Gadgetory

forced showdown is the successor to beta Dwarfs game forced which was a cooperative arcade brawler that reminded us of the gauntlet series of anyone remembers that and showdown takes a different turn resurrecting its battle proven arena combat from forced strictly in a single player format but it also adds a splash of strategy through a cards system and companion system and this is building upon forced a game that we really did like quite a bit for a single player but especially for its cooperative gameplay elements and showdown takes that formula and reduces it distills it's down to a single player game so if you don't want to sit around and try and collect the friends to brawl through the same type of mechanics if you like those arena-style arena dungeon crawler style gameplay mechanics then showdown is worth a look before getting into more of this a few things we're giving away 20 keys for the game forced showdown and with thanks to system integrator i buy power who recently designed the revolt to gaming pc i'm sure many of you remember that we're also throwing in two mechanical keyboards 5i power jerseys and five goody swag bags and the first few keys will be overlaid in this video so make sure to watch the whole thing to grab one and then type it into steams activation system to redeem the rest of the keys and other awards here will be given through our youtube subscriber systems of your subscriber we will see you commenting on this video if you do post a comment and we'll select based upon comments to figure out who gets more keys and then twitter followers will receive Keys as well so you can read the conditions of the giveaway the contest in the link in the description below if you want to learn more about it learn which country's can apply things like that that's all down there and the basics of it though just retweet our forced giveaway tweet and that is again linked below or comment on this video subscribe on YouTube to get a key if you are one of the 20 that are selected or just watch the video and redeem let's talk about showdown so for showdown drops us into an artfully stylized arena with a voiceover work that builds on a boxing ring atmosphere sort of like the quake and UT voiceovers that you hear and they're very bombastic and overly done but playful and works well with the environment players take control over one of four characters storm brainer is returning from force that be the archer squire of light ravager and volcko are sort of new but plays on some of the same ideas from forest and each character has two core abilities a base attack and access to a complex card system for further empowerment cards are drawn so to speak at the beginning of each arena match they're dealt to you and you've got limited mana which is basically currency so you use that mana to fund your card selection and if you don't like the card you can use the Mulligan system which works as any Mulligan system does you sacrifice some things and return for a new card draw card selection uses stats and ability modifiers with specific conditions to offer a strategic element to a game that's otherwise just an arcade brawler so it's not a card game it doesn't go that heavy into the cards direction but it's got cards available basically as stats modifiers so that you can use those to sort of spiced up gameplay and trigger some unique and interesting combos with the abilities and what's describable only as acute dragon and so-called wizard puffs companions will also join us on the battlefield to provide cover fire but that's really about it early on they die pretty quickly and respawn the next round but they have unique clever means of deployment that can turn the tide of battle and they do get larger and more powerful as you progress through the game so they become pretty intimidating to your enemies as you do move forward even though they're really just sort of cute and I quickly early on much like Balthus from the original forest game these companions can be used just to sort of draw enemies in a way that creates some unique gameplay mechanics and opportunities showdown is a much different game from the original forced the mechanics are more or less the same at a fundamental level but the spirit ball mechanic with Balthus is gone and the cooperative gameplay has been axed to just single player gameplay so we talked to beta dwarf about this previously at one of the packs events and they explained to us that this was a move to build upon the brand that he created with forest and expand the studio which experienced really pretty explosive growth from the first game launched they were very successful with forced so this is a play at taking sort of the same IP but building it in a different way so that the studio doesn't get sucked into creating the same game over and over like we see with many of the triple-a studios today that is something to trying desperately to avoid and have done well with showdown gameplay progression is a simple multistage set up with the character advancements sort of coming to you as you work through each of the arena rounds and card unlocks also appear as you fight through the battles and work your way towards boss stages like a ccg mulligans as stated before again we performed to refresh the card pool for impending rounds movement is handled with WASD attacks are handled with clicks and pot Kesey and so forth and companions manage themselves pretty much entirely but you can do some unique navigation around the course to force path finding that will cause them to react in ways that are beneficial to combat over all the games mood is playful but never in an obnoxious or overly silly way just like forest again and it's good for a spot of Arkady action in a pretty and fast place gameplay environment and atmosphere players who are seeking something comparable to a single-player arcade arena crawler experience should seriously consider forced showdown especially if you like the first forced but maybe want to play a single player version of it sort of stay tuned for full critique and review of this game it is approaching for a March 29th launch date and you can also win some of the keys in this sort of contest giveaway thing we're doing and hopefully you've gotten a chance to redeem one of those through the video if not count below subscribe or retweet the tweet and follow us on Twitter and we'll look through those submissions and see if we can give away some more keys so as always subscribe thanks for watching we'll see you all next time