Last week my boys wanted to try a new multiplayer game together. My younger son found a silly little battle game called Shotgun Farmers.   Oh, yeah, it is as silly as it sounds!

Who ya callin’ “chicken”?

At $10, you get a multiplayer game of utter comedy. You play as a farmer who, as the name suggests, harvests guns. You start with a (surprise!) shotgun and when you die, your weapon falls and can grow. Growing means having full ammo but grab a gun that just fell and you may only have one bullet.  There are other guns in the game, and I have a couple of favorites, but the shotgun is the main weapon of choice.

The game moves with incredible speed and is insanely comical but really can only be played in multiplayer mode which is a limitation.  See, here’s how they get ya: they give ya the ability to customize your character.  I tried to make my character look a bit like me, but these are about as lifelike as the Wii’s Mii characters.  I’ve seen images of a deep sea diving helmet that I can wear, but I need to earn enough points to be able to move up in levels.  This means playtime, ya hear?  But I don’t like to play with no young whippersnappers!  I wants ta play with my own kids and friends.  So if they ain’t available… well, I just won’t play the doggone game.  Well that’s a problem, see?  That limits the play-ability for me.  But if they are available… well, that’s a different kettle of fish.

As you can tell from my choice of words, the game has voices that are exactly what you’re readin’: country farmers talkin’ as one would expect, stereotype and all!  There are a handful of boards to play and between boards, you get to vote on the next one.  The one I like the most is the cemetery but the roadside stop-over is fun because passing cars can run you over!  And I love a good wild west board.  There are also a handful of modes to play like “hold the chicken” where you have to run with a chicken for as long as possible.  You can’t use weapons while running around with the chicken and everyone else is trying to kill you to get the chicken. Yes it is as funny as it sounds! And there’s a domination style round where you have to hold a spot longer than your opponents can.  This spot has a scarecrow and after you’ve held the spot for a while, it moves with a voice over asking “where’s the scarecrow gone?”

To enhance the game, you get some gestures that you can program.  I think you get more as the games go on.  Win a round, and you can do a jig as the camera focuses on you before the next round begins.  Or play the banjo!  Play in a team round and you each get to be on camera, which was incredibly fun as fellow blogger Paul Roeber and I played the banjo and did a jig as if we planned it.  (We actually looked far more coordinated than we ever do in real life.)

This isn’t going to be the next classic.  This won’t be remembered 20 years down the line as that “oh wow” game.  But for $10 it’s going to offer a fast-paced game that will give you a few good laughs.  Maybe they’ll release more boards but for now, have a look at the trailer and enjoy.  We could all use a bit of lighthearted fun from time to time…  ML