Let’s face it, there are going to be casualties in this Kickstarter-fought battle for a post-publisher age. The game formerly and rather boringly known as Crowdsourced Hardcore Tactical Shooter does not want to be one of those. With not too long left on the clock, it’s been relaunched as Takedown, with lead dev Christian Allen (of GRAW fame) admitting that the initial promotion pulled a punch or seven. He writes on Kotaku that, in addition to not being a celebrityface like Tim Fargo or Brian Schafer, “our video was not exciting enough and the quality wasn’t up to the standard it should have been. Lastly, we were too vague about the details of the project, lacked assets to show, and didn’t properly differentiate our concept from other shooters on the market today. Oh, and the name SUCKED.”

That is true. So now it is the bland but far less off-putting Takedown, it’s billed as a ‘squad-based tactical shooter’ and, as you’ll see in the below video, it’s found itself both a sense of humour and a clearer sense of purpose.(more…)