Gang Garrison Two, Freeware Game of The Day

I’m sure every gamer today has either has, heard, or played Team Fortress 2. So I’m sure most of you became interested at the thought of a free online multiplayer game that attempts to take the fun of Team Fortress 2 and put it into a silly little 8-bit experience.

Gang Garrison 2 was a game created for a “demake” competition at TIGSource.com. Sadly, it did not win, but grew so popular that the creators decided to make it into a full-fledged game, with the Gang Garrison 2 community providing major help with programming and graphics. Version 2.1 was released on May 3, 2009, with Version 2.2 out to release soon.

If you’ve ever played LieroX or Soldat, Gang Garrison 2 is similar to them except, like Team Fortress 2, has an emphasis on teamwork. Players choose a team and a class with their unique abilities. There is the quick and nimble Runner, the masked madman that sets enemies ablaze Firebug, the rocket launcher-wielding Rocket Man, the slow but heavy-hitting Overweight, the explosive master Detonator, the self-explanatory Healer, the sentry buildin’ Constructor, the sneaky Infiltrator and the sniping Rifleman. Most classes usually only have one weapon and a special move activated by right clicking, which may disappoint some players but on the forums the team says that v2.2 will have secondary weapons, so don’t give up hope yet.

The goal of the game is simple: work together to capture the intelligence or capture the point. How you can help your teammates can vary from covering for your teammates to healing your teammates as Healer. But although communication is necessary for proper teamwork, there is no regular text-based chat (will be in v2.2) and instead you must rely on emote-based chat. It gets easier after a while, however you still would much rather have text-based. I must admit though, they should keep the emote-based chat just because I can’t help but be amused after someone hits the key for :awesome: smiley, giving emotion to characters that have no emotion otherwise.

The graphics and music are really where the game shines. You can see how much love was put into each of the 8-bit rendition’s animations. They’re incredibly stylish and just plain awesome. The music is fantastic too. Who doesn’t like an 8-bit version of Team Fortress 2’s theme song? And surprisingly, even after you’ve heard in-game song over and over again it doesn’t get annoying.

Overall, it’s worth the download. It may not be as addicting as TF2, but if you have a couple minutes to blow you’ll have a great time.

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