Recent reviews by Lein

As the years ago by, I think I come to despise the phrase, "replay value" more and more. I'll put hundreds or even thousands of hours into a game and know many other people that have as well, yet see people give the game in question reviews saying it has little-to-no "replay value". I've seen this with several games, including this one. What they really mean to say is that the game just wasn't for them beyond a few hours or one of the game modes—which is fine, but that's what it is.

Though, perhaps I got lucky; I went into this game with almost no expectations. I decided to play it one night just for the heck of it and didn't expect much of it one way or another. I found it fun, so the next night I decided to go back, and did so until eventually I got a hundred hours in, then several hundred. I didn't intend to stick with this game long at all when I first played it, and I didn't have any particular expectations to fall into disappointment from.

I had a friend who decided to play through it with me on PC when I first started. We played together nearly everyday for about a month to unlock all of the Colosseum capes, so most of my time playing was playing co-op instead of solo, and I think that's a huge reason for why I ended up breaking through that initial 10-30 hour barrier that a lot of people don't make it past.

If you're going to get into this game, I'd suggest playing with others—either a friend or others from the game.

There are three different modes in this game: Campaign, Colosseum, and Endless.

• Campaign - Traditional linear gameplay: complete levels, defeat bosses, etc. This is a great mode for learning the basics of the game (or a character) and collecting money to spend on upgrades. You could knock this out in an afternoon or two.

• Colosseum - Fight 6 waves of enemies in a small arena. The levels change each day (cycling between 18 levels), and have a special aspect to them (tornadoes flying around or acid on the floor, etc.). Each Colosseum rewards you with a cape and 10,000 gold for the character you played as. You can only unlock the cape once, but the gold reward can be obtained once a day.

• Endless - This is where the difficulty eventually ramps up a great degree. The levels in Endless mode get to be much harder than what you'll find in Campaign or Colosseum. You'll work up to fighting huge hoards of enemies and even multiple mini-bosses at a time. This is where most of your time into the game will probably go if you stick around. The people with reviews that say, "This game only has 5 hours of gameplay to it" have more than likely not played Endless.

For as much as I get asked about Gauntlet, the thing I might get asked the most about is the community and active player base.

• "Do people still play?" - Yes, there are plenty of active players, though the community is quite small. Almost every regularly active player here probably either knows each other or is at least familiar with their name (at least in Endless mode), with a few newer or infrequent players sprinkled in here and there.

• "Is it a nice/friendly community?" - As with any game where the player base is made up of human beings, you're obviously going to get some good and at least a few bad, but for the most part, yes, it tends to be a friendly community.

I suppose there's a few more things worth noting for those who may be interested:

• There are no more updates for the game
  
• No mods
  
• Only one DLC pack (5th character)
  
• High skill ceiling (for those that wish to take advantage of it)

Other than that, I'd say maybe do some basic research like watching a few videos if you're still unsure, and get a general feel of the game you'd be getting. I'll leave the comment section open for any questions.