Январь 2010 Февраль 2010 Март 2010 Апрель 2010 Май 2010
Июнь 2010
Июль 2010 Август 2010
Сентябрь 2010
Октябрь 2010
Ноябрь 2010
Декабрь 2010
Январь 2011
Февраль 2011 Март 2011 Апрель 2011 Май 2011 Июнь 2011 Июль 2011 Август 2011
Сентябрь 2011
Октябрь 2011 Ноябрь 2011 Декабрь 2011 Январь 2012 Февраль 2012 Март 2012 Апрель 2012 Май 2012 Июнь 2012 Июль 2012 Август 2012 Сентябрь 2012 Октябрь 2012 Ноябрь 2012 Декабрь 2012 Январь 2013 Февраль 2013 Март 2013 Апрель 2013 Май 2013 Июнь 2013 Июль 2013 Август 2013 Сентябрь 2013 Октябрь 2013 Ноябрь 2013 Декабрь 2013 Январь 2014 Февраль 2014
Март 2014
Апрель 2014 Май 2014 Июнь 2014 Июль 2014 Август 2014 Сентябрь 2014 Октябрь 2014 Ноябрь 2014 Декабрь 2014 Январь 2015 Февраль 2015 Март 2015 Апрель 2015 Май 2015 Июнь 2015 Июль 2015 Август 2015 Сентябрь 2015 Октябрь 2015 Ноябрь 2015 Декабрь 2015 Январь 2016 Февраль 2016 Март 2016 Апрель 2016 Май 2016 Июнь 2016 Июль 2016 Август 2016 Сентябрь 2016 Октябрь 2016 Ноябрь 2016 Декабрь 2016 Январь 2017 Февраль 2017 Март 2017 Апрель 2017 Май 2017
Июнь 2017
Июль 2017
Август 2017 Сентябрь 2017 Октябрь 2017 Ноябрь 2017 Декабрь 2017 Январь 2018 Февраль 2018 Март 2018 Апрель 2018 Май 2018 Июнь 2018 Июль 2018 Август 2018 Сентябрь 2018 Октябрь 2018 Ноябрь 2018 Декабрь 2018 Январь 2019
Февраль 2019
Март 2019 Апрель 2019 Май 2019 Июнь 2019 Июль 2019 Август 2019 Сентябрь 2019 Октябрь 2019 Ноябрь 2019 Декабрь 2019 Январь 2020
Февраль 2020
Март 2020 Апрель 2020 Май 2020 Июнь 2020 Июль 2020 Август 2020 Сентябрь 2020 Октябрь 2020 Ноябрь 2020 Декабрь 2020 Январь 2021 Февраль 2021 Март 2021 Апрель 2021 Май 2021 Июнь 2021 Июль 2021 Август 2021 Сентябрь 2021 Октябрь 2021 Ноябрь 2021 Декабрь 2021 Январь 2022 Февраль 2022 Март 2022 Апрель 2022 Май 2022 Июнь 2022 Июль 2022 Август 2022 Сентябрь 2022 Октябрь 2022 Ноябрь 2022 Декабрь 2022 Январь 2023 Февраль 2023 Март 2023 Апрель 2023 Май 2023 Июнь 2023 Июль 2023 Август 2023 Сентябрь 2023 Октябрь 2023 Ноябрь 2023 Декабрь 2023 Январь 2024 Февраль 2024 Март 2024 Апрель 2024 Май 2024 Июнь 2024 Июль 2024 Август 2024 Сентябрь 2024 Октябрь 2024 Ноябрь 2024 Декабрь 2024
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
Game News |

Wild Bastards review

Need to know

What is it? A hybrid mix of shooter and strategy with critters to spare.

Expect to pay £27.79 / $29.74

Release date September 12, 2024

Developer Blue Manchu

Publisher Maximum Entertainment

Reviewed on Windows 10, AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core CPU, 16GB RAM, Nvidia Geforce RTX 3060

Steam Deck Verified

Link Official site

It's dusk in a one-horse town, and that one horse is Sarge, a bipedal stallion carrying a lever rifle. As he scans the street for targets, a sniper wearing a monocle breaks the silence. "What precisely are you s'posed to be?", he yells in a clipped English accent.

It's the last thing the hunter ever says. The jibe gives away his location in the dark—behind the belltower, up on the church roof. Sarge closes the distance in seconds. Even on two legs, he gallops faster than any human. Seconds after that, the showdown is over. Up on the tactical map, Sarge is back on his own horse—best not to think too hard about that one—and riding off to his next encounter. This is the one-two punch of Wild Bastards—part FPS, part strategy game with the DNA of XCOM.

(Image credit: Blue Manchu)

Sarge belongs to a gaggle of outlaws who start the game on the back hoof. In fact, as Wild Bastard begins, there are only two left—the 11 others hunted down and murdered by Jebediah Chaste and his cruel offspring. As his name suggests, Chaste objects to the sort of wildness Sarge and his ilk represent—enforcing a humancentric servitude throughout the expanse of space he oversees.

Thankfully for the Bastards, a legendary and enigmatic starship named the Drifter swoops in to save them. Nestled in its metallic bosom, you set out across the stars to find and resurrect the rest of the gang. Every sector of space you enter is like a roguelike run, in which you navigate between nodes representing shipwrecks and celestial bodies, trying to make it to the end and rescue a friend. Should all your Bastards be injured, you'll be returned to the start of that sector.

