2013 best games

Gunslinger is praised for it's charming narrative story telling and fast paced and exhilarating arcade gunplay, which uses a combo multiplier system that is tied to upgrades. The gun mechanics and sound, as well as voice overs, are also quite good. The upgrade system is also pretty good and gives you 3 types of skills to choose from. What can make or break the Juarez games for some are the duels and boss fights. However the duels themselves are much more polished than in the first one now and look and feel more realistic.

Gunslinger also brings in an honorable or dishonorable option for duels, whereby if you succeed via reaction vs firing first, it's honorable as you're shooting in defense. It also awards more points. It can be hard on higher difficulty modes to win some duels honorably though, and slo mo dodging factors in. It gives you room for replay value to perfect such things though. It's a fairly short game and I didn't particularly care for the way the ending was done, but it's challenging and unique. Some duels are more than just one on one too. It can get kinda Good, Bad and Ugly if you know what I mean.

Gunslinger is the only title in the series that ushers in most of the famous outlaws of the old American West. This of course involves quite a fictitious story and scenarios to fit them all in fighting against the protagonist, but it's well done. Level design is also excellent, involving canyons, rivers, bridges, trains, small towns, mines, etc.

The duel mechanic in Gunslinger is quite complex, with many factors to consider.

1. You need to focus a slightly wandering reticule on the enemy. It narrows (indicating a more precise shot) the longer it lingers over his body, and vital areas yield more deadly results.

2. You need to focus placement of your also slightly wandering gun hand as close to the gun as possible, which yields quicker reaction time once you shoot.

3. You have until so many rings of a church bell before your opponent will draw. It's best to use most if not all of this time to get your aim and hand ready.

4. Some enemies will slowly walk back and forth a few steps, which makes it harder to keep the reticule focused.

5. Some duels involve not one but two enemies (though most are just one). This means you have to switch view back and forth between the two and keep an eye on both.

6. You can do the aforementioned slo mo dodge, but it's really a last resort to not having prepared well before shooting.

Riptide specifically is a sequel to Dead Island, which came out two years prior. If you've never played Dead Island, it's a virus type zombie game in a tropical setting that involves LOTS of weapons you can build from common items, so looting and inventory management are key features.

Dead Island involves lots of RPG features such as 3 distinct skill trees, and 4 distinct player types, which also tie into 4 player coop. Each player type is buffed for specific skills such as guns, swords, throwable knives, or melee clubs. There are other skills that go with those skills unique to each character.

Where Riptide differs from the original Dead Island is mainly the camp defense feature, and a slightly smaller map, most of which becomes flooded at one point, hence the name Riptide. There are lots of side quests, some of which help prepare squad skills and items for camp defense. The only way you could play with other characters in original Dead Island was via coop.

There's also a new zombie type that floats in the water appearing dead, until you get near it, and then they'll try to board your boat or get up and run at you if on land near shore. You CAN however use boost speed sparingly while in a boat to run them over before that happens, but you need to keep an eye on obstacles and the shoreline so as not to wreck.

Riptide retains some of the bugs and exploits Dead Island had, mostly inventory glitches that primarily appear during coop, but overall I felt it was a more polished game. To me the original was more scary, but it had some ridiculous places where the Infected (fast class of zombie), came in endless waves until you achieved certain objectives. They toned the Infected down to a more manageable level in Riptide.

The chaos in Riptide comes during camp raids, where you have mines, electric fences, turrets, etc you can use, but you also have to keep your squad from being overwhelmed.

The Dead Island games are a bit like Dying Light without the parkour.