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Gunbound

Gunbound, is a classic strategical turn-based game where players choose from 28 unique mobile artillery machines and shoot their way to victory.

Publisher: Softnyx
Playerbase: Shut Down
Type: Artillery Strategy
Release Date: March 28, 2007
Pros: +Lots of unique Mobiles. +Avatar customization. +Gameplay requires skill.
Cons: -Low playerbase. -Generic sound effects and average BGM. -Hackers with aim bots.

Overview

Gunbound Overview

Softnyx's Gunbound is an artillery strategy game where players take turns firing their Mobiles to destroy enemies. Each Mobile artillery machine, commonly called Bots, has three moves and a unique way of firing. Players must move, use items, aim, and fire to take advantage of terrain and weather in order to claim victory. Gunbound offers 28 different Bots, five modes, and in-depth avatar customization. Visit the Shop for items such as battle items, gear, and pets. Other features include a guild system, an enchant-jewel-level system, and custom-made game rooms. Cute 2D graphics with 3D maps bring to life the raging battles on Gunbound's planet of Lond.

Gunbound Key Features:

  • Factoring In Weather maps come with different weather factors that players must take into account when moving, aiming, and firing.
  • Character Customization equip your avatar with not just stat-boosting gear, but with cosmetic gear as well to set yourself apart.
  • Various Mobile Machines – choose from 28 Bots, each with their unique moves and ways of firing.
  • Five Different Game Modes – keep things entertaining by playing different modes, like Tag, where players have two Bots and can switch between them.
  • Create or Join a Guild play together with others in a guild to acquire points and rank.

Gunbound Screenshots

Gunbound Featured Video

Gunbound World Champions 2015

Full Review

Gunbound Review

I’ve been playing Gunbound for a long time on and off. It’s just one of those games that you can play for five to ten minutes a day and still have fun without a huge time commitment. The gameplay is fairly simple making it a good game to introduce to friends, so long as they don’t mind the cartoon-style graphic direction. For those of you that haven’t heard of Gunbound before now, it is a 2D tactical turn based shooting game that plays out much like the ”Worms” series of games. Players take turns blasting away at each other from across the map, having to calculate their shot’s angle to hit their target while also factoring in both the wind direction and strength. The game’s core gameplay is simple and fun, whichever person or team brings their opponent(s) hitpoints to zero first wins. Alternatively, players can also win by destroying the terrain underneath their enemies, causing them to fall off the map.

Woot! Variety!
One of the most important aspects of an MMO is whether or not its gameplay is varied enough to keep you hooked, and it is in this aspect that Gunbound truly shines. The game has 21 playable characters, or “Mobiles”; they are Armor, Mage, Nak, Lightning, JD, A.Sate, J.Frog, Kalsiddon, Trico, Bigfoot, Boomer, Ice, Turtle, Grub, Raon Launcher, Aduka, Maya, Wolf, Phoenix, Dragon, and Knight. Each mobile has its own strengths and weaknesses; the mobiles that do incredibly high damage like Kalsiddon and Boomer are usually incredibly difficult to aim while the ones that can destroy the terrain effectively tend to do less damage because they’re better at destroying the terrain underneath their opponents rather than trying to bring their health to zero. The last two mobiles, “Dragon” and “Knight” are the most powerful, but they can only be played if a player sets their mobile to random and gets lucky.

Gunbound has an incredible amount of variety, as if you ever get tired of playing a particular mobile you can try a quickly and easily different one. Each mobile is distinctly different, so gameplay is extremely varied depending on which mobile you decide to play as. Gunbound also has five different game modes which can be played to spice up the game, but the only one that’s really played is score mode which basically gives each team a set number of lives and whichever team runs out of lives first loses the match. You can play online with up to 8 people at once in team mode or solo matches. The game has a large selection of levels as well, so as long as can appreciate the game’s core gameplay, it’s hard to get tired of Gunbound.