That's just the uppermost layer, however. Every time you enter a planet's orbit, you're held in place by its jump lock—which can only be broken by sending outlaws down to the surface. Every time this happens, you enter a mini roguelike run, in which you direct outlaws around a turn-based map—picking fights at roadblocks, dodging patrols, swiping cash and spending it in shops. There's a risk-reward equation here: in most cases, your only goal is to reach the exit point of the planet and beam up to the Drifter. Taking diversions can bag you temporary boosts and permanent upgrades to the powers of your outlaws, but battles chip away at the health of your Bastards, and sticking around too long will attract the attention of Chaste's children— intimidating enemies who chase you around the map on horseback.

(Image credit: Blue Manchu)

So far, so strategy game. But the battles of Wild Bastards aren't resolved on a grid or with percentages. Rather, they're lightning-fast FPS showdowns that play out in tight, arena-esque levels. This is a deeply satisfying and consistently surprising blaster in which it feels fantastic to blow away a gunhand with dual revolvers; in which the exploding collar of an unstable kyote can hurl you sideways across the craters of a low-gravity moon. Combat in Wild Bastards is always fair, though its interacting systems can combine in all sorts of creative ways. Knowledge is your best defence against the unexpected, so that you can draw a pack of kyotes into a poison lake, and not the other way round.

Rustling

Despite the pace and immediacy of its combat, Wild Bastards is also accomplished in stealth. Developer Blue Manchu is the second studio of Irrational Games co-founder Jon Chey, which means immersive sims are in its blood. Encounters kick off much as they do in Arkane's Deathloop, with enemies unaware of your position, and you unsure of theirs. Thankfully, these cowpokes have a habit of shouting to each other ("You okay, Jethro??"), and Wild Bastards dutifully marks their last-heard-location on your compass—making this a rare stealth-shooter you can enjoy without headphones. That is, at least, until you come across the snakes. The soft crash of disturbed earth is often the first hint you'll have that a venom-belching beast has popped up somewhere over your shoulder. Learning the behaviours of your opponents is a significant factor in your success and at least as important as your trigger finger.

Some of the Bastards are better suited to a direct approach than others—and indeed their sheer variety is one of this game's great joys. Billy the gunslinger is a squid, and so becomes briefly invulnerable whenever he takes damage—a metaphorical jet of ink that allows you to scramble out of harm's way. Roswell is a grey alien whose ultimate fires him ludicrously high into the air for a series of rocket bounces, granting you a momentary overview of the battlefield and the chance to stomp hard on your opponents. Rawhide, meanwhile, is more of a hivemind than an individual—capable of ending a battle by swapping the last enemy critter to your side.

(Image credit: Blue Manchu)

While you only control one Bastard at a time, you keep another in reserve during battle, as if they were a second weapon. That means you're swapping not just from Casino's shotgun to Judge's rifle, but taking on all the traits of that character as well: their movement speed, health bar, and the various perks you've picked up for them on your journey through the sectors. More than a gimmick, this setup brings extraordinary depth to loadout management. Once you realise a wounded Bastard can 'hide' behind their fellow before popping out to grab a health pickup, you start to wonder at the ways you might combine their abilities more cleverly.

Your choice of tag-team for a given planetary excursion is guided not only by these tactical considerations, but the circumstances the Bastards find themselves in. It might be that your ideal partnership is scuppered because one outlaw is injured, or another is nursing a grudge. When outlaws fall out, they'll refuse to beam down together—a situation best resolved by sitting them down side-by-side over a warm fire with a tin of beans. With a second helping, they'll even become pals—which means they'll fire off a special attack or throw out some pickups when their chum is taking a beating in battle. Yet beans are a scarce resource you'll want to deploy with care.

Managing your gang is as much about working around their petty squabbles—and your own past mistakes—as optimising your route through the stars. And there's something beautiful in that. By rooting for the Bastards, you're opting to endure their many clashing differences—and to figure out the synergies that might bind them, more powerfully than any force that sets out to flatten their quirks.



Читайте также

Открыты сервера Blade of God X: Orisols для игроков на смартфонах и PC

Assassin's Creed Shadows will have a 'Canon Mode' that will make all the correct RPG decisions for you

'Destiny has a long history of reinventing itself in response to feedback': Assistant director teases a Metroidvania-inspired future, talks weapon crafting and vault space, but fails to address the shocking number of bugs

Москва

Военнослужащие и сотрудники Росгвардии обеспечили правопорядок на международном баскетбольном матче в Москве

Новости тенниса



Game24.pro — паблик игровых новостей в календарном формате на основе технологичной новостной информационно-поисковой системы с элементами искусственного интеллекта, гео-отбора и возможностью мгновенной публикации авторского контента в режиме Free Public. Game24.pro — ваши Game News сегодня и сейчас в Вашем городе.

Опубликовать свою новость, реплику, комментарий, анонс и т.д. можно мгновенно — здесь.


Персональные новости

Филиал № 4 ОСФР по Москве и Московской области информирует: 5,8 тыс. семей Московского региона направлены выплаты из материнского капитала

Филиал № 4 ОСФР по Москве и Московской области информирует: В 2024 году Отделение СФР по Москве и Московской области назначило единое пособие родителям 370,5 тысячи детей

Филиал № 4 ОСФР по Москве и Московской области информирует: В Москве и Московской области 650 тысяч пенсионеров старше 80 лет получают пенсию в повышенном размере

«Есть, что показать»: Путин назвал Москву одним из лучших мегаполисов мира