Ready Steady Bang is a positively charming one-touch western game made by a London design firm called Chambers Judd. The game is a dead-simple test of speed, pitting you in a series of old-timey shootouts with AI-controlled enemies, or against a friend in local multiplayer.
Gameplay
In single-player mode, Ready Steady Bang takes you through a series of 10 hardened country-folk, each with increasing difficulty. A countdown is issued from a squeaky-voiced announcer: "Ready.... Steady... Bang!" at which point you need to tap the screen before your opponent. Don't tap too early, or you'll miss and be at the mercy of your foe. The final "bang" is delayed by a varying amount, which can create some real classic western suspense and adds a vital amount of replayability. The loser keels over and dies in one of 31 adorable animations, while the winner does a victory dance after winning 5 matches.
You're ranked out of three stars depending on how well you do against AI, and can even earn vanity reward items, which unfortunately don't show up in-game. The game also provides an exact measurement in fractions of a second of how quickly you draw. Multiplayer matches are decided by the first to win 1, 3, or 5 rounds. I found these shootouts between friends were leagues more fun than single-player, even if it's only for the hurt looks of betrayal when you shoot your (now ex-) buddy.
Graphics and sound
You can tell right away that Ready Steady Bang was illustrated by professionals. The blocky, simplistic, and abstract characters manage to deliver a ton of personality through buttery smooth animations. The UI layout is equally elegant and easy to navigate. The one downside to the visuals is that just about every shoot-out includes a pop-up advertisement. You get one when booting up the game too. I would happily cough up a buck to get rid of ads, but unfortunately there's no in-app purchase option for that just yet.
The sound effects are sparse, but very high quality. Some classy background guitar music would really help set the mood, but as is, the spinning cylinder sound for selecting opponents does a great job. The yelps of your opponents as they go down are goofy despite because of their morbid nature, and the countdown announcer has an equally squeaky charm to him.
The good
- Adorable style
- Intense gameplay
- Great local multiplayer
The bad
- Ads after every round
- Simplistic gameplay
- Little showcase of unlockables
Conclusion
Ready Steady Bang has a ton of style and a surprising amount of gameplay intensity for how simple it is. There might not be enough depth there to keep hardcore gamers interested, but for a quick test of reflexes, Ready Steady Bang offers flavorful, accessible gameplay to just about anybody. The ads can get a little annoying, but getting it out there and available for free is probably worth it if an in-app purchase to remove ads is later implemented.
Download: Ready Steady Bang
