using a 12 gauge shotgun. Every round begins with the dealer showing you the set of shells that will go into the shotgun with lives and blanks and your goal is to be the last man standing.
You're also given a set of items to help you out, stuff like cigarettes will give your health back, magnifying glass will let you take a peek at the chamber to see what's the current shell and of course the knife will let you cut the barrel off to deal double damage.
The combination of gameplay elements makes Buckshot an incredibly strategic game of not only luck, but of skill. Each round feels chaotic and fun even if you're stomping the dealer or vice versa. It really makes you think, what can you even do to get out of the sticky situations, especially when the dealer gets the upper hand.
When you finish the story mode you also unlock the Double or Nothing mode, which is kind of an endless mode where you try to rack up as much money as possible to end up on a leaderboard and that mode has even more items for you to use which make the experience fresh, but that's also where most of the problems of the game become noticable.
Of course when making a game about gambling luck will play a heavy part in it, however sometimes the game will really mess you over with RNG. If the dealer has a good starting item set and you mess up on your first shot, often then not you will simply not be able to come back from it, which makes some of the high money runs pretty infuriating.
Also now there's multiplayer, which allows you to play in a 4 man group and the multiplayer is a blast. It allows you to set up whatever kind of matches you want. Don't want items ? Not a problem. Want one shot kills ? Consider it done. You can really set up some crazy fun modifiers that can result in some fun games.
However the multiplayer is pretty barebones overall. In the reddit AMA they said that you should consider it Early Acess and it does make sense. There's no matchmaking, so if you don't have 3 friends, you'll have to go to discord to gather some room codes. Also there are some bugs, like items vanishing off the table or the adrenaline not working.
Verdict:
Buckshot Roulette is a blast. It's a simple, yet highly addictive game that you can just simply pop in and play a round or two and have tons of fun The indie magic here is on full display and Mike has created an amazing gem that for 3 bucks you can get countless hours of enjoyment
Final Rating:
9.5/10
Pros:
+ Gameplay is highly addictive
+ Music kicks ass
+ The atmosphere and visuals are great
+ Multiplayer is a great addition and a blast with friends
Cons:
- Although fun, multiplayer is pretty barebones
- Double or Nothing shows how unfair the RNG can be sometimes
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