Wednesday 7 September 2011

Hired Gun Review

Hired Gun is yet another sub-standard game that has been released by Triniti Interactive on the iOS market.  There have been multiple games released by the company involving the same stick characters, all have been fairly poor and Hired Gun is sadly no exception.

You can tell that Hired Gun is trying to adapt a comic book style, like the stark black and white art of Frank Miller's Sin City series.  This is complimented by the music track and the seedy street view that you are searching for your target in.

The only spots of colour in the game are in your scope and the blood of your targets, which are both a vibrant red, everything else is back and white.  The visuals of the game are not amazing but equally they are on par with most app games.  The loading sounds and the sound of your gun firing are very much what you would expect and the soundtrack does its job.

Where this game fails is the control mechanism and the ludicrous time limit in which you have to kill all of your targets.

In the game you see a street with lots of people moving about within it, some in buildings others outside.  In the corner you have a picture of what all of your targets look like.  Every stickman has a hat by which you can identify them.  There are nine targets that you must kill on your first level and all are wearing the same hat.

To do this task you only have a mere 60 seconds.  While this may be possible if you were able to quickly snap to your targets you cannot.  In order to line up a shot you must move your cursor slowly and lazily in line with your target, by which time they have moved on.  At this point you are faced with a choice, wait and see if he comes back or try and find another target.

No matter your decision you will either lose to much time waiting around or have to come back and kill the guy anyway, hoping that he is back when you next visit.

If you do pass somehow you get to progress, however if you fail your score is based on how many targets you killed in what time.  For every target you kill you gain seconds and time, for ever civilian you kill you lose both seconds and time.  It is all very basic and if it was smoother it has the potential to be a fun little game.

If being a hit man is your thing, check out Contract Killer, which does this simulation more justice than Hired Gun, Contract Killer is also free, so you will be saving yourself time and disappointment.  Removing the slow and frustrating game play and replacing it with achievements, leaderboards and level progression, as well as varied missions.

Even though Hired Gun has style, no game can ever receive a good rating if it fails at actually being playable, let alone an enjoyable experience. 1/5

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