Wizard with a Gun looking for Friends
Farming games and survival games seem to be the name of the day and I can tell you that Wizard with a Gun isn’t a farming game; well at least not the plant kind of farming. Wizard with a Gun is an online cooperative sandbox survival game set in a magical world that has been fractured, literally blown apart. Its up to the players as the titular Wizard to figure out what happened and rewind time to fix it a little bit at a time. Which is where my comment about farming comes into play, as players will need to build up a base and make many runs for resources to upgrade their guns, spells(bullets) and wardrobe until they are ready to push back the forces of Chaos and stop them from destroying the world.
MSRP: $24.99
Platforms: Xbox (reviewed), PlayStation, Switch, PC
Price I’d Pay: $24.99
When players enter the world, they will create their own Wizard with an assortment of clothing options. Once they are given control players are started in the tower, this will become the hub for the adventure, and where players will build their base to take on chaos. The first thing that is introduced is a book known as the first edition, one of the things with Wizard with a Gun is the humor, and there is no shortage of humorous tooltips and descriptions for items. The first edition book acts as a scanner and players will fill it by scanning characters, enemies, buildings and various objects in the world. Speaking of the world in Wizard with a Gun like I said the world has been fractured and the players wizard can rewind time and put everything back to explore what happened and hopefully stop it.
In the beginning players will be able to rewind 5 minutes of game time when they enter the portal to reenter the world the game will procedurally create each map, each time. These various biomes are littered with enemies, friends and valuable resources to be collected. As players explore and remove the fog of war, they will find gears that mini boss characters possess, once defeated players can take these back to their portal at the tower base which unlocks more areas of the world and in the future adds more time for each run. At its core Wizard with a Gun is a survival-rogue lite, players will have to go on runs for resources and to get a feel for each biome before they can make a plan of attack. The swamp area for instance is a lot of poison enemies so players will need to ensure they have gear to combat against that.
When it comes to combat Wizard with a Gun plays like a twin-stick shooter, players will aim their weapons with the right stick, while moving around with the left. As I said the bullets are the spells, as such there are a large variety of spells to create. Players can make charm bullets to cause an enemy to fight by their side, there are cold bullets, freeze bullets (yes there isa difference, one causes a chill while the other will flat out freeze), blazing bullets and electric bullets. There are bullets for poison, bullets for health, hell there are bullets to cover an area in oil, there are all sorts of bullets here. And of course, a big part of combat is learning how best to wield these powers most effectively. Things like covering an enemy with water bullets and then peppering them with lighting rounds to cause them to electrocute. Or maybe just load up a shotgun with blazing bullets and just go in and burn it all down, there are a TON of ways to mix and match offensive items to be effective.
I had a lot of fun finding out the various ways I can mix and match spells and the different gun types, but the narrative in Wizard with a Gun is lacking. Honestly the game feels like it is really just meant to be played with a group of friends, which it does feature 4 player co-op. Having the extra guns with a different set of bullets would make some encounters WAY easier but more to that just having a person to play and talk with would do a lot. The gameplay loop isn’t bad it just wears then if you are playing solo, if you have a group of friends who enjoy games like Don’t Starve Together or even Ark then you all should take a look at Wizard with a Gun. Its unique blend of sandbox and twin stick shooter is a lot of fun for a while alone but I can see it being endlessly fun with friends.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
