Squirrel with a Gun Review
Squirrel with a Gun offers a unique, chaotic adventure with fun platforming but suffers from shallow combat and technical issues.
Squirrel with a Gun sounds like a fantastic idea: a game where you play as a squirrel with a gun, causing chaos in a sandbox world. At first, it’s a lot of fun with many hilarious moments and enjoyable gameplay. The idea is fresh and there’s lot of humor in beginning that makes it entertaining.
However, game quickly starts to feel repetitive. After initial excitement, jokes become less funny, and the game doesn’t have much new to offer. Fun seems to run out quickly and the game struggles with some serious performance issues like frequent crashes. These problems can be frustrating & make you replay parts of game which can get old fast.
Squirrel with a Gun can still be a couple hours of silly fun in spite of these problems. It has potential, and I’m hoping that a Goat Simulator 3 or similar version in the future would enhance these concepts and address the issues. For time being, this game might be entertaining for a brief while but it doesn’t stand up well over time.
Quirky sandbox game Squirrel with a Gun is comparable to Octodad: Dadliest Catch and Untitled Goose Game. You take control of a cheeky squirrel in this game, who wrecks havoc on a suburban community. After getting a pistol from a clumsy government agent, you can rob people, destroy property and cause mayhem.
Initial thoughts are enjoyable and fun. The sight of a squirrel brandishing a gun and causing mayhem is entertaining. That being said, this lighthearted idea rapidly gets old. For a few hours, the novelty of the game wears off and the pleasure factor decreases, but for a brief while, it is amusing.
Squirrel with a Gun is entertaining for a brief period. It’s a good laugh initially but doesn’t have enough depth to keep you engaged for long. It took me only four hours to finish the game and the jokes and excitement faded away quickly.
Fighting as a squirrel with weapons quickly feels empty. You use pistols, rifles, and grenade launchers to take down Agent Smith-like enemies. These enemies mostly just stand around and don’t fight back much. They’re the only foes you face and fall easily with a few shots.
One fun feature is the special finishing moves you can perform after stunning enemies. For example, you can use an uzi to shoot them or use “gunjitsu” moves like a furry John Wick. However, there’s only one finishing move animation per weapon so the fun wears off fast. Overall, the combat gets repetitive quickly, and each weapon soon feels similar.
The game includes two boss fights to mix things up. In these battles, you face off against large military vehicles, like tanks. You take out attractive targets on vehicles to lower their health bars during these battles. Even though these bouts aren’t particularly difficult they do provide a welcome change of pace and had a few humorous moments that made me smile.
If the game had more of these interesting boss fights and creative elements, it could have extended my enjoyment. However, like everything else in this short game, these fun moments are over quickly.
The puzzle-platforming in the game is a lot more enjoyable compared to the combat. You use your weapons to help with jumping and moving through different areas. For example- using the submachine gun lets you stay in the air longer while crossing gaps and the rocket launcher helps you jump high enough to reach distant platforms.
Although the platforming challenges aren’t very difficult, it’s still fun to make your squirrel character fly from one place to another. This aspect of the game stays entertaining much longer than the combat does.
Unfortunately, “Squirrel with a Gun” has several technical issues that can ruin the fun, even though the game is short. I experienced multiple screen freezes during my playthrough, losing progress and having to redo sections. By end of game, I became nervous about crashes and rushed to save my progress at every opportunity. Crashes seemed to happen more often towards the end of the game.
There were other problems too. Sometimes, cutscenes would play incorrectly, leaving the squirrel out of place and causing the game to break. Additionally, my character would sometimes glitch through the game’s environment while moving quickly, forcing me to repeat parts of the game.
Even though the game has a chaotic style that can make these glitches seem less severe, they still detract from the experience. Having to replay sections multiple times because of these issues took away from the enjoyment of the game.
Conclusion: Squirrel with a Gun
“Squirrel with a Gun” starts with a fantastic and unique idea: you control a squirrel with a gun causing chaos in a small sandbox world. The platforming, where you use weapons to navigate and jump around, is really fun & brings lots of laughs. However, game has its problems. The combat feels shallow, and there are many technical issues including frequent crashes. Game is also quite short, leaving you wanting more.
The boss fights which are some of the best parts of the game, are too few and end too quickly. Despite these issues, I really enjoy the concept of game & hope for a sequel that will be bigger, more detailed, and less buggy. This first version is entertaining but could use improvements.
