Smith And Winston ''Hands On''

The best falling Tree mechanic ever!!

Today I am here to talk about my time with a superb Voxel based Twin-stick shooter, called Smith and Winston.

Now being ‘’up in the know’’ I was aware of what Voxels are…. mostly because I had spotted a tweet by another indie developer talking about it, a week earlier. But nether less, at least I had some idea of what this cube based format was. So what is a ‘’Voxel’’, well, its short for volume pixel. Think of it as a tiny, tiny cube that can be messed about with.

This is not, and I repeat not, to be confused with the Minecraft style of blocks. Voxel is very Different.

Anyway, back to the game and the developers tout this to be a twin stick shooter that has ‘’explosive combat with a Metroidvania style exploration’’ combined with ‘’total level destruction’’.

And this is exactly what this game is. However, for me, it’s the unique colourful Voxel style that really sets the game apart. Something about seeing all those small colourful little cubes blasted into pieces and bouncing around the place, just makes me smile.

From the moment I sat down to play this game, the lovely dev’s proudly stated ‘’we have the best falling Tree mechanic ever’''.

Well that’s like a red flag to a bull, and I promptly went around destroying every tree I could see… and boy was it glorious. Playing this was like being a child again, as huge amounts of enjoyment oozed out of my every pour. The fun factor is through the roof, and I could easily see this game being a perfect parent / child co-op experience.

Right from the get go, you have the ability to destroy almost everything you see, including floors/trees and walls. This is enormously fun and allows for a lot freedom in discovering your own path to get to hidden areas.

Just because this game looks cute, don’t be fooled into thinking this is easy, as the games enemies will follow you and kill you if you don't take them out fast. I found destroying these almost as glorious as I did destroying the scenery, as they often die leaving behind a blocky bloody corpse for you to woo over.

The visual style of the game is bright, bold and everything I want in a twin stick shooter to be. From the moody haze of the bottomless drops to the lovely designed character models. Everything here has been hand created with love, and it shows.

The control system is smooth and intuitive, at least it was when I was using the controller, and the little touches like switching your view on the fly are second nature. Targeting your enemies was quick, and if you are a seasoned twin stick shooter fan, nothing in the control system will surprise you.

I managed to find at least 4 Weapons in the demo I was playing, with each being very different from the other. Some are slow and wide spread and other are almost machine gun like. Either way, the developers have ensured that each new weapon you collect is fresh and fun.

Smith and Winston is currently in Early Access on Steam right now and has taken up 5 years of the developers time, to get it this far. A update has just been released and the developers have confirmed they are looking into pushing to other platforms, once they are happy the game is exactly how they want it.

To be honest, why are you still here and not downloading this game right now.. go...go now!!

For more information see :- http://smithandwinston.com