Hands on with Gunbrella - Preview
Over the years I have had the pleasure of playing games that had me wielding sword that had guns in them, fists that had guns in them and countless cars with guns in them, but never an umbrella. That is the core concept behind Gunbrella, a game that Devolver Digital and developer Doinksoft were kind enough to let me spend some time in.
There is a bit of a story in the game, but in order to avoid any potential spoilers later on, I will give the basics, you are Murray and you are on a quest for revenge. The only clue you have is the Gunbrella that you found at the tragic scene, so with that little the quest begins to find the gunbrella’s previous owner.
What is a Gunbrella?
It is exactly what it sounds like, a gun and umbrella in one. Where the gun comes in is with shooting things - as normal, but the umbrella is the amazing aspect. The umbrella can be opened at anytime to protect you from the rain, no matter if that is water falling from the sky or a lot of bullets being shot at you. Given your quest for revenge, you will encounter far more of the second than you will the first.
The umbrella also lets you float and zip around the place, kind of like you are a murdering, revenge seeking Mary Poppins. The game lets you float down from high places, though I never encountered any fall damage without it. The more useful option is that you can open it when jumping and zip ahead in the direction you want, perfect for gaining extra height, jumping larger gaps and more.
So how does it play out?
The game behaves much like a twin-stick shooter, at least once you connect a controller. I played the demo last year with a mouse and keyboard, so when I jumped into the preview build this time, I figured it would work just as fine. For some reason though, once I jumped into the game and started to play, I honestly found the mouse and keyboard layout to be utterly confusing, the button placement was fine, but it was the mouse for aiming that annoyed me, so I connected a Xbox controller.
Once I had that connected, it became like a twin-stick, the left stick moved Murray and the right stick aimed the Gunbrella. Now you can do some aiming with the left stick, but as that is also move, it is usually only the up and down aspects that you can make use of. Shooting is done by pulling in the right trigger and at least in the build I played, there was no alt-fire mode. There are different ammo types though and you can swap through them with the d-pad, going up and down, the only catch is that you default ammo is unlimited, the rest you have to find or buy.
What about the world?
Well this is where things get interesting. Most of the world are towns, at least in the build I had access to and the few locations that are not towns are more like enemy hideouts. The first one belongs to a cult of evil folks called Cult-45 and there is a lot of hidden pathways, with switches located in bookshelves and such. Later on you can spend some time exploring the sewers beneath one of the larger towns and even venture out into the wilds and junkyards.
The towns have numerous folks to talk to, sometimes they are just there for a chat and other times they are ready to give you some helpful knowledge. There are vendors around the place as well, from Bill at Bill’s Pills to the traveling merchant, cooks and even a speakeasy barkeep.
On the enemy side of things, a lot of the world is full of animals, with a perilous mountain climb offering a lot of them, including some stupid birds. Enemies that you have to engage in combat with are not that common, until you enter a hideout of course, so its mostly just avoiding bad critters and deadly natural hazards. When you do enter bases, you will find a boss at the end awaiting you and I found the few I encountered in my time, to be quite challenging and at times frustrating.
So what is the verdict?
Well the game is not complete, so a lot can change, but I honestly enjoyed my time with the game. The controls to take some adjusting too, but once you get there, things just flow nice and smooth. Learning to juggle the combination of shooting, dodging and shielding, all while staying mobile is something that is worth the investment of time. That means that once you do the combat, which can be a challenge at times, provides the sweet reward of satisfaction once you take down a particularly irksome boss. Of course, I have only scratched the surface on the story and I must know how it ends, but so far things are moving in the right direction
Gunbrella is coming to PC and Switch later this year, but an exact release date is not yet known. What we do have is a nice new trailer to enjoy however.
