Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Guns, Gore, & Cannoli

Guns, Gore, & Cannoli

This post is based on Xbox controller on Windows. Have not played with KB/mouse.

This is one of those games I liked before even knowing what it was. The art style leapt off the screen and took hold of that part of my brain that likes that sort of behavior from artwork.

That it was an indie title was another huge appeal.

Guns, Gore, & Cannoli 2015: An absolute blast. There, we are done. Side scrollers are hit and miss with me. GG&C, however, refreshes the gameplay mechanic in ways that I am unable to describe except "fun."

Zombie games bore me. Probably because there are so many of them and they do not manage to differentiate between themselves. Zombie, kill, rinse, repeat.

See, when you go for the realistic zombie approach then you cannot vary the gameplay. How much variation can there be between 23 types of zombies, all equally brain dead? And if you make them intelligent then they are not zombies any longer, are they? Most zombies seem to want to kill you, eat you, or something even bizarre. Where the brain dead get their motivation from, I don't know.

The cartoon approach is the only one that makes sense. And while GG&C does not tackle any great questions about the nature and philosophy of being a zombie in a non-zombie world, why should it? It's a video game.

The dialogue tends to be on the cheap-cheese side but stays consistently above the surface. Besides, given the game situation and time period, perhaps that is a good thing.

The gameplay also tends to get repetitive and this is where you can feel the freshness of the indie developer. Despite being repetitive it does not become boring or turn into a chore.

The only one minor itty-bitty point of contention is that the difficulty tends to fluctuate, especially the boss fights that seem to jump from easy to hardcore without any build up.

Highly recommended.

Guns, Gore, & Cannoli 2018: Sigh! Alas!

How many exclamation points must a man run down? Uh, three. Okay. Damn!

The curse of the sequel.

The first game was fun. They almost completely changed the control scheme and you cannot remap the controls from inside the game. This game plays more like a very, very old game called Abuse where the mouse controls where you aim and the KB controls movement. With an Xbox controller it requires a lot of adapting. I played slightly more than 30 minutes and kept trying to use the old controls. Goodness' sake, why would you change the jump button which is almost universal in all games?

Don't know. Maybe it is more enjoyable with a KB/M combo. So far it is more annoying than fun. And since the controls are not going to change for the rest of the game... Oh, well.

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