Gunslugs: Rogue Tactics Review: Has Potential, But Held Back By Fiddly Controls

We players always want game developers to put out new things – things that are deeper, more ambitious, more adventurous. Sometimes, that comes at a cost, and Gunslugs: Rogue Tactics is a prime example.

As the third installment in the highly entertaining action/platformer series Gunslugs, Rogue Tactics strives to shake up the formula and push things forward. Unfortunately, it kind of trips over itself doing so.

 
Gunslugs: Rogue Tactics Gameplay

Sneaky blighter

At its core, Gunslugs: Rogue Tactics is still the same game: You’ll be running from left to right in a 2D environment shooting goons. Every now and then you'll come across a building that you can raid to obtain some useful stuff to help with your goon-shooting affair.

Aside from that, though, the game adds in plenty of new mechanics. If you want, you can opt for a more stealthy approach, disabling the enemy’s security system before sneaking up to stab them in the back.

It sounds nice on paper, but in practice, the stealth system feels fiddly and inaccurate, and more often than not you’ll find yourself busted and have to resort to your guns.

The innovation is certainly there, though. The gameplay always stays fresh thanks to the roguelike design, there are many characters to unlock, and cutting containers down on foes or hacking terminals are just tons of fun.

Metal sluggish

What really holds Gunslugs: Rogue Tactics back, however, is its control scheme. You have 5 virtual buttons on your screen, which is too many, and that’s not even counting the directional keys. It just doesn’t work in a frantic arcade game such as this one. You’ll find that misclicks (or maybe mispresses is a better word?) are common occurrences in this game, and more often than not, they’ll lead to disastrous results. Yes, you can reposition and resize these buttons, but no matter how we arranged it, we couldn’t get it to feel natural. Everything is just off somehow.

All in all, while Gunslugs: Rogue Tactics has potential, it’s simply not as good as its predecessors.