Wait, there’s strategy too?
There’s a surprising amount of strategy involved in Gunbound because of the game’s unique delay system. It determines whose turn it is to shoot by whoever has the least delay. Every mobile’s attack has different delays, some higher than others and each mobile has three attack modes (1, 2, and special shot) that also have different delays. Attack mode 1 has the least delay while the special shot has the most. The attacks that tend to have more delay usually do more damage or have some other special property to them. If you’re playing against someone else that constantly uses attacks that higher delay than yours, you may end up shooting twice, or even three times in a row.

To further complicate the delay system, using items can also add significant delay to your attacks. Healing items and items like double shot are almost guaranteed to let your opponent have two turns. If your opponent is smart and they have two turns they could fire one at you regularly and on the second turn use a double shot to effectively fire at you three times. Gunbound’s delay system may sound complicated, but don’t let it prevent you from trying the game, because you can still have a lot of fun without even remotely understanding how delays work.

Avatars Galore!
In Gunbound, items that upgrade your attributes are called “avatars” and the game has an incredible selection of them. The gold you earn from doing well in matches can be spent on purchasing avatars to upgrade your character. There are literally hundreds of possible items to purchase in the avatar shop so you’ll never run out of things to buy. Not only does Gunbound have an incredible selection of items to purchase, but all the items are incredibly varied, and look great. The publisher also adds new items to the store regularly which is great, because most MMOs have a terrible selection of goodies to buy. Like all free MMOs, Gunbound has cash shop items that are incredibly overpowered, but they don’t ruin the game because players are free to play in “avatar off” channels which basically balances the playing field by disabling the attribute bonuses of items while in those channels. Avatars are still fun to buy because they look awesome and they up your stats when you play on the channels that allow them.

Not for everyone…
Gunbound isn’t a game for everyone. If you don’t like the turn based gameplay then you’re not going to like the game as a lot of people don’t like ‘waiting’ for their turn to play. The game also has a few drawbacks, but is mostly a well designed and maintained game. The publisher, Softnyx, has done a marvelous job keeping hacks out for the most part and keeping the game fresh with new items and events, but nothing is perfect, you may still find the occasional hacker trying to ruin the game. I remember when I first played Gunbound, the developers were publishing it and the game was absolutely ridden with hackers, so when I say IJJI has done a good job, I mean it. Gunbound used to be published by IJJI, but it’s now published by the developer – Softnyx. ijji publishes, Drift City, Luminary, Lunia, GunZ: The Duel, Soldier Front, Rohan Online, Alliance of Valiant arms and various other games. While ijji has long since shut down, Softnyx, continues to publish both Gunbound and Rakion.

Final Verdict: Great
Gunbound is one of the most unique MMOs available on the market, and is quite simply a lot of fun. Thanks to the large amount of variety it rarely gets stale, and as the game also has a solid publisher players can expect updates with new items and periodic events. The only real drawback to Gunbound is that it simply doesn’t appeal to everyone due to its slow turn based gameplay, but for those that enjoy the style, Gunbound is refreshing addition to an otherwise stale genre

Screenshots

Gunbound Screenshots

Videos

Gunbound Videos

Gunbound Trick Shots Tutorial

System Requirements

Gunbound System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows 98
CPU: PentiumIII 866MHz
Video Card: Any 3D-accelerated card
RAM: 128 MB
Hard Disk Space: 750MB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP
CPU: PentiumIV 1.2GHz
Video Card: Any 3D-accelerated card
RAM: 512 MB
Hard Disk Space: 1 GB

Music

Gunbound Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon...

Additional Info

Gunbound Additional Information

Developer: Softnyx
Publisher: Softnyx (International, Korea, NA), GOA (EU), HANGAME (JP)

Game Engine: C++

Initial Release Date: April 2003
European Release Date: March 28, 2007

Shut Down: July 30, 2019

Development History / Background:

Similar to Team17's Worms, Gunbound is an artillery strategy game developed by the South Korean gaming company Softnyx. Its original launch was in 2003, and since then, the game has seen three major releases. The North American server began with the publisher ijji, but it was shut down in 2009 and re-hosted by Softnyx for the NA region. The Softnyx website went into maintenance on October 30, 2019 and has never re-opened.