Minecraft meets early 90s retro FPS in Gunscape. Gunscape was originally released to PC, Xbox, and PS4 way back in 2016, but has only just been released to the Nintendo Switch as of February 1, 2023. Developed and published by Blowfish Studios, players can build and play their own maps with friends online or locally, and even play custom maps from abroad.

Gunscape features its own inbuilt campaign that spreads across 8 different levels. Like most 90s FPS games, it is a bit hard to follow what’s happening story-wise. There are multiple consoles that tell you what to do and give dialect on what’s happening, however, on the Switch, I found it super compact and very hard to read as the font was very blocky and blended together.

Apart from the developer campaign, you can also find creator campaigns. These campaigns are created by the player, for the player, and are often based on games like Goldeneye, Tomb Raider, and various other custom maps. Campaigns can be played solo or co-op with local multiplayer or online multiplayer.

Aside from playing campaigns, you can play the custom maps in a co-op mode or as PVP modes, such as Team Deathmatch and Capture the Flag. PVP can be done both locally or online as well, that is if you can navigate through the difficult menus and the lackluster online community. During my time with Gunscape I was only able to find 2 online games with the only players being the hosts, and trying to get into these matches on Switch was clunky. After attempting to connect at least 10 times I quickly gave up.

When mastering the stomping grounds in Gunscape, you will notice that the AI is a whole new kettle of fish. Sometimes they will aggro you from across the room, and other times they will watch as you slaughter their kin and do nothing as you obliterate the arena you are in. It is also notable that the AI doesn’t seem to take damage from environmental hazards such as lava. This imbalance can be extremely frustrating but also a blessing at times, and for a game that was originally released in 2016, I would have expected these issues to be resolved.

The tiles within the game have a huge expanse as well, with around 13 themes and a total of around 100 different tiles, making your own map to how you envision is possible. Within these 13 themes, you can also slap down various props, tools, weapons, and enemies. It’s hard to count how many weapons were in the game, but if I had to guess I’d have to say around 40 ranging from knives, rocket launchers, miniguns, and everything in between.

World-building felt smooth without any massive performance issues when building a massive area, however, when a lot of enemies were built up in one area and all shooting at the same time, the Switch struggled to output the required frames. While world-building, you had a hot bar that would hold around 8 tiles that you could swap as needed for quick building, and after being thrown into an empty void with only your imagination holding you back, creativity is the only barrier.

Visually, Gunscape is a journey to the 90s, with its retro-styled flair. It’s like a journey back to Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. Hard edges, clunky props, and low-pixel tiles will have the nostalgia train running through your mind. The HUD was easy to navigate and displayed all information needed, however, the main menus were a nightmare to navigate and often had double ups of sub-menus.

Simply put, the menus were overcomplicated for such a small device and they just didn’t need to be. Gunscape features an 8-bit styled electronic audio track, with songs that heavily represent some of the greatest shooters of our time, like the Halo theme. The only downside I found with the audio was that the commentator’s voice lines were over-saturated with effects, sounding flat and somewhat muddy.

Personally, unless the online community was thriving, I would give Gunscape a miss. The only real aspect of the game that stood out was the world-building, and the only real way to enjoy it to its full extent would be with friends. In saying that, the community-made campaigns and co-op worlds were a lot of fun, I actually found them more enjoyable than the official content.

Written by: Bigfoot