Fistful of Frags (PC) review " This is no Call of Duty: Whiskey Warfare."

Videogames based in the Old West era are few and far between these days, multiplayer ones much more so. Fistful of Frags not only embraces this theme, but outright grips it in a deathchoke. While the game might seem like an ordinary arena deathmatch shooter with healthpacks styled as booze, this is no Call of Duty: Whiskey Warfare. You might wish, as you fire off a volley of revolver shots at near point-blank, every single one of them inexplicably missing, only to initiate a reload animation that takes until the cows go home, at which point the other guy turns around, taking you out with 3 well-aimed shots, one of which harmlessly blowing your hat off for that extra bit of humiliation, and, more importantly, notoriety points.

But let's take it a bit slower and, preferably, in shorter sentences, shall we? The very first thing I'd like to mention, for the sake of all coming players, is that the gun spread in this game is very much movement-based. You want to stand perfectly still until your accuracy, as indicated by your crosshair, maxes out, then take your shot. Another technique is to hold down the shift button to walk slower, which doesn't give maximum accuracy, but still allows some movement at least. Finally, certain weapons can be fired at an increased pace by holding down the right mouse button, however this locks accuracy at a mediocre value, thus it's only good for close range encounters. NEVER shoot without slowing/stopping first - you literally won't hit the side of a barn.

With that out of the way, let's get to reviewing. I think by now you've figured this game takes everything you got accustomed to in first person shooters, and throws it out of the window. Most of the things you might be used to doing, you can't do here - there are no automatic weapons, no flashbangs or smoke grenades, nobody sprays, there is no regenerating health, nobody circle-strafes, and most guns lack ironsights. There is also no progression system that I'm aware of, no hats to buy or sell or any sort of character customization (take note: hats are still extremely important), and the game will basically cost you nothing but your time.

What you can do however, is quite wild, indeed, wild-westy even. Hah. Hah.

Yeah.

So, starting a round, generally you're presented with a loadout screen where you spend a fixed amount of points on the guns and perks you want to take to battle, and then off you go kill some bad guys, which, while the game does offer multiple gamemodes, is pretty much most of what you'll be doing. All the while it barely matters since just the task of killing guys is quite challenging and varied in itself. You start off with your chosen weapons (or none as is the case in one of the modes), but wandering the map, you might come across boxes of varying tiers that contain increasingly powerful weaponry. The boxes do have a cooldown time though, so you can't just keep pulling the army's entire stock out of them. Once you do get your beloved gun, it's off to find a foe, 'less the foe has finally found you and successfully turned you inside out already, taking your Precious with him, as is usually the case.



If you do get lucky though, you might just score a kill, adding to your notoriety, which is the main scoring system. Notoriety works as you'd expect - killing people with peashooters, throwing knives, shooting hats off and/or drinking a lot of whiskey awards a lot of it, being a cheap camping coward with the scope-fitted sharps rifle does not, and getting so drunk you stumble off the church' bell tower to your death subtracts from it.

You can go around wielding a hatchet, or a bow, or a revolver, or a stick of dynamite or a bunch of other guns and (non-)weapons, all of which have a bunch of unique mechanics which would take kinda long to explain. Suffice to say, there's no shortage of guns to master in this game. To give a few examples, the most basic weapon you're given by default, Colt 1851 Navy, is the jack of all trades. A revolver, kinda good at range, can be fanned for three shots for a quick dirty kill at a short distance, if you hit the head it's a twofer. There are better guns though. For instance, the Mare's Leg, a sawn-off Winchester. One-handed, and you can dual-wield any one-handed weapon with any other one-handed weapon, and yes, one-handed lever-action reload is twirling goodness. Go around dropping people like the Terminator, except with twice the style.



Dual-wielding sounds like a nightmare to manage, but in reality it's actually quite convenient and easy. It's just as you'd expect, pick up a second gun, choose its slot while toting a one-handed weapon, bam. Mouse buttons fire respective guns separately. Press middle mouse to swap hands. Press the slot key again to holster. Reload prioritizes the emptier gun.

Then it all comes down to making those bullets count. And you better, if want to live to walk into the sunset.

Community review by Drury (July 30, 2016) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.