By Quintin Smith on July 22nd, 2010 at 5:56 pm.
OMGesus! As of right now multiplayer shoot-athon Lead & Gold is undergoing one of Steam’s famous free weekends. Anyone who fancies a bit of cowboy gunfightin’ should (here we go) get downloadin’ right now, pardner!
If I’m honest, I never got on very well with Lead & Gold. The third person camera made me feel the absence a cover mechanic, the transparent spawning got on my nerves and I’d find matches often played out in an unsatisfying manner. But hey, that’s just me! And at this price it’s definitely worth a shot, so to speak.
22/07/2010 at 18:17 Jakkar says:
Curse you, Smintin Quith!
It’s not actually live yet – I’ve been waiting eagerly to try this out. Preload is active since yesterday, but you can’t play yet. Bloody timezones >.>
22/07/2010 at 18:17 Berzee says:
cowboys cowboys cowboys
I will make my judgment
22/07/2010 at 18:23 Eric says:
I enjoy Lead & Gold a lot. There are clunky bits, and the launch without dedicated servers was pretty awful (they have them now, though, and hopefully the free weekend will help cause a bump in the player base), but the game does some really neat things to encourage teamwork, and is generally executed very well.
Plus, Western. We can definitely use more of that, even (especially?) after Red Dead Redemption.
22/07/2010 at 18:26 Coded One says:
I bought L&G during the summer sale a few months ago. It’s an absolute blast once you get used to the thirdperson view. I’d love to see an increased playerbase.
23/07/2010 at 02:26 Jayt says:
The reason I stopped playing is no dedi servers and no one played. Would be stuck on servers with 400 ping, and the net code could not deal with that.
22/07/2010 at 18:31 RLacey says:
I bought this just before the sale (typical). At the current price it’s a mite more expensive than it was a couple of weeks ago, but it’s still well worth getting.
22/07/2010 at 18:47 Tei says:
Is a 3$ game.
The graphics are nice, but the crosshair is the size of texas.
22/07/2010 at 19:27 Lilliput King says:
I forget.
Is that big or small?
22/07/2010 at 19:43 Peter says:
Just looking at the steam gameplay video, it’s the former.
22/07/2010 at 20:00 Smiler says:
Haha Smog reference!
Good to see Quinns back too.
23/07/2010 at 19:52 captain fitz says:
That’s not the crosshair, that just the hip-firing/steering area. You have to zoom in to get a crosshair. It works well, believe me.
22/07/2010 at 18:47 Mr P says:
This is a fun game but the lack of voice chat really kills any chance of good team work. It is frustrating when you can’t tell a someone they’re about to walk into the same ambush that you just did.
22/07/2010 at 18:52 Schmitzkater says:
Although I’ll be enjoying the free weekend for this, whenever I usually need to get my fix of cowboy-ish action, Fistful of Frags delivers plentiful.
It’s a free Source mod, no longer in active development (I think), but with a small and pretty helpful community. And it’s a blast. ( http://www.fistful-of-frags.com/ )
22/07/2010 at 20:24 Schmitzkater says:
Being now theoretically able to play, I only find about a dozen or so servers, most of which habe a ping well above 200. Seems kind of odd, considering it’s a free weekend?
22/07/2010 at 20:40 Mana_Garmr says:
So has the free weekend actually started yet? I preloaded it when I first saw this article, but it still won’t let me launch the game. Right-clicking on it just gives me the option to purchase.
22/07/2010 at 21:49 Schmitzkater says:
Should you still not be able to start it, just restart Steam. That did it for me.
22/07/2010 at 20:51 CreepingDeath says:
I only got this game yesterday, but already I’m in love with it. I’m really hoping this free weekend helps the population of the game however, as right now it is pitifully small for anywhere other than the US.
What is it with amazing multiplayer-centric games that have piss poor population? First The Ship, now this.
22/07/2010 at 22:35 bit_crusherrr says:
I got this when it was £3.40 during the steam summer sale. Proper good game, just a shame there aint many players. And only a few dedicated servers.
22/07/2010 at 23:57 Heliocentric says:
Eh.. Its okay. Not really ‘good’ as much as suitable.
Third person really makes it hard to get a sense where fire is coming from too. At least with a nice sound setup (everyone should own an xfi) on an fps the sound gives you a direction, even a distance.
Liked the ‘not quite dead get back up’ thing where you can shoot with your pistol while on your last legs.
23/07/2010 at 14:40 Shadowcat says:
Does no one else find the instruction to “Blow up the objectives!” hilarious?
23/07/2010 at 15:33 Grey_Ghost says:
I really like this game, but it has such a painfully low player base.
23/07/2010 at 16:16 Burc says:
Yeah, totally agree with you Quinns.
Coming of from a renewed love-affair with tf2 the way they encourage teamwork seems incredibly ham-fisted. They seem to confuse teamwork with being close to one another, giving players huge bonuses from being close to one another.
If that was the case, soccer would be way more entertaining though…
23/07/2010 at 17:19 Kryopsis says:
You must not be a good team-player if you need to be encouraged by a special game mechanic.
23/07/2010 at 19:43 Chad Warden says:
This “game” is buggy as hell………messed up server window, disconnects all the time, graphic glitches, lags…..
And don’t get me started about the whole server thing.
23/07/2010 at 20:22 Flaringo says:
Does anyone else dislike the way the aiming “handles”? Something is a bit off about it. Some weird mouse acceleration or something.
25/07/2010 at 12:57 Bowlby says:
Downloaded this, and my first impression are pretty negative. First off, there appears to be very few people playing – on a free weekend, no less – and the servers that are operating don’t seem to be dedicated, with most of them having high pings associated.
Also, UI. The front end looks like it’s been designed by a development team aiming to get their game on XBL at some point. And then, when you actually find a game, your character takes up, what feels like, the entire left half of the screen.
Maybe I’m just more picky than I used to be, but these things were enough for me to click the Delete Local Content button. Maybe the actual game part, when you manage to get into one, ends up being pretty good. Can’t say I’m all that fussed about finding out, though.
26/07/2010 at 19:08 Alex says:
Wanted to like it, unplayable on my ATI mobility. Spent five minutes on the forums. Remembered what I hate about PC gaming and downloaded Alien Swarm instead. Good times…