Welcome to our review of Red Hot Ricochet, a simple multiplayer game out now on Switch.
Before we get to the actual review, a small warning as this game has no single player mode. I had to use my pro controller just to get the menu to work as handheld refused all service for me. This game itself is all about ricochets.
It’s high noon in this barren wasteland, and only one of you is making it out alive. Sure, you could try and shoot them right between the eyes – but where’s the fun in that? Red Hot Ricochet is an intense game of ricochet duels, and you’ll need wise shooting, lucky bounces, and a bit of triggernometry to win.
Each player is armed with a gun that shoots bouncing bullets, allowing you to ricochet your shots based on your ammo count. You’ll use the rocks around you both as cover and a way to hit your opponents where they least expect it. When you’re not giving your enemies a lethal dose of lead, you can also use your bullets to grab powerups, revive dead allies, or gain a burst of speed. Use your ammo wisely, or you’ll end up shooting yourself in the foot (literally).
You can’t all make it out of this desert alive, so make sure the bullets bounce your way. Find the best rocks, envision the tastiest angles, and pull the fastest trigger – or someone else will.
Aside from my initial issue with not getting things to work, this game is actually both fun and frustrating. The premise of the game it to basically kill the enemies on screen and as it is a multiplayer game, you can get ambushed pretty easily by the ricochets of every shot on the playfield.
I did feel that accidentally killing yourself was most frustrating at the beginning. It was clearly intended that way and I can see the appeal of that decision. But at the same time, your opponents have this problem too. So you might be down on your luck or out of bullets waiting for them to recharge and suddenly, you still win the round. Your opponent was careless and offed himself. This happened during my gameplay with my wife who almost rage quit because of this. A very fun moment to see her care so much about a game she called stupid in the beginning.
Once it happened to me, she started laughing. She called me stupid for getting myself killed and it dawned upon us that this was actually a great multi player game, possibly one of the more fun yet frustrating I have played in a while. I only played with my wife so far and I look forward to playing with like 6 players one day, it has to be hectic and way too much, but I just can not imagine it is going to be anything but fun.
In conclusion, Red Hot Ricochet caught me by surprise! The promotion video failed to capture how fun this game really is. Once you stop getting frustrated when you kill yourself another time, this game becomes a gem. For my rating however, I am sticking to a mere 70% as the issues I encountered, they set my initial impression and I was never able to shake the impression that this game needs a single player campaign…
Tested on Nintendo Switch
