Frag your enemies back to the stone age! Set in a world devastated by an unrelenting pandemic, Rekoil is a fast action and highly balanced arena shooter that allows players to frag each other to oblivion. With 7 different game modes, 10 maps and 40 different weapons, Rekoil is the action FPS refined to its purest form ensuring the fun is maximized and the best player with the greatest skills and most points wins. Whether you enjoy run and gun, or prefer a tactical setup, play the way you want to play...

With Activision/Infinity Ward dropping the ball... big time... with Call of Duty: Ghosts, there's a gap in the first person shooter (FPS) market that's there... waiting... ready for the taking. Sadly, Rekoil: Liberator won't be stealing that crown any time soon.

While it's an interesting FPS - the look and feel reminding me of Call of Duty 3, but set in the present day - it's a long way from becoming a classic. It's retro look and feel was quite refreshing for a while. Then the annoying bugs started to show their ugly heads.

On the plus side, the lack of perks, kill streaks etc., make this a more enjoyable gaming experience than we've come to expect from FPS games of recent years. This is more about skill and running around like a loon than it is about sitting in a corner waiting for your prey to run by.

The fact that everyone is at the same advantage at the start of every game is another huge plus point. There's no playing against others who have a higher rank, and therefore better weapons. In Rekoil: Liberator all of the guns are available to you from the very first game. All you have to do is select the class of weapon and then chose which firearm you want. The same goes for your sidearm; grenade; and tactical knife.

On the negative side, the lack of any sort of create a class segment (where you can create half a dozen classes to choose between during the game) is a bit of a nightmare. Should you realise you have totally the wrong class set up for the game you are playing, then you have to scroll through all of the options and make up a new class on the fly. And because each weapon handles so differently, it's probably a good idea to spend some time in the private game section just exploring all the weapon combinations to come up with a handful that work best for you.

Then there is that age old spawn issue. I played a game where one player just seemed to walk around the map mowing everyone down time and time again. And when I spawned, there they were, ready to shoot me full of lead once again.

The sensitivity was also a little odd. I turned it down to the minimum setting and still the cross hairs were too sensitive to quickly aim at the enemy. But if you stand still for too long you'll be dead in seconds.

While you could argue that £12 isn't a lot to pay for a game... it is, when you consider that the second people get bored of this you'll have a job playing it at all (unless you want to play either offline against your friends, or online with friends that also own a copy).

For those wanting a cheap FPS that takes a giant leap backwards to a time when it was all about skill, not ranking up and getting better firepower than your opponents, then Rekoil: Liberator will offer a momentary diversion.

5

Nick Smithson