The Showdown Effect is a 2.5D multiplayer action game inspired by 80’s and 90’s action movies. It was developed by Paradox studios, the creators of Magika. With that in mind they have a lot to live up to considering how good Magika was, buggy as hell, but fun. Does The Showdown Effect live up to Magikas charm and clever humor? Yes is absolutely does. First off let's talk about the characters, seeing as that was one of the parts of the game that really did it for me. All of the characters are spoofs of action hero icons, for example 'Dutch McClone'. One of his lines is 'What are you doing? I am just a kindergarten teacher!" You can guess who he is supposed to be. The characters one liners where well voice acted and didn't really get annoying, which is surprising. You can also customize your characters with vanity items that you buy using points you earn from matches, it takes quite a while to build up these points so you won't be throwing it away at the first opportunity. You can also buy different weapons, there aren't that many weapons available but this is easily forgivable as there is a wide range of weapon skins, this also means the weapons aren't unbalanced. You can also buy new heroes from the shop, these being the most expensive items. All the characters have a small bio and special ability, like shield or hand grenade. This adds some variety to the battle. The combat system is quite simplistic at first glance, but it is made a lot more deep with all the movement abilities, such as diving and dodging. This means that a player that is skilled with a melee weapon can easily take down a trigger happy gun toting Rambo wannabe. Another mechanic I was very happy with is the fact you have to click on player to damage them when shooting, so unless you've got an rpg you can't just shoot off screen and get a kill. This further encourages skill based play. I also encountered stealthy players online, I was playing on the free for all game mode (Showdown) and one of my foes was dressed in full ninja clad and was using a character that could turn invisible, they would wait on a platform for someone to come in and throw knifes at them and chop them up with a katana to finish. This kind of play is encouraged by the fact that you have a vision cone (sort of) you can only see people if they are in the vision of your character. There are quite a few game modes, some of which I had never seen in any game before, for example in one game mode there is a group of heroes and the other team spawns with random weapons and they have to kill the heroes. I found this much more exciting than the average tdm match. The maps have interactive weaponry that you can pick up if you are in a sticky situation, and they are diverse and colorful. At the end of showdown mode when the showdown take place they visually change to make the fight feel a lot more epic and you really feel like you are in a 90's action film. The soundtrack is also superb. Something you really need to experience. It was quite a cartoony graphic style that makes it intensely satisfying to tear someone to shreds with a light saber to blow them to pieces with a rocket launcher. The devs really knew what they where doing with this one, it feels good to play, good to look at and amazing to listen to. Killing 80 and 90's action movie tropes has never felt better. This game gets a solid 9 out of ten.