Gun Girl: Freeware Review

I’ve been on a bit of a platform binge this month. Allot has to do with the fact that recently I was without a desktop PC and was forced to use a Laptop, Which, due to the small screen size I didn’t play any shmups on it, just indie plat formers. Anyway, one of the games I played at that period was Gun Girl. Like the other couple of games ive covered this month Gun Girl has been out for awhile and is quite well known in indie gaming circles. Still those facts doesn’t make it not worth covering in my blog. I played it so I’m gonna write about it! That said, I will be moving onto lesser known games soon.

 For those who don’t know (and couldn’t be arsed watching the gameplay video, GG is a freeware run ’n gunner that has all the hallmarks of a great game. A hot chick as your avatar, zombies, guns, heavy metal, plat forming fun and best of all Bruce Willis, who you encounter repeatedly as you progress through the game. He’s there to flesh out the story and tell you what you need to be doing next. In GG the dead have risen and the world has turned to pot. Its your task as one of the few remaining people alive to escape from where you currently are and hunt down who ever is responsible for this mess.

 Playing Gun Girl I quickly discovered that this game is more of a plat former then a shoot ‘em up, as many of the more common enemies like the zombies are easy to take out and are in the game just as a nice relief from the plat forming (blowing zombies away is always great fun). Later in the game some new enemy types are introduced and the shooting aspect of GG gets more challenging and more akin to a Mega Man game. The platforming also starts off abit too simple for my tastes, but unlike the shooting it doesn’t take too long for the plat forming to get to a more enjoyable level. Similar to I Wanna Be The Guy your character is able to double jump over the loads and loads of spikes that make up most of the traps you must traverse over which now and again I found myself accidentally missing a double jump due to gun girl controlling badly. Well to be fair she controls very tightly in everything else except the double jump which didn’t seem to like it if you jump while moving left or right and continue to press the same direction on the controller. I found she double jumped a lot better if I stop walking and jump.

 As you see straight away in the video there are boss fights which are allot of fun and well done. The later Bosses are very hard to beat with the end of game boss been a real tough cookie to kill. The second to last boss is unlike the others. As you must run from a massive one-eyed demon, who’ll kill you if he touches you, so you must make you way across some tricky plat forming which is ten times harder since you must do this as fast as possible and with a buggy double jump. It is this level that I can imagine many people will of given up on the game. I almost as well, but I found out by myself that its possible to cheat and make short cuts in one or two areas where its possible to jump on to blocks at the top of the screen and miss some of the normal route out. Its worth nothing that you can just run to the end of the level as you must still trap the boss in each of those spike traps to kill it.

 Like I said before the game is a bit on the easy side at first but you will find if you stick with it that the game gets very challenging in the later stages. And that’s just not the boss fights either, although the bosses are by far the most challenging thing in the game. Thank fully like many difficult indie plat formers nowadays. Losing all your lives and starting all over again doesn’t happen due to the fact that even though you can run out of lives and get a game over, you can restart at the beginning of the stage, which is the same as losing a life in the game. The only difference is that you lose any cash (used to buy ammo and med kits) and other collectables that you collected in the level you are playing.

Score

 So if you like your plat formers to be have something extra then just jumping while the jumping still a challenge. Then I highly recommend giving this game a play. Even if you like your games to be abit tamer then I still say its worth giving it a go, as long as you don’t mind possibly giving up when the difficulty gets too hard. Its worth noting that there is a sequel will be out soon, looking at the you tube videos Gun Girl 2 improves on the original in every way. Best of all is that instead of there just been the odd zombie to kill, you must shoot your way through hordes of them. Which is something that is sorely missing from the original. A link to the site for Gun Girl 2 is HERE, a link to download the first game is found there also. 3 out of 5