Final week’s Xbox Video games Showcase included a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it reveal for a team-based hero shooter referred to as FragPunk that mixes aggressive Valorant-style gameplay with card mechanics. Based mostly on the lukewarm response I noticed within the livestream chat and in a while social media, ‘Valorant + buying and selling playing cards’ is just not a pitch that’s lighting the gaming world on hearth. I’ve turn into one thing of a missionary for video games with card mechanics, so I’m right here to inform you that I performed FragPunk. It’s not what you suppose, and it’s a blast.
The trailer places quite a lot of emphasis on the playing cards and all of the wacky issues you are able to do with them, and whereas these modifiers are core to the gameplay, letting folks suppose that is in any method a card sport does a disservice to FragPunk. The whole premise of FragPunk is that it’s a workforce shooter with infinite potentialities, the place each spherical will likely be totally completely different from the one earlier than. The playing cards are central to the way you make that occur, however they’re probably not playing cards in any respect.
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Interacting with them is pretty simple. Your workforce will likely be introduced with three playing cards initially of each spherical, each representing a wild and wacky modifier that applies solely to the upcoming spherical. Every card has a price, and every participant has a pool of assets they’ll spend to activate the playing cards. Some playing cards want their full value paid to activate, whereas others have results that improve in energy the extra you make investments. You’ll be able to select to spend your assets nonetheless you need, or save them for later turns. It’s each a method mechanic and a method so as to add selection to each match.
Plenty of feedback evaluate FragPunk to Mates Vs Mates, a PvP shooter with deckbuilding that got here out final 12 months. FragPunk is just not a deckbuilder.
The cardboard results vary from easy, like bonus harm for shotguns or headshots, to excessive, like Demise Embrace, which spawns a reaper to kill an enemy and anybody close to them when their well being drops to 50 p.c. I performed seven rounds and noticed some hilarious playing cards, like one that offers everybody on the workforce a turtle backpack that protects them from taking harm from behind, and one which fills your complete map with tall grass you may conceal in to ambush enemies. You’ll get a touch initially of every match concerning the opposing workforce’s strongest card, however you don’t know precisely what modifiers the opponents added to the spherical till you uncover them through the spherical.
It’s additionally a hero shooter. Every spherical, you’ll select from a roster of a dozen characters to play who every have three distinctive talents. I performed as a special character each spherical so I didn’t get an ideal sense of what every of their specialties was, however I appreciated Nitro, the engineer character that may drop a remote-controller tank drone and drive it round to scout the realm.
The opposite attention-grabbing twist on the normal ‘plant bomb, defuse bomb’ mannequin is the loadout selector. Most weapons have a restricted variety of makes use of, so that you’re compelled to alter your loadout after every match. You would possibly wait to equip your favourite assault rifle till you start a spherical with a card that enhances assault rifles. Should you select your most well-liked weapon within the early spherical, you would possibly discover the later rounds, when wins matter probably the most, tougher.
Counter-Strike was my favourite shooter rising up, however nowadays I discover it too aggressive and demanding for my slowing neurons. Valorant is far the identical, and as a lot as I’d prefer to get into it, I simply don’t really feel like I can sustain. FragPunk seems like an approachable, fun-loving model of a style that’s historically catered solely to probably the most hardcore aggressive gamers, and that’s thrilling for a scrub like me. Don’t let the playing cards or hero shooter fatigue flip you off. It may not be the best promote within the present market, however FragPunk is a blast.
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