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Gunscape is a game that attempts to give nostalgic players a massive playground where they can create their own classic 90s retro shooter. In this Gunscape Switch review, we analyze the game's level-building aspects and the platformer-shooter gameplay packaged within Gunscape and see if the entire experience is worth the $14.99 price tag.
Gunscape Switch Review: What is Gunscape?
Gunscape is a retro-style first-person shooter with platforming elements. Outside of the levels, players can also create their own levels and share them with other players. The sharing aspect of Gunscape is the game's primary appeal, as it allows players to tug on their nostalgia and play levels they created themselves, or play ones that are made by the other members of the Gunscape community that have produced hundreds of creative levels.
Gunscape is a fairly old game, having come out originally on other platforms in 2016, but the Nintendo Switch version has just come out this February 1, 2023.
Gameplay
There are two gameplay modes in Gunscape: the creative level-builder, and the first-person shooter platformer. The level-builder is competent and intuitive enough that anyone that can use the Nintendo Switch can definitely make their own levels. It also uses a level editor that is very similar to Minecraft's creative mode, so I see how many players can easily understand and use the level editor to make their own levels. There are a lot of options, and the possibilities are endless, quite literally. You can create your own campaigns and levels within that campaign that you can play yourself or share with others in the Gunscape community. You can also create arenas to play against other players and shoot in chaotic free-for-alls. The game also allows for split-screen multiplayer for up to four players, which makes this a nice game to play with friends and family. The joy of creating a level and sharing it with other people in person is a major selling point for the game, and I can imagine players can really have a lot of fun fooling around with the level builder.
Playing the levels, however, is an entirely different world. Gunscape aims to reenact retro-style 90s shooters like Duke Nukem, Doom, and GoldenEye, but somehow this game's controls and shooting feels even older and much more antiquated than the recently re-released GoldenEye on the Switch and the Xbox One. Moving around is fluid enough, but the shooting is terrible and the camera is too sensitive. The game is also severely imbalanced, with the player's weapons dealing too little damage against enemies, making it easy for players to get overrun by a large number of enemies. But that won't be too much of a problem, anyway, because the game's AI is also terrible, with enemies not always reacting how they should. There were a lot of times when the enemies we faced while playing this game for our Gunscape review just stood around and watched us while we shot at their friends. Finally, the default levels made by the developers also had a weak level design. It's easy to get lost while going around to find where to go next.
Sadly, the implementation of Gunscape's ideas is terrible. The game is supposed to showcase levels created by the community, but it's difficult to navigate through the community maps created by other players – with no option to sort or filter maps that are available. On the Switch, the game is also very terrible, with the game slowing down a lot which kills the thrill for a game such as this, as it could lead to unfair deaths when you miss a jump while platforming or get killed by an enemy that you were shooting at when the game decided to lag. This applies even to the default maps provided by the developers, but even worse to community-made maps. As mentioned earlier, players can create whatever they had in mind with no limitation, and that leads to some maps that are too big for the Switch to handle, and become too impractical to play on the platform.
Story
The story is definitely not the game's strong suit. It doesn't have a compelling narrative to hook you into the game's main story, and the DLCs that you can get that are provided by the developers also don't offer anything better. You are a test subject that's tasked to get through a series of tests, which involves platforming and waves of enemies. The feel of the story reminds me of Portal a little, as the handler that talks to you through computer terminals across the levels increasingly gets aggressive at you, and gives you conflicting instructions that lead you to trouble more often than benefitting you. Much worse, the story is mostly told through the aforementioned computer terminals, but the readability of the text on these computers' screens is low. I have perfect 20/20 eyesight and yet I struggled to read through the lines of text, which makes me regret twice bothering to read through the game's boring script at all.
Graphics
For what it's worth, the game is well-designed in terms of its HUD and the elements of the game. It does evoke the feeling that I'm playing an old-school first-person shooter, and everything is easy for the eye to look at. So, not shabby at all in terms of visual design, as the clarity is there and the look and feel of the game are there. Gunscape totally nails what it was going for in terms of how the game looks.
Music and Sound Design
The game's music and sound design also successfully evokes the feeling that you're playing a classic shooter game from the 90s, but you'd also notice that many of the tracks sound too similar to some tracks in other games. Whether this was by design or not, we don't know. This means that the game's epic sci-fi-esque action move music fits well with the themes of the game, but it also might mean that the music was composed with the intention of replicating music from other more notable shooters from that time period and just changing things up a little. Regardless, the game's music and sound are good enough for the game, although it could also stutter every now and then due to the weaker technical specs of the Nintendo Switch.
Verdict: Gunscape is a Competent Level-Builder for Worlds No One Will Play
In spite of the competent level-builder, Gunscape sadly isn't a shooting game you'd like to play for long. We actually liked creating some custom levels and seeing how you can potentially make amazing levels with it, even recreate your favorite levels from classic games, but the shooting and platforming of the game itself, not to mention the technical limitations of the Nintendo Switch, makes the argument moot. The level-builder, even if it were amazing, is useless since no one would play Gunscape for its shooting, anyway, and it does look like the community is a bit dead right now. During our time testing Gunscape for this Switch Review, we weren't able to match with anyone online, and we don't think there are a lot of people making new maps for the game nowadays, either. So, while it's a little bit sad that a game like this that had so much potential because of its level builder would end up like this, we sadly cannot recommend Gunscape to anyone because of its poor gameplay.
Score: 4/10
Editor's Note: ClutchPoints received a Switch review copy to allow us to cover this game. This copy did not, in any way, affect this Gunscape Switch Review's final score and verdict.
