Squirrel With a Gun, because the title implies, is all a few squirrel with a gun. Fairly a couple of weapons, really. Though it is not an motion recreation, neither is there as a lot taking pictures as anticipated. As an alternative, Squirrel With a Gun is principally impressed by Goat Simulator and its ilk, letting you run amok in a zany sandbox filled with platforming and physics-based puzzles to resolve. None of those are significantly good, marred as they’re by clunky, imprecise controls and a dearth of character. Regardless of being round 4 hours in size, the entire rodent-wielding-a-firearm gimmick runs out of steam lengthy earlier than the credit roll, leaving you with a janky and unremarkable recreation that fails to dwell as much as its absurd premise.
By way of story, there is not actually one to talk of. The sport opens with our titular Sciuridae dropping right into a secret authorities bunker to acquire a golden acorn. As soon as the tasty deal with is in your possession, you then acquire a pistol from a careless Agent Smith-looking spook earlier than being unleashed on a suburban neighborhood to trigger mischief and blast away dozens of presidency brokers seeking extra acorns. Gathering a particular variety of nuts grants you entry to new areas, main to 2 eventual boss battles in opposition to a pair of brokers often known as Father and Mom (for causes that are not clear). Defeating each wraps up the sport, masking the whole extent of Squirrel With a Gun’s paper-thin narrative.
Missing any semblance of a narrative is ok in a recreation like this, however you’d naturally count on some form of irreverent humor to compensate for the shortage of character elsewhere. Squirrel With a Gun does not try and be humorous with any type of regularity; as a substitute, it primarily depends on the picture of a squirrel holding a relatively giant shotgun or rocket launcher to offer comedic aid. Possibly you will get a kick out of a piece the place you waterski down a river or chuckle when the ragdoll physics break solely, however humor isn’t this recreation’s forte.
Fight is neither enjoyable nor satisfying both. The one enemies you encounter are authorities brokers who principally simply stand round ready to die. All of them ragdoll to loss of life in a couple of bullets–whether you hit them within the shin or chest–but nailing a headshot does no less than put the hapless spooks right into a downed state that leaves them prone to a particular takedown. These elaborate animations see our furry protagonist spin a six-shooter round like Revolver Ocelot and use the butt of a sniper as a blunt object. They’re enjoyable the primary time, however there’s solely one in all these animations for every weapon, so the novelty wears off rapidly.
The one time the sport’s gunplay differs from different shooters in any significant approach pertains to your measurement. Whether or not it is a pistol or a shotgun, the drive of every shot propels your tiny body backward as you maintain on for expensive life. As a result of recreation’s lackluster sound design and enemies’ muted reactions, this nonetheless does not make your small arsenal of weapons really feel significantly impactful. Having to realign your purpose after each shot is just a nuisance that additional compounds the sport’s shallow gunplay because it struggles to justify its premise.
Luckily, Squirrel With a Gun’s puzzle-platforming fares barely higher. Its sandbox is pretty small, and apart from one home that is stuffed with lava, the remainder of the properties in its weird suburban neighborhood are nearly solely empty. Nonetheless, each basically capabilities as a miniature stage containing a lot of golden acorns so that you can accumulate. You’ll be able to purchase a few of these nuts through quick platforming challenges, whereas others take an oz. of “logical” pondering to beat. This may imply blowing up a barbeque after which gathering the smoking sizzling patties for these ready with empty buns, or utilizing kettlebells to weigh your self down so you possibly can sink to the underside of a pool. A few of these conundrums require a second of consideration, though the presence of a single resolution ensures that there isn’t any room for creativity.
On the platforming aspect, firing your gun into the bottom as a method of double leaping is a much more fascinating use of the sport’s firearms than any a part of its fight. There’s additionally some enjoyment available in determining methods to traverse sure sections, however imprecise and floaty controls–not to say an erratic digicam that usually obscures your view–are detrimental to any form of precision platforming. Even easy leaps are sometimes irritating as you actively struggle in opposition to the sport’s disagreeable motion.
On high of all this, Squirrel With a Gun can be suffering from a plethora of dire technical points. Falling by means of the ground is a semi-regular prevalence, particularly through the first boss struggle. At one level, I ran right into a glitch the place the squirrel did not materialize throughout a cutscene, which broke the entire recreation and compelled me to restart. I encountered a couple of crashes and optimization points on PC, too. It isn’t a very handsome recreation, but I nonetheless needed to decrease a number of settings to stop the body charge from tanking. Whereas this is not a technical shortcoming per se, the quantity of music can be restricted and rapidly turns into grating as you are compelled to undergo the identical music again and again.
Squirrel With a Gun is not aggressively dangerous, and I did not hate my time with it. It was mainly only a factor that I did for 4 hours. Nothing concerning the expertise actually stands out; the entire recreation is solely unremarkable and will not dwell lengthy within the reminiscence. It is form of like seeing a squirrel in actual life. You go, “Oh look, a squirrel,” watch the furry critter scurry up a tree, after which get on together with your day. That is Squirrel With a Gun in a nutshell.