Gauntlet review

[Administrator]

Gauntlet's a game about shooting monsters, but it's also a game about shooting food. And that's weird really, isn't it? Because shooting (or whacking) food doesn't ultimately seem to help anyone. The hectic, enemy-riddled mazes this legendary dungeon crawler throws you into can be terrifying, exhausting places, and no matter how good your teamwork is, both you and your allies are going to need a health top-up every now and then as you fight your way to the exit. Shoot the food, though, and you're shooting the health top-up. Why did you shoot the food, you noob?
In truth, I'd argue that part of the reason Gauntlet's so fondly remembered after all these years is precisely because you can shoot the food - and because this arcade classic hinges on one of the darkest insights into human psychology that you're likely to find in a video game that also features an elf. Sometimes, Gauntlet whispers, it's not enough to just win in a team sport. Sometimes, it really helps if everyone else on your winning team also loses a little bit. It's us against them, but can't it be us against us on the rare occasions that the opportunity presents itself? If you're complaining that all the noobs are shooting the food, is it possible - just possible - that the real noob in the equation is you?
Arrowhead's Gauntlet reboot celebrates the bitter, vindictive, and needlessly spiteful side of this fantasy slash-'em-up with easy grace. You can shoot the food so your allies won't get healed, and then you can loot their corpses when they eventually drop dead because they couldn't get healed. In between all that, of course, you can also hang back, letting your fellow party-members take on the mobs and the grasping throngs for you. You can hang back and vacuum up the loot while they're making the world a safer place. Finally, once they return to you, bloody but only partially bowed, you can shoot their food before they get to it and imagine the massed shoulder sagging that ensues both here and on the post-level results screen where you see who got what.
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