When I first got Gun Jam, by developer Jaw Drop Games and publisher Raw Fury, to review, I was pretty excited because of the name. I’ve been playing a lot of Overwatch 2 recently and have been wanting to get into more FPS-esque games.
However, upon looking at the reviews on Steam, I became a bit hesitant because it seemed like most people didn’t have much good to say. It was mostly in relation to the changes between the demo and the current state of the game, but it made me wonder what really made the demo. Of course, I never played it so I only have the current version to review. With that being said, I’d say my complaints are a bit different from those who had played the demo.
To start off, I’m a story girl. If the game even slightly hints at having a story/plot/lore, you name it, I will eat it up (most of the time). To my surprise though, I didn’t see that Gun Jam had a story. There’s nothing really to even prompt you when you start the game up. I opened up the game, clicked play, and was brought to the menu where you click what song and map you want to play. I get the game is pretty self-explanatory, but there wasn’t even a short demo to run you through what the controls are and what you have to do. If I’m being honest, I still don’t know if I know all of the controls even after playing.
I do think that the gameplay, itself, is pretty interesting. I never thought I’d see the day where a rhythm game meets FPS, and it actually works. Fortunately, the learning curve isn’t too bad either. At least for me, I don’t think I struggled as much initially as I thought I would. However, I don’t want to boast too much as I could only successfully complete the “Easy” level. I put “Easy” in quotes because it definitely didn’t feel easy. To be honest, the first time I played it was a bit frustrating. How could I time my shots correctly while also dodging the enemies? Where are all the hearts so I don’t die before the 6-minute mark? Where are the random green orbs coming from and how am I getting hit by them? Why is each song even 6 minutes long? Questions like that made my first few run throughs a little bit difficult. But as I kept playing the song, I got the hang of it. I do hope the developers will add more content/variety because after a while it does get a little bit repetitive and boring. Also, if you can dodge the enemies well enough, there isn’t very much incentive to shoot on time. I learned you could kite them pretty well and play until another heart respawned. Of course, your grade on the level and how long it takes to defeat enemies then changes, but it’s all kind of arbitrary and doesn’t really matter. I think I might have more fun when I can actually add in my own music. The option is there, but I don’t think the file currently exists in this stage of development. I think that as well as players maybe being able to make their own map and rhythms will make the game a lot more fun and engaging. Otherwise, I can see people getting bored with this game pretty quickly.
Since it was mentioned a lot in the reviews, I am actually pretty curious about the point of different characters. Maybe I’m missing something, but each character doesn’t exactly do anything special or have a different skill set/weapon. However, whenever you change the map, the character, as well as the difficulty, changes. Then, when you load in, the game is basically the same except for the difficulty (which includes enemies and how many hearts you have).
Hopefully, later on that changes because, again, that could give the game some more replayability.
Overall, I think the concept of Gun Jam is actually really cool, and I’m glad I got the chance to test and review the game! A few tweaks and additions would make the game a lot more fun in my opinion, despite the difficulty and the learning curve. If you’re into FPS or rhythm games (or both), I’d recommend playing this game. There are challenging parts to get used to for both communities of players, so no need to worry about that.
GUN JAM is available for PC via Steam. You can follow @GunJamGame on Twitter for the latest updates.
Related: Reviews by Maryanne Fadonougbo
"I've enjoyed gaming since I was little, playing games like Pokémon, Rayman, and Naruto every day. Besides that though, I've always had a love for writing. Now I am combining the two for the best of both worlds! My ultimate goal is to do narrative design for video games."
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