Have you ever wondered if it’s true there’s a place in a person’s head, that if you shoot it, it will explode? Yeah, it’s true — at least in Ready Steady Bang. That’s okay, though, because the design and pixel animations in Ready Steady Bang are more slapstick than serious. A true test of reflexes, you’ll be called on to take out pint-sized outlaws or pitted against your friends to find out who’s the fastest gun in the West.
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Quick Draw McBang
There are two play modes in Ready Steady Bang: 1 player and 2 player. If you’re on your own, choose the 1 player option. Select an outlaw to square off against and tap Play. You’ll notice that an outlaw’s average speed is displayed below his name, and only the slowest cowpokes will be unlocked to start. To get to Texas Slaughter or Aberdeen Bangus, you’re going to have to prove you’ve got the moves to beat these gauchos.
Choose an opponent in 1 player mode or how many kills in 2 player mode.
Probably best to start with someone like ol’ Arthur Rightus, then. Once you’ve chosen your opponent and you’re face to face, and we’ll say you’re at the O.K. Corral because that’s way more awesome than the “Shootout at the Blank White Screen,” you just have to tap Start to kick this thing off.
That’s when things get real, and the little man inside your phone says, “Ready … steady … BANG!” You and Arthur or whomever else you’re up against draw your six-shooters (you’ll do it by tapping on the screen, Arthur does it by magic, I think), and the quickest draw wins. The slower of you — hopefully the other guy — falls over in an amusing death animation. Be careful, though, because if you shoot of your pistol before it’s time, you’ll be out of bullets for the round.
Hopefully, you’re faster than that dirty dog outlaw.
The quickest to five kills wins, and if you do well enough, you just might score a reward — a special item from your opponent, like a pistol or some moonshine. If you lose, the bad guy doesn’t really get anything from you, which I guess isn’t fair to the outlaw, but he will dance around in front of your dead body and lay what looks to be a boot at your incredibly makeshift and more or less unmarked grave.
Wait for the BANG! and then get him!
The 2-player mode works pretty much the same as 1 player, except there’s two people playing and no outlaw to steal from once he’s dead. You and your friend both tap Start and wait for the BANG! to signal it’s shootin’ time. The first to tap the screen kills the other, and the first to 5 kills wins, but you can also play to just 1 or 3 if it’s super awkward to find out how much faster your mom’s reaction time is than yours and you want to minimize the embarrassment. Or, you know, if that experience doesn’t apply to you at all, you can just choose a shorter game or whatever.
Just You and Your Peashooter
Let’s talk about how nice this game looks. It’s white with a bit of black and some gray here and there. It’s out the other side of minimalism, and that works for this sort of game. You’re going to want to focus on the somewhat cute, somewhat creepy voice calling out, “Bang!” at irregular intervals, not on flashy animations or colorful backgrounds. On the occasions I played Ready Steady Bang on silent, I had to be on the lookout for the alert letting me know it was time to shoot, and I didn’t want any distractions.
The Kill Gallery keeps track of all the animations you’ve unlocked.
What animations there are though, are certainly entertaining. Perhaps even better than capturing the prize from each outlaw in 1-player mode is unlocking all the different sorts of deaths. Once you’ve gotten a new death animation, it becomes available in the Kill Gallery. Tap the little man in the gallery as if to shoot and view the animation. But take heart, he can be saved; tap again, and it’s as if the bullet is returning to your pistol, everything moves in reverse, and that buckaroo is back on his feet, right as rain.
A No-Holds-Barred Thrill Ride
If you want edge-of-your-seat action, look no further than Ready Steady Bang. Fight cowboys, take their stuff and see if you’re the quickest draw in the West. And it’s just a lot of fun to look at, too. The kill animations are fairly well jumbled up, so you get a good mix and they won’t be too repetitive. It’s really satisfying to unlock a new kill animation in the gallery, too.
The difficulty level ramps up pretty quickly, so if you’re having an easy time with Arthur Rightus, you might not have as much luck with Chaps Middlegun, making the game challenging enough to stay fun for the long term. And while Ready Steady Bang does fall into the shooter genre of games, it’s incredibly cartoonish and really a test of reflexes set against the backdrop of 1960s Western movies. I was repeatedly sucked into Ready Steady Bang, not just to beat the outlaws but to beat my previous time, too, and to spend a while gawking at this comically sinister, and just a bit morbid, game.