Squirrel With a Gun, because the identify implies, is all a few squirrel with a gun. Fairly a couple of weapons, really. Though it isn’t an motion recreation, neither is there as a lot capturing as anticipated. As a substitute, Squirrel With a Gun is especially impressed by Goat Simulator and its ilk, letting you run amok in a zany sandbox filled with platforming and physics-based puzzles to unravel. None of those are notably 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 reside as much as its absurd premise.
When it comes to story, there is not actually one to talk of. The sport opens with our titular Sciuridae dropping right into a secret authorities bunker to obtain a golden acorn. As soon as the tasty deal with is in your possession, you then get hold of a pistol from a slipshod Agent Smith-looking spook earlier than being unleashed on a suburban neighborhood to trigger mischief and blast away dozens of presidency brokers in the hunt for extra acorns. Gathering a particular variety of nuts grants you entry to new areas, main to 2 eventual boss battles towards a pair of brokers often known as Father and Mom (for causes that are not clear). Defeating each wraps up the sport, protecting 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’ll naturally anticipate some sort of irreverent humor to compensate for the shortage of character elsewhere. Squirrel With a Gun does not try and be humorous with any kind of regularity; as an alternative, it primarily depends on the picture of a squirrel holding a relatively giant shotgun or rocket launcher to supply comedic reduction. Perhaps you may get a kick out of a bit the place you waterski down a river or chuckle when the ragdoll physics break fully, however humor will not be this recreation’s forte.
Fight is neither enjoyable nor satisfying both. The one enemies you encounter are authorities brokers who largely simply stand round ready to die. All of them ragdoll to demise in a couple of bullets–whether you hit them within the shin or chest–but nailing a headshot does at the least 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 certainly one of 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 means pertains to your dimension. Whether or not it is a pistol or a shotgun, the power of every shot propels your tiny body backward as you maintain on for pricey 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 notably impactful. Having to realign your purpose after each shot is solely a nuisance that additional compounds the sport’s shallow gunplay because it struggles to justify its premise.
Happily, Squirrel With a Gun’s puzzle-platforming fares barely higher. Its sandbox is pretty small, and except for one home that is crammed with lava, the remainder of the properties in its weird suburban neighborhood are virtually fully empty. Nonetheless, each basically capabilities as a miniature stage containing a lot of golden acorns so that you can gather. 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 would possibly imply blowing up a barbeque after which gathering the smoking scorching 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 answer ensures that there is not any room for creativity.
On the platforming aspect, firing your gun into the bottom as a way of double leaping is a much more attention-grabbing use of the sport’s firearms than any a part of its fight. There’s additionally some enjoyment available in determining the right way to traverse sure sections, however imprecise and floaty controls–not to say an erratic digicam that always obscures your view–are detrimental to any sort of precision platforming. Even easy leaps are sometimes irritating as you actively combat towards the sport’s disagreeable motion.
On high of all this, Squirrel With a Gun can also be tormented by a plethora of dire technical points. Falling by way of the ground is a semi-regular incidence, particularly through the first boss combat. At one level, I ran right into a glitch the place the squirrel didn’t 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 is not a very handsome recreation, but I nonetheless needed to decrease a number of settings to stop the body fee from tanking. Whereas this is not a technical shortcoming per se, the quantity of music can also be restricted and rapidly turns into grating as you are pressured to undergo the identical tune over and over.
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 in regards to the expertise actually stands out; the entire recreation is fully unremarkable and will not reside lengthy within the reminiscence. It is sort 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 along with your day. That is Squirrel With a Gun in a nutshell.