Guncraft (PC) Preview

Voxels are a polygon alternative whose coding structure makes them easy to place and easy to remove compared to polygons. They are what make Guncraft what it is - build walls, dig tunnels, blast holes in the sides of mountains with a tank.

Yes, all of this has been seen before with Minecraft. Users have been watched as they cheerily set about with their pickaxes and shovels to create their little worlds, brick by brick. They created replicas of real world cities out of billions of tiny blocks. It was all very "emergent" and different. It made waves in news sources that usually stick to politics, and it made the maker of Minecraft a rich man.

However, the nature of voxels changes when bringing them into the world of multiplayer shooters. What was once a tool of artistry becomes a tactic in the eternal struggle between team red and team blue. Enemy standing over lava? Blast a hole in the ground. The other team is holed up in a fortress? Tunnel under it quietly and blind side them. That's the unique intersection Guncraft aims at.

It seems like a tough sell. After all, how many Minecraft players are also into hardcore shooting? How many Call of Duty players are into blocky graphics? It helps that Guncraft doesn't falter in its gunplay. Movement is quick, guns are deadly, and controls are fluid. There is a serviceable core of shooting mechanics here. Anyone who has ever played a Quake, an Unreal, or a Call of Duty should feel at home. The tactics afforded by destructible environments really do offer an interesting take on the formula. Breaking down the walls of an enemy fortress enacts a significant change in the flow of a team deathmatch. What may have been a stand-off quickly becomes a bloody exchange, albeit between cutely deformed, block-headed combatants.

Some of the multiplayer modes rely very explicitly on the nature of the destructible environments. In one, named "Spleef," players are armed only with drills. These drills have a limited range. Their only purpose is to drill holes in the ground. Below? Lava. How thick is the floor? Just one block. Last man standing wins. With up to 16 players, it gets hectic as you jump around, trying not to fall to fiery doom.

Guncraft features all the other popular shooting activities as well: free-for-all deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, a horde mode. In-game is a leaderboard with K-D listings. Down the line the game will ship more modes and admin tools that allow the game/server/level creator to tweak game parameters, such as gravity.

Here's the gritty: Exato hopes to bring Guncraft to Steam. Eventually it hopes to bring its game to Xbox Live as well. The price will be set at $14.99. Afterwards it will go the update and DLC route. Major new features and gameplay features will be free. Cosmetics will be pay-for. That's not the only avenue Exato hopes to move content, though. The major draw is really that players can build their own maps and share them easily. Custom maps load quickly as there are no custom textures, just the game's complement of blocks. Of said complement, the game will ship with about 200 different kinds of blocks with more to come at a later time.