Preview by: Troy Goodfellow

The class based shooter genre got a big jolt with Team Fortress 2 and you’d be crazy for not trying to grab a piece of the pie. The trick, of course, is finding a unique spin on the genre. FatShark has chosen to set itself apart with the setting – what could be more fun than the Wild West?

Visually, Lead & Gold evokes Team Fortress 2 without aping it. Rich colors and clearly distinct models are there, but these aren’t cartoon caricatures or over the top designs. The hunter wears a coonskin cap and carries a sniper rifle, but she’s not meant to be funny looking. The blaster is a burly mining sort, but he is not the goofy Heavy we’ve come to love.

The Western setting offers a great variety of locations – abandoned mines, gulches, and rooftops to shoot from – and the developers admit to being fans of classic western movies. As the subtitle suggests, they are drawing inspiration from the idea of gangs shooting it out in the streets and wilderness of lawless communities (even though one of the character types is a deputy.)

Central to this gang/teamwork conceit is the idea of buff zones. Each class has a radius of power that they can use to increase the deadliness or resilience of a neighboring class. But the powers don’t always stack and you don’t want everyone bunched together in any case. Some classes only work really well at a distance, others only close up. So there are trade offs to balance. Do you sacrifice the hunter’s need for time to snipe accurately in order to make your short range gunslinger more deadly? Crowds make nice targets for the Blaster’s dynamite in any case.

The bot demo I saw made it difficult to get a sense for the balance between the classes or for the different modes. You gain experience in a round based on your accomplishments and how long you survive, and this experience translates into greater strength for your character. It is not clear at what point this just becomes the rich getting richer, but there are lots of options for gaining this experience so it may all even out depending on the game mode.

At this point, Lead & Gold’s big draw is the idea of playing the Earps versus the Clanton gang. There may be enough unique design to draw class shooter aficionados, but there’s a good chance your affection to the game will depend on whether you share FatShark’s affection for the Wild West trappings. Me? I love this stuff. Your mileage may vary.