Reminds me of Shoot many robots: Arena Kings; by it's bad and unmemorable gameplay. Buy this game if you like jumping and shooting in 2D... actually no, buy something else that has these features, it's probably better. Pros: Colors. Cons: 1.Can't recall anything unique about it. 2.Reminds Arena Kings.
3.That opening theme song isn't that great, just a generic guitar riff with some distortion. 4.May expose to cancer.… Expand

Shoot, slice, run, slide, tumble and wall jump your opponents in 2d mayhem. This is not the average style of game that I play--I'm normally not into twitch style games. Maybe this has been done better elsewhere, but since I'm a bit out of genre on this, it seems really well done to me. The fast reload seems awesome, particularly when you do it right in the middle of a fight. It's pretty awesome (in that disappointing kind of way) when you fail to do a fast reload too. The music is pretty lousy, but you do listen to your own music in most games anyways right? Every now and then the graphics or sound effects seem to glitch out, but given the short attention span required for a match restarting isn't a big deal. It also seems to fix itself if you just hang out for a bit. The learning curve seems a bit high to me--there are not really great tutorials in the game, as you are basically educated over a series of load screens between matches. There are 6 characters in the standard purchase and 8 if you bought the deluxe pack on steam. One of the extra characters on the deluxe pack is one of my favorites. One of the default characters seems to be the best (the Arnold ripoff character) however so you are not really at a disadvantage w/o the extra characters. I think there are 4 maps, all of which are well done. That said, I am left wanting for more quality maps to extend the value of the game. The game looks like it will be supported by a pay store, though I find it hard to believe that this will be a long lasting game. There are 10-20 games currently, and I don't really see that swelling to some huge number. If you're into this genre (or hey, maybe you're like me and you're looking for something with just a bit more action than usual) I'd pick this one up while there are still players on it.… Expand

Well-executed, Smash Brothers-esque 2d fighter, up to 8 players. Vivid animations and highly detailed enviornments. Musical score that nails the 80's cheesy action Arnold or Norris vibe. Combat is well done, with many improvised weapons to be found, though I believe there could be improvements here. The melee attacks are simple, with a charging tackle, a block, and an attack. Some weapons attack slower and do more damage as you would expect, others are quicker. All can be thrown to do some damage in a pinch. The ranged weapons require that your mouse targeting reticule be over the enemy you intend to hit as well as aiming at them; failing to do this will result in the bullets hitting the 'wall' behind the target. This works surprisingly well. In all, combat is solid, though more variety in melee weapons attacks would be good; I felt little reason to use anything but the default katana.

The presence of a paid cosmetic item shop is a concern, but all ingame abilites and characters and weaponry unlocks via the ingame currency store, earned by playing matches. This currency is gained quickly, but I still think the presence of the actual currency store is unneeded. Similarly, the number of characters feels rather limited, though this doubtless will be expanded on in the future (hopefully for free) Each character has a special ability which appears locked to the character this is ok, but it would have been nice if this was assignable as the standard items to a loadout.

Gamemodes are intruiging; you can play as a generic Henchman in some of the modes and lack the powers the oridinary characters have all henchmen then work to kill the 'one man army'. This and some other modes are entertaining and the Showdown mode is probably the best, where its a standard deathmatch until the end when the victor is determined by elimination. One downside is that the game is entirely peer-to-peer, similar to many console games, meaning you have to play on a non-dedicated server. This can result in laggy connections, but during the several hours I have played the game over a few days, this has not been noticable (other than, perhaps, the host having a slight edge) Hopefully the developers consider adding some dedicated servers to the game and release a server executable it will help in keeping a long-term playerbase.

TLDR Fun 2D battles with both ranged and melee fighting
Vivid animations and background
Peer to peer connection can cause some issues… Expand

Lots of fun and for $10 well worth it. Easy pick up and play kind of game, really great with friends. No single player but while there is a multiplayer community it's well worth buying.

The only thing keeping me from handing this a solid ten is the odd server behaviour, but even that is probably run of the mill early post-launch bugginess. It's fun, hilarious, fast-paced, pretty to look at, and loaded down with character couldn't ask for much more at ten bucks.

I like the Idea of the game, with some improvements it could be a lot better. Dedicated Servers for better Pings, more Maps, more chars, more weapons, cheaper price. Magicka has a lot more Stuff then Showdown Effect, but Showdown Effect costs the same. They should work on it like the Developers of Awesomenauts. Maybe some Performance Fixes would be great, or some Graphic advanced settings.

This is easily the most fun Indie game i own and is well worth its ten dollar price tag. Its as simple as that. Although a few weapons feel overpowered, the OP weapons at least have their drawbacks and you'll be having so much fun you wont even care. Buy it and give these guys support.