Showgunners is a turn-based tactics game set in a dystopian future where people can participate in a deadly game in order to win a big monetary reward. Yes, yes, it's like The Running Man and Squid Game, and perhaps with a dose of Gladiators TV programme - if the challenges in it were deadly and the contestants had to square off against dangerous criminals rather than upstanding athletes. All this is happening in a society where corporations rule the world, and where viewership numbers, corporate sponsorships and shameless advertising are more valuable than human life. Such settings are always interesting to explore because they're an excellent satire about where our own world is heading.

Our main protagonist is Scarlett, who has entered this death game not for the money but for something else, which we find out later. Over the course of the game, we meet a few other contestants with whom we join forces, and all of which fulfil their specific combat roles - a hacker, a sniper, a tank, and so on. But I have to say, even though the game doesn't focus as much on the story as it does on gameplay, it managed to make its characters interesting and likeable, so that we actually feel like rooting for them and hoping they succeed. They all have their reasons for participating, and on many occasions we can have some friendly banter with them. (But hands down, the coolest character in terms of personality and gameplay utility is Tybalt).

This TV show to the death in which we're a participant, consists of several episodes, and each episode puts us in a thematic area. Whilst in one episode you'll be walking through cyberpunk city streets, in another you'll be in the industrial area, and so on. The gameplay in each of these areas consists of two key aspects: 1) the real-time exploration and puzzle-solving, and 2) the turn-based fights.

The real-time exploration mainly has us travel through the maze-like levels to find loot and dodge various traps that rip off chunks of our health. In some sections there are puzzles that we need to solve in order to gain access further. Majority of the puzzles aren't too difficult to solve. You may occasionally need to use both characters in your active team in order to solve some puzzles - like for example control one of them to press a lever and then control the other one to go someplace to activate another lever, etc. During the exploration phase we can also meet some fans in the audience up close who ask us for our autograph. When giving an autograph, we usually get a choice of 3 things to say, which is different for each fan interaction. What we choose to say gives us points to different personality types for our TV persona. Like we can choose to be a total a**hole, or to be nice, or funny, or just stoically cool. These can then open up options for certain sponsorship contracts as we level up our fame. Sponsorships offer us permanent passive bonuses once we choose them.

The more exciting of the gameplay aspects are the turn-based tactical fights. I think it's safe to say majority of people who pick up this game will be getting it for this aspect. As expected, these fights are simple and straightforward at first, where we only use 2 characters, and enemies don't do much other than shoot. But with each in-game episode, a new enemy gets introduced. We also meet new characters who join us, as mentioned previously, find new weapons and single-use items, and level up the special skills of our characters. So as the game progresses, these turn-based fights get more and more interesting. The major ones within each level, called arenas, often have different objectives, so it's not always just "kill all enemies in the area". These arena challenges are very well-crafted, each one designed carefully with a lot of thought given. Maybe in one of them you'll have to diffuse a bomb and in another one dodge trains! And moreover, the show's director often likes to give us nasty surprises during these arena challenges. Steamrolling through the enemies? He's going to start pumping some deadly gas in there, so you'll need to get to its switches as soon as possible to shut it off. Or he might just switch off the lights, or do some other creative things. All for the sake of views and programme ratings of course!

Each character that ends up as part of our squad has their own unique style, abilities, and weapon choice. During most of the game we can only bring 3 of them at a time though, but by the late stages of the game, there are opportunities to use all 6 at once. In particular, the free DLC adds several optional levels near the end of the game where we can get our entire team of 6 characters engage in massive tactical fights (plus a new, pretty dangerous enemy). Some of these fights are a tad long, but generally are very enjoyable, because by then your whole team is fully levelled up and has acquired every ability. Showgunners is highly successful at creating this fine line where on one side you have an ever-increasing danger where odds seem stacked against you, and on the other side your small squad mowing through a small army of enemies and any other challenges thrown their way and giving you some serious power fantasies. You keep repeatedly zigzagging either side of this fine line, as each time you overcome one challenge, bigger and bigger threats arise.

Presentation-wise, the game is great! Colourful and well-constructed environments, and of course lots of juicy gore as enemy heads explode into fountains of blood or their bodies are turned into meat paste in the machine gun fire. Really, brutality is through the roof here as the spectators expect a fine spectacle when watching this show. Music is also great and intense. A few tracks may seem a tad jarring and repetitive if the battle goes on for long, but nothing terrible. Voice acting is great across the board.

I've only really come across small glitches, such as characters or enemies at times being stuck for a few seconds before performing their action. Gladly the game gives an option to fast-forward enemy actions in case they're taking too long or if there are lots of enemies in battle.

In total, I've enjoyed Showgunners from start to finish. The drawbacks are minor, while the strengths have been developed to the full - in particular the turn-based fights, which are really really fun. I even had a blast with DLC levels (which many reviewers seem to not have liked much). Bring on the next season of Homicidal All-Stars!

Recommended but on a big discount.

I was a big fan of Soul Calibur 2 and 4 in the past, so wanted to try this one as well. Soul Calibur series has its fair share of interesting and unique characters, each using their own unique weapon type and fighting style. And not to mention that the latter instalments also have the character creation mode to make your own characters to use in the game.

Now I don't tend to play online, so this review is based on single-player experience only.

This instalment boasts a wide selection of characters, as before. If you already have your favourites from the previous games, you'll find their fighting style still feels familiar and comfortable to use, but also with some new moves. Generally the flow of the fights is great, as you can string some good combos, move in 8-directions, combo and parry, and also perform special moves. The execution of the special moves can cause a bit of a break in the pacing due to them either going into slow motion or being like a mini-cutscene, though most times I didn't mind it too much.

What I find kind of disappointing is the lack of interesting game modes and challenges. There's only an arcade mode, which is actually a time attack mode renamed. Previous games in the series had a bigger variety of modes. For example, Soul Calibur 2 had arcade, time attack and survival mode, not to mention these same modes could be tackled with each character's unique weapons with different bonuses and drawbacks, which often drastically changed the gameplay. Or like Soul Calibur 4 with its brutal Tower of Lost Souls that put us against creative challenges.

There are two separate campaign modes here though. One of them allows us to play the core background story of each character. The other has us create a new character with creation tools and undertake an adventure. But I personally found both of those to be uninteresting. There's a lot of narration and dialogue going on with text and still character portraits before you get to the battles. Usually when I want that, I play visual novels, which have much more interesting storylines. In a fighting game, you want to get into the action quickly, without long breaks of story info dump in between. I think actual cutscenes might've served the story modes better here, but even they would've needed to be short and to the point.

The visuals are generally great. Nice selection of outfits for characters and character creation (there's plenty of eye candy for anyone), and beautiful environments. Music and voice acting are both decent too. I would've liked to feel more impact and oomph from strikes though, particularly with better-chosen sound effects, but what's there is ok.

Overall, as far as core fighting mechanics go and presentation, Soul Calibur 6 is great, but I personally think it needed more game modes and challenges. Again, I didn't play online, but I can't imagine that many people are playing this game nowadays as it's several years old now. So for this reason I recommend it only when it goes on a big discount.