Available for Windows 10 PC and Mobile, this free game has you playing the role of the bandit, chasing a runaway cart of gold that has been stolen by an army of skeletons. You must weave along a winding path, dodging obstacles and battling enemy skeletons dead set on protecting the stolen gold and stopping you in your tracks.
The visuals and animations are drawn up nicely with plenty of color and detail. The gameplay tests your reactions in not only navigating around obstacles but also shooting the enemy troops, and there are plenty of power-ups to give your bandit a fighting chance at survival. Run & Gun – Banditos caught our attention by landing in the top five of the Windows Store's New and Rising Collection, and it's a fantastic game to spend a little down time with.
Run & Gun – Banditos has a modest main menu that offers up options to choose your bandito, purchase upgrades, view performance objectives, tap into the game's settings and jump into gameplay. Upgrades include improving your maximum health, as well as purchasing protective shields, gold attracting magnets and other power-ups.
The game has six banditos that can be unlocked with gold or peppers you collect during gameplay. Each bandit offers a unique personality and skill sets, along with a few costume changes that can be unlocked. Performance objectives include a series of tasks that can earn you bonus gold, distance rewards and a small collection of game achievements.
Gameplay in Run & Gun isn't very complicated to pick up and learn but can drive you nuts with the various tasks you must juggle. The game starts with a brief tutorial illustrating movements and special features. After, you are on your own to gather gold and survive the dangers of the game.
You are chasing a cart full of gold through narrow desert passages. You swipe to the left or right to change lanes on the path to dodge obstacles or forks in the road. Gold is scattered along the path that can be collected and used to unlock new bandits, upgrades, and costumes. You also can collect power-ups that are scattered about the path.
The game display has your health meter in the upper left corner of the screen and your score/gold collected is displayed in the right corner. If you need to catch your breath, a pause button sits in the lower right corner.
Along with making sure your bandit safely navigates the canyon passages, enemy skeletons are scattered along the twists and turns. These skeletons are determined to protect the gold and destroy your bandito, and can be cleverly hidden around corners or in crevices. To help you find them, finger pointers appear to alert you to their position. You can tap on the skeletons to shoot them, but if you miss the skeletons strike out. Should your health meter run dry or the bandito runs into an obstacle, the game is over.
Power-ups that line the game's path include shields to protect you from attacks, magnets to attract loose gold, scoring multipliers and more. Along with these power-ups, there is a parrot that can be helpful in destroying the enemy skeletons. As you blast the skeletons to bits, a parrot icon sitting in the top center of the display becomes energized. Tap on the icon when it becomes animated, and you are briefly joined by a machine gun-toting parrot that blasts through the enemy bandits, allowing you to concentrate on running the course.
Along with the challenges of running the endless path and fighting the skeletons, periodically you run into an impassable barricade. Here you must shoot any enemy troops that pop-up behind the barricade and toss dynamite at the barricade to clear the path. The problem is that it takes several dynamite tosses to blast the barricade and you have to fend off the enemy as the dynamite regenerates for additional throws.
In the end, success is measured by how many bandits you shoot down, how much gold you can collect and how far you can survive.
Wild West shoot-em-up with a twist
Run & Gun – Banditos is a fast paced, entertaining Windows 10 game to lose track of time with. The game sports colorful graphics and lively animations. Gameplay tests your skills at concentration and reflexes in more than one way and requires your undivided attention.
I liked the different gaming elements that come into play with Run & Gun – Banditos. You have the challenges of an endless runner game and that of a combat shooter. The difficulty level offers a nice balance that keeps you on your toes and offers an enjoyable, multi-tasking experience.
The collection of bandit characters offers a little depth and personalization to this Windows 10 game, and each delivers a unique personality. The breaks to deal with barricades offer a nice departure from the endless runner aspect, but by no means is this game a pushover. To breach the barricade, you are constantly shooting the enemy while seamlessly tossing dynamite. You need to develop a rhythm that keeps the skeletons at bay and the dynamite in play to find success in this segment of gameplay.
Endless runner games can be a wonderful way to pass the time, but the Windows Store is packed full of them. The multiple gameplay elements of Run & Gun help this Windows 10 game stand out from the crowd and makes it a game definitely worth trying. If you have given Run & Gun – Banditos a try, let us know what you think of things in the comments.
