Bang Howdy, a wild-west game from the creators of Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates, Three Rings Design, is in an open beta test. As they descibe it, it’s a “multiplayer online tactical strategy game in a 3D Wild West setting, yee haw!”

It is a fun action-strategy game, though it’s definitely still beta quality. The game sports the familiar 3D interface of most tactical strategy games. In this hybrid turn-based and realtime strategy game, you acquire gold, shoot up your enemies, herd cattle, and perform other Old West activities. There are five “settings,” Frontier Town, Boom Town, The Indian Trading Post, Ghost Town, and the City of Gold.

The graphics are decent and the music and sound effects are great. It’s a “casual” massively-multiplayer online game, with a running game clock and addictive nature, but you’re not crushed by too much (self-induced) pressure to play now. Not yet anyhow.

There is a lot of variety here. Through various settings, game boards, multi-player modes, and unlockable “pardners” it has a reasonable chance of staying interesting for a while. You can customize your character, and though the game is free, it looks like you can get additional power and customize your character if you pony up some real cash through micro-payments.

Bang! Howdy™ is downloadable for free over the Internet and free to play with no signup or recurring subscription fee. Players can buy Big Shot units, game items and train tickets to new towns using our in-game microcurrency, but you don’t gotta buy nothin’ if ya don’t want. You decide if and when ta spend any of yer hard-earned cash.

Other info at Gamespy, Gamasutra, and GameSetWatch.

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Tags: Online games · PC · Reviews