Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood

Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood is a simple first person shooter with cartoon graphics for Steam. Game is developed by indie developer Sakari Indie. Game was released back in 2008 and has been going for a less than fiver in Steam recently.

Starting with the biggest flaw of the game. This is only a single-player game. At this day multiplayer in a FPS is almost mandatory one would think. The simple look and maps would have worked well with a multiplayer settings as well. According to some dubious post on Steam forums the multiplayer is in the works. 

 

Game draws inspiration from Foreign Legion as the title suggest. This can bee seen in the games locations. All games levels are in desert. Or in more detail, in small villages in middle of desert. The characters are simple and round shapes that look like Lego's with over sized helmets and guns. Animations are basic and do the job. Same simplistic Lego feel is also used in the buildings as well.

Game doesn't have a story, not that you always need one in most of FPS games. You are in control of a single soldier who takes on 8 different levels. These range from defending a physical location or just staying alive for 10 minutes. After killing a wave of enemies you are given short breathing time to gather more ammo and/or do repairs before next wave starts rolling in. Each level has few severity(difficulty) settings for the enemies which makes the small number of different levels more challenging.

Experience is gained my combining kill streaks for more points which increase the skill level. Actions after a game are also rewards with money which can be used for slight customization. Helmet and the gear can be upgraded for different types of camo colours. As well new weapons can be bought. The more heavier firepower requires higher skill level. Another aspect of the game that differs from as standard shooter is the fact that ammunition is must be bought. Although the default pistol has unlimited ammo you will want to upgrade as soon as possible. Levels payout is generous with the and extra ammo can be picked up. 

 
Performing combo kill streaks will give better scores which will be saved in to a steam leaderboard for you to see current ranking. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a comparison against people in your friends list. Other hook in the game is the 18 Steam achievements.

It is hard to recommend this title since there are better free games with multiplayer function. Such as Battlefield Heroes. If you are looking for a simple singleplayer shooter for a low-end pc or maybe even a newer netbook then this is ideal (Works fine for my Acer Ferrari). It is not that this a bad game, just not lot of game to played.