At Sundown: Shots In The Dark Review

At Sundown: Shots in the Dark is a blast! The new indie title for the Nintendo Switch takes everything that rocks about multiplayer shooter games and takes it to a new level of fun. You’ll be able to play both competitive and co-op against the AI to battle it out across several different levels. With an online option you’ll never run out of opponents.

The game starts with four playable characters, two male (Dusk & Midnight) and two female (Dawn & Eve). There are three modes of play—local, online and training. Training is really a single player experience and is absolutely loaded with content, achievements and plenty of target practice. Local and online are exactly what one would expect. Each has several arenas in which to battle (a garden, a mansion, a factory and so on). They look nice and are well rendered, with an almost retro quality to them.

Most of the graphics look good and certainly fit in the “modern retro” style. They’re fun to look at and add a nostalgic element to the game. Graphically, the game is on par with similar independent titles—good, but not quite visually stunning. They have a nice western, almost steampunk flavor to them and the designs are just plain cool. The characters are certainly unique, so players will want to try a few rounds with each to get the full effect.

My recommendation is to try the training mode prior to playing the game. Not only are the various challenges fun, but they provide the vital function of teaching the controls and getting the player comfortable with the challenges they’ll be facing in the main game itself. There are some additional challenges to overcome within the training mode that offer bronze, silver or gold awards depending on how quickly you complete them. They’re fun and offer a nice detour from the main game, which is itself a free-for-all battle along vastly different locales.

Controls are pretty intuitive. Since this is less a run-and-gun game and more snipe-your-opponents-and-avoid-obstacles affair, the controls have the potential to make or break the gameplay. Luckily, there aren’t any issues here, with easy to learn moves that make navigating each arena simple. There are areas of shadow or darkness in which the players can hide, giving them an advantage on their attacks. The variety of weapons is fun and make for some interesting attacks against your opponent.

I enjoyed the audio quite a bit. It has just enough western flavor to invoke memories of Gun.Smoke or Bonanza with just enough modern sensibility to make it unique. It a great soundtrack to blast your buddies to, that’s for sure.

The game was quite enjoyable and provides quick action after the loading screen ends. It’s a great value and a worthy addition to any Nintendo Switch library, especially for fans of the wild west, multiplayer and shooters.

David Buck

Based in Colorado, David Buck is an author, musician, and media specialist. In his spare time, he composes music, writes science fiction, and builds scale models, mostly starships and movie cars.