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Most modern games are trapped in the habit of trying to be a jack of all trades, featuring multiple multiplayer modes alongside a robust single-player experience that stretches on for 20 something hours. However, Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood is the latest game to use the trending phenomena of short, but highly polished ’single-function’ gaming. The game pits the player, an armed-to-the-teeth soldier in charge of protecting a (very) small desert village’s town hall as waves of riflemen try to shoot you dead and kamikazi soldiers charge the building with TNT strapped to their waist. The game features this same gameplay across 5 difficulty levels and nothing more. This may leave some questioning it’s merit as a complete experience, but Foreign Legion has a level of polish to it uncommon in similar titles.

The first thing players will notice when the game loads is the stylized visuals. Part Team Fortress 2, part LEGO Duplo, Foreign Legion’s aesthetic is pseudo-cartoon with a dash of violence. The terrain is always easy to navigate thanks to the use of primitive, but softened, shapes and it’s very easy to tell enemies apart thanks to colour accents on the brown palette the desert village provides. There are very few harsh edges in the game, in a very small way this contributes to the environment overall feeling more enjoyable which is important since there is only the one level.

In terms of actual mechanics it plays rather straight forward; as the enemies descend the player shoots them, if they start to succeed run to the radio transmitter and order some repair supplies, repeat until successful. With only the two enemy types it’s hard to develop much of a strategy as they all require only one or two well placed shots to take out. The town hall you’re defending can take quite a few hits, even in the harder difficulties, making the overall experience a little easy. There are 10 Steam achievements available to be earned, but they only add very little depth to people who don’t avidly collect them.

The polish in the mechanics however come through in the little things; if you reload your rifle mid-clip you lose the bullets in the clip you dropped, bullets generate from the cross-hair and not the character making firing more accurate, and the airplane bomber takes an appropriately tense time to arrive after you’ve ordered an air strike. It’s these little things that make the game enjoyable and of such high quality.

However, what good is quality if there isn’t much time to bask in it? The game is exceptionally short and once you’ve beaten it there’s nothing else available in the game. The odd thing is, the game still has the power to pull players back in. Between it’s quick loading time and the simple jump-in-jump-out action it’s a great 10 minute time killer that’s more than the usual puzzle game or flash adventure platformer. Players will not return to the game to improve their high score, no one has cared about that since the 80’s, but Sakari Indie has attained a great joy feedback loop that’s quick to access and lasts just long enough to scratch an itch.

Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood is not a fully featured game, and it knows it. There’s very little content within the title, but what it does have it does very well. Players who need a quick game to pick up and enjoy for a few minutes will enjoy this game because that’s how it is meant to be played. Replaying the mission multiple times in a row will quickly degrade the joy it brings, but playing it casually every now and again Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood will be an enjoyable experience.

Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood is available on Steam for $6.99. Sakari Indie has been generous to provide us with five copies of the game to give away. In order for you, our lucky readers to earn them, you must post a comment below with either a real life story involving chickens, or a time when you literally lost or spilled buckets of blood. Winners will be announced on a post in the near future, so keep your eyes on the site to see if you’ve won. Have fun, good luck!