An adventure to hibernate through
Goat Simulator has a lot to answer for. While being an innocent bit of slapstick animal silliness, many have taken the wrong lessons from it. “Animal plus weird equals profit” has become a niche but growing subgenre of endeavours to separate the meme-addicted irony-poisoned youth from their hard-earned cash. Squirrel with a Gun is yet another cynical addition to this cursed cannon.
The first impressions are as rough as can be. Locked in a sterile laboratory room, you have to jump around to press buttons to disengage a laser shield protecting an acorn. Everything is staggeringly ugly, and every asset feels like it’s been ripped from different sources with zero visual cohesion. The squirrel controls like a greased-up ping-pong ball, suffering a truly unpleasant lack of precision. Even the simple act of activating the pressure panels to progress has a total lack of impact, it feels less like a videogame challenge and more like a bizarre accident progressing from this first room alone. Ladies and gentlemen, the gun hasn’t even entered the picture yet!
Rodent problems
After the tedious initial puzzle room, the squirrel obtains his firearm from a clumsy security guard. So how does this change the experience? Simply it adds terrible shooting mechanics to the already awful platforming. The animation alone of the squirrel firing is so madcap and jerky as to be almost unreadable and the enemies are dull bullet sponges. Hit them enough and you may have the opportunity to do a special finishing move – an animation that slows down the action completely and takes a dog’s age to boot. Spending more time in these fights is more punishment than delight. Using the gun to defy gravity by shooting downwards to stay airborne is actually surprisingly fun and the game should have been focused on that mechanic.
One of the few pleasures is in going off the beaten path to find cosmetic prizes to give your squirrel more character. Any opportunity to add some personality to the dreary proceedings is more than welcome. Once the game opens into the suburban sandbox areas it attempts an Untitled Goose Game tone of mischievous thievery and side missions but it’s all too little too late.
Squirrel with a Gun has few redeeming qualities, much more to loathe than love. Broken and boring in equal measure, in a landscape of truly great indie titles you would have to be nuts to go for this.
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