TEAM BORETRESS

A free-to-play third person shooter with an over the top presentation and deep weapon customization sounds great right? Well, it is not. Loadout was released in January for PC and has just now hit PlayStation 4. Whatever gaming device it is on, it is not a great game.

Before I get to why Loadout fails, I want to praise what it does right: the presentation for the game. As seen in the image above, Loadout is about big dudes with big guns. The game does not take itself seriously at all. Characters all look cartoony and have gigantic muscles. The one female character is also so ripped that Marcus Fenix would be scared of her. It’s ridiculous and it knows it. Death animations also reflect this; whenever a player is killed, sometimes they will fall down and then give the enemy the finger. My personal favorite is when the characters get their torsos blown off and run around for a few seconds. I laughed most of the time. Unfortunately, the rest of the game was not this fun.

The first thing that pops up when starting the game is a link to buy the soundtrack and other goodies. My first thought when seeing this was, “The free-to-play is strong with this one.” It does not stop there. When customizing the guns, the game shows a list of parts that can be bought. However, they do not show the price of the parts in in-game currency (which is called “blutes”), they only show the premium currency (which is called “spacebux”). Going to the store is the only way to see the cost in blutes. It is only a few button presses to switch between the two, but it would be so much more convenient if blutes were shown when customizing guns. Oh, and mixed in with the parts available for purchase are the parts already available. Because of this it is nearly impossible to differentiate between the two. The actual customization options offer great variety. But of course, the parts are expensive and hard to come by. Loot can be earned in missions, but it can come in safes. Safes require bombs to open, and are Loadout’s version of chests and keys.

Combat in Loadout is nothing special. The game is fast-paced, meaning firing blindly is the best option. And jumping. The jumping covers a long distance so everyone jumps around and fires. Ammo is not an issue, as there is none. The guns do have an amount of ammo that they can expend before having to reload, but the amount of ammo to reload is infinite. This means that whatever mode is being played, everyone jumps around and fires aimlessly. It was fun the first few times, but became boring quickly.

The various game modes are all takes on the usual “Team Deathmatch” and “Capture the Flag” modes. A campaign mode is also available, but boils down to shooting aliens for over 20 minutes. There is a story, but it is told through text boxes while selecting a mission and adds nothing to the game.

The Verdict: 6.3 out of 10

Loadout is not a broken game, but it is a boring game that uses the free-to-play model in an annoying way. It held my attention for a few hours, but after this I will not be returning to it. Even so, the game is free, meaning anyone with a PS4 or a PC can easily decide if they like it or not.

For more information about what the score means, check out our official review scale.

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Riley Berry is an Associate Writer for MONG who owns new video games, but keeps playing older ones. You can follow him on IGN.