This Week's Waste of Time
A browser game to cure the Thursday rages
By James Renovitch, 2:26PM, Thu. Feb. 3, 2011
An apology might be in order, but This Week's Waste of Time is for those – hopefully rare – days at the office when you just need to shoot someone in the face. Luckily for your coworkers and psyche, there is an online outlet for such impulses, GunBlood.
Sure, there's gratuitous and gruesome violence, but what do you want from a game that attempts to approximate a pistol duel? The controls are respectable, using the mouse as your cross hairs players must put their "gun" in their "holster" (i.e., put your mouse on the bottom left of the screen). On the count of three you have to aim and fire before your computerized opponent splatters your gray matter all over the ground.
The biggest flaw in the game is the lack of two-player, online play. I'm sure there are hurdles to such a fast-paced game being played over the Internet, but the inclusion of a useless "Group Setup" is a tease.
There's nothing arty about it; no brilliant design lying underneath the bloodied exterior. Just a quick fix for days of rage. Couldn't we all you a little more well-placed rage?
Probably not, but here's GunBlood anyway.
A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.