The fine folks at Lucky Frame are at it again, this time with an iPad-only multiplayer dueling game, Gentlemen!. It’s a bit of a departure for the team that brought us music-based games like Pugs Love Beatz, Bad Hotel, and Wave Trip, but it’s intriguing nonetheless.
Category: iOS Games
Compatible With: iPad
Price: $4.99
The titular gentlemen are assigned, red and blue, one to a side of the iPad. You and your local opponent must move the little Victorian-styled gents left and right across various platforms, wielding knives, bombs, bundles of dynamite, electricity, and (obviously) homing pigeons that explode upon impact. Oh, and you can change gravity on your little fellow to move him about, instead of jumping.
Occasionally a weapon-switching icon will appear on the screen, a tap on which will switch out your opponent’s current weapon as well as your own. To wit, chaotic running about ensues, with each player trying to best eviscerate, electrocute, or explode the other. Each round will have a certain number of kills to rack up, and the winner is shown smilingly triumphant, the jerk, while the loser is illustrated as properly trounced.
Oh, and you can change gravity on your little fellow to move him about, instead of jumping.
There are three modes, all focused on dueling, including a Diamond Duel, which adds collecting diamonds as a secondary set of win conditions, a Chase mode in which only one player has any weapons at a time, and the regular Duel mode as above. Each subtle difference adds a bit of a switch in the strategic thinking required, perhaps not enough.
The music is appropriately fun and bouncy, and the visuals are cute paper-cutouts painted with complementary colors. In my short play through with my ten-year-old, I found the game to be chaotic and fun, though his faster twitch reflexes definitely won the day more times than not. I was thoroughly trounced most of the time, but had fun getting there.
The controls are definitely virtual, which makes them easily missed when precision is needed. Ultimately, the nature of the game experience is like that of a mini-game; even with the three different modes, it’s still all about quick, chaotic play sessions that don’t lend themselves to extended play. We got through a bunch of duels in each mode in about 30 minutes and then we were done.
 Game Name: : Gentlemen! The Good: Whimsical chaos at its best, Gentlemen! provides a ton of fun for two players at the same time. The Bad: Local-only multiplayer may limit the audience, or at least how often it gets played. Price is steep. The Verdict Overall, Gentlemen! is a fine game from a respected studio, but it almost has a mini-game feel, rather than a fully fleshed out game. Buy from: App Store |
