FragPunk Preview – The most stylish shooter in ages?

thesixthaxis.com:

Everything is so damn stylish these days. FragPunk, an upcoming free-to-play 5v5 shooter, is almost unerringly so, with blisteringly cool, hyper-stylised art direction, a card-based system that changes how you play each round, and smart and snappy gunplay with an array of weapons to choose from. Interestingly, there’s not only depth beneath that beautiful façade, but there’s also a sense of fun and humour that’s been lacking in our shooters for a long time.

Remember when arena deathmatch games took chances, or even poked fun at themselves a little? Cheat codes in GoldenEye, being turned into a monkey in TimeSplitters, it wasn’t all about K/D ratios and headshot accuracy. Surprisingly, FragPunk rejuvenates the arena shooter by not always taking itself so seriously, and it’s all the better for it.

I should explain the cards. Before the start of each round, you can power up and play a selection of cards from your deck. You earn the currency needed to power them up through playing well across each round, with each card providing boons, modifiers or new abilities with which you can then go and shoot the enemy team in an even more efficient or occasionally, outlandish way.

So there’s cards that will grant you a heal every time you knock an opposing player out, or ones that give you an overpowered shotgun called the Devil’s Breath. Others add in a wonderfully floaty double jump, bringing some height to your headshots, but the ones that stand out the most are what we would term, ‘the silly ones’.

These include, but aren’t limited to, a card that enables Big Head Mode, making it much easier to plant a bullet in an enemies’ noggin, or one that puts a cute and cuddly turtle on your back, protecting you from all incoming rear fire with their shell.
Because there’s new elements being introduced every round – each team can play up to three cards at a time – you have to alter how you’re going to approach the next encounter. Just because you feel empowered with your massive shotgun