Feeling Lucky?
HIGH The atmosphere is sublime.
LOW Seeing everything it contains in an hour.
WTF 70k seems like a low amount, given the stakes.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi Everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com!
In a dark warehouse, club music plays loudly while neon light strobes across the dance floor, but I’m not here to dance. I open the door to the back room, and the music goes nearly silent. I take a seat at a table where a shotgun rests in front of me. The… thing… across from me smiles a smile that’s too wide, and asks me to sign the waiver. Only one of us is going to leave with a briefcase full of cash.
As you might guess from the name, Buckshot Roulette is a videogame version of Russian roulette. When the shotgun is loaded, players can see how many live and blank shells are being inserted in a random order. Players can either shoot themselves, or shoot the “dealer”. However, unlike real-world Russian roulette, both the player and the dealer have a set amount of health, enabling them to each take more than one shot and still live. If the player shoots the dealer, the dealer gets to shoot next regardless of whether the shell was live or blank. If players shoot themselves and it turns out to be blank shot, they then get to shoot again without passing the gun to the dealer.
Simple enough, right?
There is a small twist, though — each side gets items with special abilities after the first round. These items can be anything from a magnifying glass that shows what shell is loaded, to handcuffs that force the other player to skip their turn, or even a saw to cut the end of the barrel off to do an extra point of damage. Players are given a random set of items each time the shotgun is reloaded, which gives the roulette a bit more strategy. Taking chances along with using items that can tilt the odds in the player’s favor is the key to winning.
Outside of the normal mode, there’s an endless mode called Double or Nothing. It plays the same, but there are more items — things like a phone that tells players where a shell is, or an inverter that changes a live shell to a blank. Players can choose to try and double their money (which amounts to a high score on a global leaderboard) by winning another three rounds, and with the new items, things get even more chaotic.
If i had to put my finger on one single aspect that makes Buckshot Roulette stand out besides the premise, it’s that it feels like I’m playing against an actual human because the dealer makes mistakes. In one round, both the dealer and I had one life left. I was fairly certain that there were only live rounds in the gun, and it was the dealer’s turn. The dealer used an item that allowed him to see which shell was loaded, so I was sure I was done for. Then — unbelievably — I watched the dealer shoot themselves with a live shell, giving me the win. Since the dealer isn’t perfect, the tense atmosphere never fades, and Buckshot Roulette never ends up feeling like an easily-solvable puzzle.
Buckshot Roulette has tension and drama, enough strategy to make gameplay not fully dependent on luck, and the fact that the dealer doesn’t always make the right move just puts it over the top. While there’s currently not much content as it’s still under development, the joy in its simple, ruthless premise makes it an easy recommendation regardless.
For me, Buckshot Roulette gets 8.5 shots to the face out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Mike Klubnika and published by Critical Reflex. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 3 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: The game is not rated through the ESRB. This game is a short horror experience where players will shoot either the dealer or themselves with a shogun. There is blood that splatters the screen when the players successfully complete a round and defeats the dealer. Beer is as a usable item, and players can take a pill (medicine/drugs) or smoke cigarettes to heal damage.
Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are present.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles, but they are not resizable. Audio serves aesthetic purposes and is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible.
Remappable controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is no control scheme layout. Players will use a mouse to move across the screen and click to select an item to use or to pick up the shotgun and choose who to shoot.
While Sonic and Street Fighter were great places to start, his first love was Final Fantasy X when his dad bought a PS2. Ever since, that love for gaming has evolved -- there are a number of game worlds out there, and he intends to explore them all. RPG to horror, platformers to casual and everything in between -- if it’s available, he’ll play it.
While his time is short between writing reviews, tabletop gaming, and attempting to start a cheesecake business, he has caught all 806 pokemon and can speedrun Star Fox 64 in less than 40 minutes. He’s always looking for new things to try and new challenges to conquer. You can find him on Twitter -- @eugene_sax.
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