Gauntlet (PC)

1985 saw the release of the hack-and-slash dungeon crawler Gauntlet, whose innovative 4-player co-op gameplay and voice-recorded narration fascinated arcade gamers all over the world. Since then, the series has lost none of its charm, and titles like Gauntlet Legends and Gauntlet Dark Legacy were hits in their own right. Now Swedish developers Arrowhead (Magicka, The Showdown Effect) are hoping to awaken the spirit of the original Gauntlet with their reboot and revive its classic appeal for a new generation of gamers. Read our test review to find out how they’ve done.

Four heroes on a quest

First things first – Gauntlet purists, you can breathe easy. The 2014 version of the game remains true to the original concept – a simple hack-and-slash adventure. While Gauntlet veterans will feel right at home with the reboot, it’s also totally accessible to newcomers to the series. At the beginning of the game, your party (which consists of Questor the Elf, Thyra the Valkyrie, Thor the Warrior, and Merlin the Wizard) is taken deep into the nether regions. During the journey, you are introduced to the gameplay style of each character. The simple controls are reminiscent of the glory days of the arcade, and are easy to understand even if you’re never played before. You use the mouse for primary and secondary attacks, and the spacebar and shift keys for special attacks. After using each character to defeat hordes of attacking zombies, you’re allowed to choose the character that works best for you. 

For players who prefer to jump right into the fray, Thor the Warrior is a good choice. He rushes like a bull into the mob of enemies, dealing deft blows with his battleaxe to split enemies in two, or using a whirlwind attack to make any foe in his immediate vicinity shorter by a head. The Valkyrie Thyra plays a lot like Thor on the offensive, but her focus is more on speed and defense. She starts with a normal sword attack as well as spear for fast attacks, or she throws her mighty shield into the enemy masses as a sort of deadly boomerang. She can also use her shield to defend against enemy attacks.

Players who prefer to fight from a distance will be more comfortable with Questor the Elf or Merlin the Wizard. Questor flits about the screen raining arrows on his enemies and uses bombs to clear large areas. If he’s hard pressed by enemy attacks, he can use a skillful roll to get out of the way. Magic fans can choose Merlin, who has the most complex controls of all the characters. By combining different elemental attacks you can hurl blizzards, fireballs, and lightning bolts at your enemies. In the course of the game you’ll be able to upgrade your character’s abilities – for example, Questor can learn to fire his bombs like arrows, or Thyra can learn to use her shield to deflect fireballs right back at her foes.

On a quest for food

Once you’ve chosen your character, they throw you right in at the deep end; that is, into the first of a total of 36 dungeons. Don’t play this game expecting there to be much of a plot – anyone who knows the Gauntlet series knows that it’s all about slaying monsters. Most of your time will be spent following your character from a top-down perspective as they run through dark, labyrinthine passages hacking their way through hordes of enemies including zombies, orcs, and demons. Along your way you’ll have to evade deadly traps and solve puzzles, most of which involve finding a key, in order to make it through the next gate on your way towards the exit. Throughout it all, you’ll smash crates and pots, loot treasure chests (which are generously distributed), and use explosive barrels to blow open a secret room or two behind a suspicious-looking wall. At the end of each chapter is a boss battle which will require not just the usual hack-and-slash approach, but a little bit of tactical finesse as well.

Death is a constant companion of your hero during their journey. The AI of individual enemies is not especially challenging, but in larges groups things can get pretty dicey. If you don’t want your health to run out, you’re going to have keep an eye out for food – wolf down a drumstick or two, and you’re once again fit for battle. Another way to cheat death is by killing enemies – the more monsters you slay, the fuller the red bar at the top right of the screen gets. Filling the bar will get you a coin, which you can use to reenter the dungeon after you get killed.

Alongside the standard hack-and-slash fare are individual RPG elements that add a bit of depth to the gameplay. You can use the gold you collect in the dungeons to purchase additional gear – and not just better armor and weapons, but also “relics” like the Ice Ring and the Chaos Amulet, which give you an edge in combat, especially against more powerful boss enemies. Relics allow you to freeze the hell-fiends in their tracks, immolate large numbers at once, or even use a whirlwind to send them flying through the air. However, since you can only carry two relics at a time, they’re of somewhat limited use.

It’s better with friends

The Gauntlet series has always been known for its warped sense of humor. The game does not take itself seriously, and often pokes fun at the genre via gloriously absurd on-screen text and cynical comments from the heroes themselves. It manages to create a style all its own with the interplay between snappy wit and the all-around dark design of the dungeons and grim background music. The settings – misty temples, bleak underworld passages, or catacombs flooded with lava – are full of variety, but often come off as too linear, and only seldom do they invite players to really explore. Aside from eliminating enemies, you spend most of your time scrounging for food, treasure chests, or keys so that you can move on to the next dungeon. This puts significant limits on the presumed desire of players to spend hours exploring the planes of the netherworld.

The top-down perspective provides a good overview of your team of heroes, who are marked with different colors. However, it’s not always easy to identify your character, due to the distance of the camera from the action, and the often chaotic nature of combat in the game.

The graphics in Gauntlet really make a solid impression. True, in terms of level of detail and texture quality, it can’t exactly stand up against current high-end games, but the action does run very smoothly. The whole screen might be filled with winged demon warriors being sent back to hell by your heroes with glowing fireballs, dazzling explosions, and bloody spear attacks, but the frame rate does not falter. Even during multiplayer sessions, you can count on consistently smooth gameplay, whether you’re playing online or on a local network.

And speaking of multiplayer, this has really been the heart and soul of the Gauntlet games since the beginning, with a pace and a dynamic peculiar to the series.  To that effect, it should be preferred to the single-player mode, which quickly loses its entertainment value. It’s not until several players get together to wander the infernal regions, snatching food and treasure chests from under each other’s noses, that the real fun begins. You can either go into battle with your friends (via LAN or online with voice chat), or start a quick game in online mode to join a party of up to four players. Unfortunately, there’s no way for players to join a game already in progress, and for a game so heavy on arcade-style action, it’s hard to understand why. If you go into battle with three heroes, you have to wait until you reach the exit before a fourth player can join the action.