DueLito review - Button tapping gets lethal

DueLito is that rare game that tosses together a bunch of disparate elements, yet ends up making a certain amount of sense.

You wouldn't necessarily think that a gun duel setting, timed button-matching gameplay, and a Binding of Isaac-influenced art-style have any business together.

But here they are, in a fun and cohesive if fairly slim package.

Your lone gunman faces off against a succession of AI opponents, hand at hip, ready to draw. Except when the time comes to pull, you're not aiming a gun. Not directly, at least.

Rather, you're running through a random sequence of up to four coloured button presses. If you successfully run through the sequence faster than your opponent, your character will pull the trigger faster.

It makes for a surprisingly tense experience. Pressing a sequence of buttons wouldn't ordinarily make for a thrilling game, but knowing that you're doing so against an opponent - and that the stakes are your (virtual) life - really ramps things up.

Your AI opponents are convincingly varied, both in terms of their skills and their looks. This is a tough game, and it's not unusual to be wiped out by your very first opponent.

The game's inherent shallowness does kick in fairly quickly, however. The developer has attempted to mitigate this through quick-draw one-button rounds and a range of outlandish outfits, but you're still essentially doing the same button-matching puzzle again and again.

It's also hard to shake the the knowledge that, in the main mode, you're not actually playing another human with fallible reflexes, but rather a line of code.

Thankfully there is a 1v1 mode that lets you take on a friend on a single handset, which is fun for a bit. But by making it such a one-shot, super-local thing it ends up having even less depth than the main mode.

The game looks great, though, with a well executed art style and a zany Wild West world that sees you coming up against clowns, zombies, American football players and more.

All in all, DueLito is a neat concept that's been executed well. But there isn't quite enough depth or variety here to hold your attention for too long.