Ranger is, sadly, just another indie game cash-in from Silver Dollar. Don't waste your time.
5.5
Crisp visuals, elemental power-ups, and a seductive elven maid can't redeem the sense that Ranger is a bottom-feeder
Silver Dollar Games is not an indie developer I care much for. Mostly they have flooded XBIG with waves of crappy games (Mirror excluded) like Don't B Nervous Talking 2 Girls and Mind Warp which play to the lowest common denomenator. At best they're mild attempts at mini-games, while at worst they play to the masses with utter fluff and crowd out other outstanding games. Ranger, I thought, might be another exception like Mirror. You play as a scantily clad elven maiden with bow in tow, and shoot at oncomming hoards of undead. You have a life meter which depletes when any given creature passes your post, so thankfully there are a stream of powerups floating down from the sky in front of you. By shooting the powerups, you'll store an elemental effect or archery effect (multiple arrows) for use to mow down the hoard. You can eventually even summon a dragon to fry everything nearby. Sadly, killing hoards of undead is nothing new, and the archery mechanic isn't great, making aiming a chore. Furthermore, this is a one-trick pony. Killing undead has been done much better in other places (Veks and Silence for instance) and the elf seems more a ploy to get people to play than it seems to relate to anything in the game itself. All of which leads me to surmise that Ranger is just another Silver Dollar Game that's going to waste people's time with trash. But if you do play it, the crisp visuals and elemental powerups are a plus, and so keep Ranger from being simply utter trash.