Review: Guerrilla Bob - The Dual Stick Shooter Has Finally Arrived
by Staff Writer
January 26, 2010
Overview
Guerrilla Bob has finally invaded the App Store, and it’s time to put him to the test. We gave you a sneak peek awhile back, and now it’s time to give an in-depth review. Find out if Guerrilla Bob truly does change the genre in the App Store.
Guerrilla Bob is a 3D rendered third person dual stick adventure shooter. The game gives you a story mode that progresses through a desert themed village with Bob fighting waves of enemies that fire back at him. Survival mode is also included which we have seen before in 3D dual stick shooters.
Features
Eight levels are included in the story mode, and once completed you unlock survival mode. Most levels have a similar objective of blasting everything in your path as you walk through the streets of the village. Some levels give you different challenges including crossing bridges, and riding a raft down the river. The survival mode plays very similar to Minigore or iDracula.
The game begins with a basic automatic rifle, and then as you progress you collect a rocket launcher, and flame thrower. Each weapon has three upgrades, and there many other power-ups, and bonus points to collect in the streets. Your health meter is the length of your full cigar, and it slowly burns down showing ash, which is a real neat little addition.
Chillingo’s new social platform Crystal is included, and it’s the first game to feature it in the App Store. There are online high scores for each difficulty (easy & hard), and survival mode, plus there are 20 achievements.
The Good
Guerrilla Bob is an extremely well designed game, but the best aspect is without a doubt the story mode. The story is by no means deluxe, but to have a dual stick shooter progress through numerous levels rather than just simple survival, instantly gives it an advantage. Then survival mode is included as well if story mode wasn’t enough. Not only are there levels as a whole, but each level presents a different path to travel through rather than the same area over and over. Guerrilla Bob also has to face enemies who can shoot, where others are just killing enemies coming after you, and need to touch you.
All of the eight levels introduces new enemies, and each has a boss battle. There are three weapons in your arsenal that each have three levels to upgrade along the way. This game is a third person adventure shooter, and all of the levels give you an open path with little branches off to the side to find upgrades, power-ups, and bonus points.
It’s great to walk down the streets blasting away all kinds of enemies with all kinds of weapons on both sides. Some levels give you a whole different experience as you walk across a bridge with enemies firing upon you from either side, or being on a raft with limited movement, and trying to kill the enemies on the banks.
Guerrilla Bob has great production values. The entire game in wonderfully rendered in 3D with a desert village theme. Guerrilla Bob himself is an epic character with his military bureau, nice mustache, and chomping down on a cigar. The entire game has fine details from the enemies to the buildings, and even the desert landscape. Also the weapon animations are all well done with machine gun fire, rocket launcher, and flame throwers all looking great.
The included soundtrack is perfect for the game with an adventure feel spiced up with the desert theme. Bob also has some clever one-liners like you hear from John Gore. Speaking of John Gore there is a crossover in this game, but it’s more than just a simple tie-in. Instead they turn out to be childhood friends, and you will even face John in the game.
Crystal is included, and it’s really well done from the interface to the connectivity. It competes well with OpenFeint, and works well to increase replayability offering online high scores and achievements. Each level is ranked to add even further to replayability, if one time through isn’t worth $2.99.
The dual stick controls are super simple and smooth as you would expect. The game's save system picks up at your most recent checkpoint within a level, and also picks up right where you left off in survival mode.
