Loadout: Beta Impressions

Picture Team Fortress 2, now put it in third person and add crazy weapon customization.

Now you have Loadout…more or less. Loadout is an up and coming free-to-play title for PC from Edge of Reality.

The game is only in beta at the moment, but from what I’ve played so far, the game has a lot to offer.

One of the things that caught my eye from the start, and I think a lot of other people will too, is the weapon crafting. You have all of your basic weapon types to choose from. Assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers and grenade launchers, ect. But after selecting one, you can customize it. And not just putting a new stock on it and adding a better scope. No. Here, you’re limited only by your creativity. Maybe regular rounds don’t do it for you. Perhaps you want your gun to shoot fireballs or lightning or even have the rounds bounce off the walls! Well, you can! I spent hours in the weapon crafting before I even jumped into my first game. I created a shotgun that sends its rounds bouncing all over the place, and sniper rifle that can heal people from across the map and (my current personal favorite) and assault rifle that shoots fire!
One thing to keep in mind while you’re crafting however, is that your choices affect your play style.

Fire weapons, for example, don’t deal as much damage upfront as your basic rounds do. However, they do deal damage over time…and, as a creative bonus, the fire can spread to nearby enemies.

This can be great for objective based games such as Jackhammer, a capture-the-flag style game. (More on that in a moment.) So if you and your teammates are rushing a protected objective, a fire weapon can be used to soften the enemy up for your teammates to finish off.

Don’t get discouraged even if you don’t get the kill, Edge of Reality has made sure to add points for assists and plenty of other things.

Visually the game looks like I mentioned earlier, just picture Team Fortress 2. Cartoony graphics across similar maps. Although, they have made it their own. You’ll be treated to some hilarious deaths. Depending on how your character get’s hit. You can lose all the flesh off your arm and have only bone hanging onto the gun. Or if you get nailed with a rocket you’ll loose your entire torso and your legs will run around until they fall over. There was never a dull moment while I was in a match!
Now, to the game types. You have four variants: Capture the flag, Deathmatch, King of the Hill and VIP. However, Edge of Reality has wisely made sure to add their own clever spin to each.

As I mentioned earlier, Jackhammer is the Capture the Flag mode. However, the flags are hammers (Hence the clever title “Jack-hammer”) that you can use as a powerful melee weapon as you take it back to score.
The deathmatch mode is titled DeathSnatch where you have to pick up items after each person you kill for it to count.
Blitz is the King of the Hill game mode.
And Extraction is the VIP game mode. Here one player is randomly selected as the VIP and has to grab items dropped on the levels and deliver them to drop-offs without getting killed to earn points.

The overall gameplay is tight and very well paced. All of the weapons behave pretty much like you would expect them to depending on how you decided to customize them and you.
Each player can carry two weapons and a third item such as grenades, shields or deployable turrets.
There are also fun objectives to work towards while playing matches such as kill five enemies with grenades or destroy 15 enemy turrets and so on and so forth.

The only issue I have at the moment is the spawn points during some of the matches. Sometimes I would spawn and immediately get sniped or rocketed without even seeing my attacker. Another time about four of us all spawned in the exact same spot, which caused mass chaos and instant death.
But, again, the game is still in beta and these issues are sure to get worked out.

Right now, everything is unlocked for the sake of experimentation. But in the full game you will earn weapons and unlocks as you gain experience and level up.
Edge of reality has also said the microtransactions in-game will be set up for things like character customization.
Free-to-Play games are becoming more and more popular these days and many of them are easy to pass on.
But Loadout is definitely one to keep on your radar.