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Name: Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West

With the recent resurgence of the Wild West genre, Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West is staking its claim on the gold with its multiplayer only offerings, allowing gunslingers around the globe to put on their cowboy boots and strut their stuff.

This multiplayer only shooter places two groups of five against each other in a number of different game-modes such as Team Deathmatch (known as Shootout), Capture the Flag, and Conquest. There are eight different modes in total, one of which is a practice mode which is where you'll start your Wild West routes. Each of these varies somewhat from their original incarnation, such as Robbery, which comes hot off the heels of Capture the Flag. In Robbery your team is tasked with liberating a bank of its three bags of gold while the other team attempts to thwart your efforts. The action is fast paced, and it can be a barrel of fun when teams work together.

Each five man group is split into four different classes, dependant on which ever you feel suits your play style, each class has its own unique gun, pistol, and special ability with a cooldown timer, 'The Blaster' for instance is the class you'll want to choose if you fancy your chances with a double-barrelled shotgun and sticks of dynamite, this class is for a defensive play style, while 'The Deputy' is your attack and assault class, he wields an automatic carbine capable of dealing fast and furious amounts of damage and has the ability to tag enemies for fellow teammates to see. The different classes are tailored to suit a players needs and that of the map, so you'll often find the damage dealing classes used more in the Team Deathmatch modes than you would in one of the objective based game modes for instance.

All the classes come with unlimited ammunition, making the gun-slinging life much simpler, the only thing you really need to worry about is your aim, your reload speed, and where the enemy is. When you hit an opponent you'll see a number above their head showing the damage they took from your attack, dealing enough damage will knock them to the ground where they'll pull out their pistol in a last ditch effort to take you down. During this period they can be brought back to their feet if a teammate revives them. If however you deal enough damage on your initial attack, such as a headshot with 'The Trapper's' scoped hunting rifle, then you'll get an instant kill.

Within each of the matches you'll gain experience points for completing objectives and killing enemies, these experience points accumulate into ranks which unfortunately are only tracked within that particular match, so nothing is persistent, each battle is a stand-alone affair. Gaining ranks rewards players with more powerful synergy effects, these synergy effects radiate around the player giving buffs to teammates in the form of additional damage, armour, accuracy, and improved critical hits, each class has only one of the prior mentioned buffs specific to their class, they aren't however stackable, so you can have all four synergies on your one character, that is if your teammates stick around long enough, but you can't have two of the same, making it more powerful.

There are a number of maps available to play on, each varies the Wild West theme somewhat, from wagon camps, to mines, and homesteads, and each can be used for a number of different game modes. Given that the game only supports ten players per-match the design of the maps keeps the action thick and fast and the re-spawns don't take too long, or place you too far away so that you can't jump straight back in to the action. Certain parts of the environments are destructible in the Powder Keg and Demolition game modes which have you blowing up objectives such as bridges, doors, and sheds, they make for some fun situations, especially if you have a team of players all working together for the greater good. The locations are bright and vibrant in appearance and the character models are smooth and sharp throughout.

As with any competitive online multiplayer game, teamwork is key, and it becomes all too apparent in Lead and Gold. Having a well balanced team can make the difference between winning and losing specific objectives, the game however is lacking on the communication front without support for voice chat. Not a huge issue if you're playing with friends that all use other such programs like Steam, TeamSpeak, or Ventrilo, but when you're playing with random people from across the globe, it's difficult to form a strategy without being able to communicate effectively. You can speak via the in game text chat, but it really isn't a substitute for good voice communication, especially since you can't type and fight at the same time, that is unless you're a gaming Octopus.

Lead and Gold: Gangs of the Wild West is an enjoyable game then, it offers a fast action shooter experience where it really is the fastest shooter in the Wild West that wins. Each of the game modes and maps provide enough variety to keep things interesting, including its own survival mode against the AI, should you feel the need to take on countless bandits. There is the odd issue here and there, intermittent lag on some servers, but dedicated server support is being implemented shortly to hopefully fix this. Sometimes it can also take a while to find a game, but for the small price of £9.99/$14.99 it is a reasonably priced action game any shooter fan or cowboy wannabe can enjoy.