Gunpoint review: Indie film noir espionage

Gunpoint is the perfect game at the perfect time. At the same moment the industry is heavily promoting console innovation with aurally destructive stage demos, this indie game from reporter Tom Francis and a ragtag crew of volunteers offers a simplistic and quiet respite: an outstanding puzzle game with sharp writing, beautiful music and clever mechanics. As freelance spy-type Richard Conway, players work to investigate a murder - in which he is inadvertently involved - using handy spy skills like long distance leaping and scaling walls.

​Gunpoint oozes creativity, leveraging a simple primary mechanic that is paramount to both completing missions and taking out adversaries. Called "Crosslink," it allows players to view how electricity flows throughout buildings and rewire circuits to Conway's advantage. You can, for example, disconnect the link from a light switch and connect it to a door, making it easy to swing it into an unsuspecting guard's face as he walks by. Endgame puzzles require you to juggle a number of different Crosslink set-ups, triggering an object in one area to give Conway an opening to progress somewhere else. What makes the simple system work is that there are very few limitations - so long as you link the correct colored circuits.

Conway's goals change between missions. One may find him breaking into a building to extract information from secure computer terminals. Another sees him stealing a piece of top secret equipment. Ultimately the goal is an excuse, there only to offer a different way to use Conway's skills and provide a new challenge.

Gallery: Gunpoint (PC)

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Gunpoint review: Indie film noir espionage originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 26 Jun 2013 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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