Impressions of Loadout

Edge of Reality is not what many would call a well known studio. For the most part, these developers have made movie tie-in games and a few ports of other games back on the N64 and Gamecube. Recently however, Edge of Reality has released an original title on Steam called Loadout. Loadout is a F2P, 3rd person shooter that has received a lot of attention for its humor and visual style. Typically though, humor and interesting visuals alone do not make a good game. Are the same developers who made the Shark Tale and Over the Hedge games capable of creating a well made, original title?

(Keep in mind this is a first impressions article and will not go into full detail about every feature)

At its core, Loadout is a fast paced 3rd person shooter with an emphasis placed on weapon customization. Before getting into the game proper, Loadout prompts the player to enter the Weaponcrafting tab and name their first weapon. The player is able to choose from 4 chassis to base their gun off of: rifle, launcher, beam, and pulse. From there, the player is able to customize the stock, scope, barrel, trigger, ammo type, and magazine of their weapon. Changes made to these areas will increase or decrease the base stats of each chassis. The weapon crafting screen even allows the player to test out their weapons before finalizing any changes. Half the fun is the trial and error to see what combinations work best or what provides the best visual gag. Sure, you could just make a typical support weapon that uses a healing beam, or you could just put that healing ammo into a rifle and shoot syringes into everyone's asses. Anything outside the base unlocks though must be purchased through the in game currency known as Blutes.

Blutes are won simply through playing matches or leveling up your profile. This is actually one of the best features about Loadout: Blutes can not be bought with real money. This is one of the very few F2P games out there where people dropping cash cannot gain a huge advantage. Players can use cash shop currency to buy exp. and Blute boosts or unlock extra load out slots, but everything else is purely cosmetic. All weapon and equipment upgrades must be bought with Blutes won in game. These upgrades and parts can be bought from the weaponcrafting tab or the tech tree which gives a more “skill tree” visual to the unlock system. Just keep in mind unlocks for one tree do not carry over to another. Buying tesla ammo under the rifle tree, for example, does not mean tesla ammo will be unlocked for your beam or pulse weapons. Each unlock under the tech tree also has an exp. bar that goes up the more that particular upgrade is used. Leveling up these upgrades increases the bonus they provide to your weapon by a small amount; however, these upgrades require a very high amount of experience to level up. There is an option to spend Blutes and level up each upgrade, but this isn't cheap, so it's up the the player to determine the worth of doing so.

After spending some time with the weapon crafting and tech tree, the player will then be allowed to start playing 4v4 matches against other humans or bots. Surprisingly, Loadout actually does not feature a team death match mode (though that doesn't stop most players from thinking everything is team death match). There is Death Snatch where every player drops a Blutonium vial upon death and players must snatch these up to confirm or deny kills. Blitz is simply a “capture the point” game type, but you raise a pair of boxer shorts instead of flags at each point. Extraction places a bunch of Blutonium around the map and assigns one player on each team to collect this material and bring it to a grinder for points. Finally, there is Jackhammer. This game mode is basically “capture the flag” except the flag is a hammer that has its point value increased the more times it is used to kill an opponent. Just recently, a new game mode was introduced called Annihilation which periodically changes the match's objective based on all of the previously listed modes.

As mentioned earlier, Loadout is a very arcade-y, fast paced shooter. Players are offered unlimited sprints and dodge-rolls on top of the characters being able to jump about 6-7 feet into the air. Recoil and aim is, surprisingly, only slightly effected by constant jumping or rolling so matches can quickly devolve into utter chaos. Being involved in a firefight that is nothing but players jumping in circles for 30 seconds can be amusing, but it also highlights a minor flaw. Under the tech tree there are about 5 scopes that can be unlocked, 4 of which are useless since players can easily maneuver around the map at high speeds and close the distance on a player trying to be a sniper. This also means the beam, scatter, and explosive weapons are, quite clearly, the stronger of the weapons which makes approximately half of the tech tree useless to anyone that wants to stand a chance in most matches.

While players may soon realize half of the tech tree isn't very useful in actual matches, there is still plenty of aesthetic customization to be found if players are willing to lay down the cash. Loadout currently has three characters: two male, one female. The player is allowed to customize their character's hairstyle, tattoos, and dress them up in any way they wish...or undress them. See, in the options menu, there is an “enable nudity” button. For the female character, Helga, this doesn't seem to mean anything at the moment aside from the option to put pasties on her nipples. For T-Bone and Axl, this means you can dress them up in nothing except a tiny thong that makes their balls hang out the side. In Axl's case, you can even take it a step further and make him go completely commando! And, because I know someone will ask, yes, there are wiener physics. There is even an option in the Outfitter called “Hairless” which doesn't seem to do anything except remove Axl's pubic hair. I am not joking. If you have ever wanted to play a game where you can dress a man up in a fedora and S&M gear while their hairless wang flaps about in the wind, this is probably the game for you (so long as you don't mind dropping ~$35 for Axl to go pantsless). I shall further traumatize you all by pointing out the fact that taunts are also purchasable. Said taunts include: t-bagging, twerking, and dry humping the air. I'll let your imaginations do the rest.

This is the kind of humor Loadout provides. During actual matches, characters are blown apart, electrocuted, burned, and horrifically maimed in various ways. If you are someone who giggles like a child at the thought of your character taking a shot to the face that only leaves a brain and a pair of eyes left, congratulations, you are definitely the type of person Edge of Reality wants. If that alone doesn't get you excited for this game, then probably little else will. Loadout can certainly be a very enjoyable, fast paced shooter, but the 4v4 matches makes the mayhem of combat brief and the novelty can wear off within a couple hours. If the developers can fix some of the balance issues that currently make half of the weapon unlocks useless, then this would certainly be a more enjoyable, competitive shooter. That said, I would still recommend anyone reading this to download Loadout and give it a try to support Edge of Reality. Given the amount of F2P crap developers throw onto the market, I'd say it's worth at least looking into one of the few games out there that won't take advantage of its player base.

Plus: hairless dicks.