Great game if you are interested in FUN GAMEPLAY.. seriously in need of a community boost though.Could be a 9.5 one day.
The gameplay is somewhat more streamlined... less classes, less speed, less weaponary. The Gunslinger for example has only one weapon (the rest have 2.. the big guy has dynamite that he throws like a nade, that's his special talent, I suppose that counts as 3).
It's also 3rd person perspective. It's really nothing like TF2.. with the exception that it is fun.
So, as streamlined as it is, it does take some skill to fight properly in this game. You can't get away with spray and pray tactics here. You do need coordination and you DO need to be able to aim. As dumbed down as it may seem on appearance, racking up a decent bodycount does require the usual FPS/shooter skills with a mouse.
There is no crouch so the sniper unit can't hide as easily and neither can you from incoming bullets. That might sound like a bad thing, but it's a limitation that suits the gameplay, and so far I haven't seen anyone pull off a snipe-camp-nest successfully. The sprint, the walk, the dodge... these things are what dictate how you run-and-gun... and I have to admit I still forget I have a dodge to use.
Sniping is satisfying if you know how to do it (the only thing different from any other game is it has a heavy depth of field blur, so you will have to make the effort to aim)... all the other weapons can be difficult to get used to as well because they have they have a thematic realism to them... meaning no large cartridges, no fast-spec-ops reloading. You have to figure frequent reloads into your skills, another important reason you should confirm your aim while sniping instead of trying to CoD your way into headshots... reloading can leave you vulnerable... and the reload situation also figures into when you carry stuff or when you get knocked down.
Knock downs are like Last Stand in CoD4, you can fire back at enemies that are nearby until you are either killed, revived by a teammate (any class can do it), or choose to suicide/respawn. To balance out this reloading mechanic in the game... everyone has unlimited ammo.
The special talents per unit are very interesting. The leveling system is like a very primative version of Enemy Territory for really 1 skill per unit only. It's a great part of the game that really could be expanded upon more... as it stands right now you don't think about it while you play.
The western theme is also very pleasing. I haven't got a console so I can't give a comparison to the ever hyped Red Dead Revolver Redemption... but that game looks like a classic, dirty spaghetti western... this is more like a 'legends of the west' fantasy... alot like how that western vibe was presented in the movie Back To The Future 3.
Levels are very fun to explore, very well designed, beautiful. They really have alot of character and I'd give the design for gameplay and immersion a 9.9 score. Really well done.
The various game modes are great to play too. Nothing new, but modified to suit the theme (except team deathmatches... there's nothing you can tweak about "kill 'em all" objectives).
The respawning system is alittle versatile too.. you have your base spawn, or a spawn flag someone can carry around, allowing you to spawn whereever that flag is on the field... unless an enemy kills the spawn flag/totem carrier, then touches it, then the mobile spawn resets and it has to be picked up again from the base spawn area. That's another interesting dynamic to the gameplay... revives and psuedo reinforcements wherever you are on the map.
Now... the DOWN SIDE of the game.
Yes, as of June 2010 they finally patched the game to include dedicated server support (before it was peer to peer). But that's still new and the community behind this game is still very underpopulated. If you can find a game with a decent ping (there are enough Australian gamers to get a good game going for a full local server) then you can have alot of fun trying to get good at killing with these types of weapons.
But a sparse community is still a sparse community, and there have been plenty of times when I've felt like popping in for a few rounds only to find the place empty of local (Australian) matches.
The game is also abit laggy... whether it's the peer to peer system or if you can hop onto one of the new dedicated servers... as of right now, I've encountered alittle lag in most of the matches I've played. Not too much to be frustrating, but enough to feel robbed a kill or two.
There are also other little things that need to be addressed. We're at a point with online connectivity that a game should have a fully realised server finding system. The strangest thing is this is built on the Source engine, yet it has a server finding screen which is far more limiting than something as old as Wolfenstein ET. From total control in TF2 or CSS or L4D to practically no control over filtering in this. Right now it isn't a big deal because there aren't enough servers/matches to make you have to scroll more than an extra couple of lines... but if there were up to 100 servers as a minimum, I think it could become alittle bit of an issue... and it would be a serious problem if there were 1000+ servers.
And the player base... because the community is so loose at the moment, there are plenty of people that have barely had a chance to get into the game and aren't like some of us... inclined to figure things out quickly shall we say. So there are people that just haven't bothered to look into the game modes to learn what you have to do... there are people that will actually avoid touching a dropped enemy spawn flag cause they don't realise that THAT thing allows them to respawn nearby. The Practice mode tutorial isn't terribly instructive and could be at least alittle better... but we're not talking about some massively complicated RTS. This is an easy game to "understand."
There is no voiping, but I'm so sick of hearing children chatter during multiplay matches that I'm glad it's not part of the game.
So if you're into games because you like GAMEPLAY and not just pretty graphics, blood, and camping like an a**, this is a game you could enjoy quite abit.
Pick it up cheap if you can and help build the community for what is a really cool indie developed game. Obviously not everyone is going to love this game, but odds are high you'll find some enjoyment in it. It seems to keep getting better as the developer keeps patching it (I was keeping tabs on it for awhile before I bought it... support seems really good). And if the playerbase builds into a solid community with more than a handful of highly skilled opponents along with plenty of populated matches, this could be one of those ultra-addictive little games that sucks you in for a long time (it would eventually need some expansion in maps mind you, maybe a new classes or two as well).
The potential is there, it just needs the playerbase (and some developer tweaks regarding servers... team balancing uneven teams could be handled more effectively than it is right now as well).
At worst you'll have given your money to a game developer that isn't shoving another tired, cliched, over-budgeted-and-poorly-coded-excuse-of-a-PC-title down your throat. How many people are going to blindly buy the next 5 CoD sequels at insanely bloated prices.... yet complain about a very cheap game like Lead & Gold? It's originality like this that should be supported.