The sequel to the incredibly popular Cartoon Wars, Cartoon Wars—Gunner ($0.99, iTunes link) takes you away from the towers of the first game, and recasts you as a lone soldier surviving countless waves of enemy attacks.
As the name suggests, Cartoon Wars—Gunner (hereafter CWG) only gives you ranged attacks to defeat hordes of opponents. Each level is made of a set number of enemies, which constantly attack your lone stick-figure. Defeat them all, and you advance to the next round. In-between rounds, you can purchase new weapons, upgrade the ones you already have, and boost ten different stats.
The RPG-ish nature of the game helps extend its playability, which would otherwise be rather short. There are a huge variety of weapons, all of which handle differently, can be leveled up, and can gain special skills. Some of these take obscene amounts of money to purchase, so you’ll be playing a long, long time before you get to take the battlesuit for a spin.
Repetition is a major issue for CWG. The levels are inherently similar, and even the wide variety of enemies can’t counter for the fact that each is structured identically: run around the level, dodging attacks, and shoot anything that moves.
There’s also a distinct lack of tutorials. The closest you see are three “help” screens, which just point out what all the icons are, which is distinctly overwhelming information for the first few minutes. It’s also never explained what the level cap is for each weapon, or skill, or how many stages there are in the game. Would be nice to know, is all.
Graphically, the game looks like a descendant of flash based gaming, which it is. The animations are smooth, and relatively simple. There’s that distinctive 2D objects on a 3D plane feel that comes from its web based antecedents. The controls are decent, but not amazing. As always, using a virtual d-pad is tricky, and sometimes the controller had a tendency to stick, keeping me running in one direction. I don’t know if that’s a bug or a feature. The sounds is a bit of a let-down. Only one track, and there are long pauses between plays.
Conclusion
Given its low price, Cartoon Wars—Gunner ($0.99, iTunes link) is a competent and fun game, though highly repetitive. If you’re a sucker for grinding, you might like it, but even if you aren’t, it still provides more than a $1 of entertainment. You just might find yourself bored of it after a week or so. Cartoon Wars—Gunner is recommended, and we give it 7.1/10