GUN BROS, Awesome Arcade Action Shooter Game
by Jonathan Lonczak
May 16, 2011 1:00 PM –
Install
GUN BROS. Don’t be a T.O.O.L… Enlist with the GUN BROS today! The Freakishly Rugged Advanced Genetics Galactic Enforcement Division (AKA F.R.A.G.G.E.D) specializes in the development and deployment of superhuman special agents. Headed since its formation by the brilliant soldier-turned-scientist Mother Gun, its current roster consists of only two active field operatives, code-named Percy and Francis Gun. Their lifelong mission: to protect the cosmos from the Tyrannical Oppressors of Life known as T.O.O.L.
Like a super-powered fungus gone haywire, the evil T.O.O.L organization has grown from the dankest levels of the criminal underworld to spread its own brand of malevolent funk to every corner of the galaxy. Most recently, they’ve set their sights on harvesting the rare element Xplodium in an effort to create even more powerful weapons to enslave the universe… But not if the GUN BROS have anything to do about it!
Price: Free
Tested on: Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tablet, HTC Thunderbolt, and Samsung Fascinate
Content Rating – Everyone
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Incredibly fun to play arcade shooter!
- An incredibly large arsenal of weapons, armor, and power ups to customize your character!
- Amazing graphics!
- Works perfectly on all devices including the Motorola Xoom!
- Free application, but the option for in game purchases to speed up character development!
- Great soundtrack!
- Very easy to play!
Cons
- No multiplayer mode despite being a cooperative game.
- Most enemies are just redrawn variations of old enemies.
- Enemy AI could use some improving.
Features:
Gun Bros is an excellent top down shooter game. The object of the game is to beat wave after wave of evil aliens with your gun toting brother at your side. As you progress through the game you discover new worlds and new kinds of aliens. The more bad guys you kill the more money you get, and the more money you get the better weapons you can afford.
Gun Bros features two on-screen thumb sticks to control the main character. The left thumb stick controls movement while the right one controls the direction your character fires his weapon. The controls work remarkably well. This is the first game I had ever played with thumb stick controls. Since the time of this games launch many other games have replicated the dual thumb stick model, but few have done it quite as well as Gun Bros. The sticks track your finger movements perfectly and allow just enough room for error that the controls stop working if you move slightly off the control area on screen.
While playing you can switch weapons by pressing the blue button with two arrows pointing in opposite directions. You can carry up to two weapons at a time and constantly switch back and forth depending on the situation. This allows you to pull out a shotgun while at close range with a group of enemies and then switch back to a machine gun when at a greater range.
You can also press the red exclamation mark in order to gain access to usable items. This allows you to pull out a first aid kit and heal yourself during a battle if your health is low. It also allows you to use explosives like grenades to cause a massive amount of area affect damage to the enemey hordes.
Each battle takes place on a different zone of a different planet. As you change from zone to zone and planet to planet you will see the environments around you change. The first planet is very barren and is composed mostly of rock and lava. While the second planet is an industrial complex on a planet with grass and other life like on Earth.
Most of the enemies are derivative of enemies you have fought on a previous planet. They just have a different skin and a slightly different set of skills. On the first planet you fight little alien dudes with laser blasters that fire lasers at you one shot at a time. On the second planet you fight a humanoid carrying dual blasters who fires two shots at a time. This trend continues throughout the game. The enemies are just recycled on each of the new worlds with different skins and slightly different abilities.
One of the nice things about the game is the way that each level progresses. With each new level you are introduced to a new set of enemies from the one before. As you continue to play through each zone you encounter more and more of these new enemies and they are combined together in the oncoming waves. For example in Wave 1 I fight a hoard on spinning saw blades. In Wave 2 I fight a hoard of laser toting alien baddies. In Wave 3 I fight a horde of enemies composed of both Wave 1 and Wave 2 baddies. Eventually you will be fighting around 8 different types of monsters at 1 time.
The currency of Gun Bros is called Xplodium. Xplodium allows you to purchase new equipment for your character. This equipment includes new weapons like shotguns and machine guns, it includes one time use items like grenades and first aid kits, and it also includes new armor. Armor gives you bonuses to heath and makes it harder for baddies to kill you, but it can also boost things like your movement speed to give your character an extra edge.
Sadly Gun Bros is not multiplayer yet, but this should be coming soon through an application update. This game will be much more exciting while fighting with a real human player at your side. The NPC which helps you in the single player game is not very intelligent and will die off easily if you let him. Ironically the bad guys will never specifically target him. Instead they will only kill him if he gets in the way of them killing you. Once you understand this flaw the game becomes a bit easier.
Another flaw in the game is the bad guys’ AI. They are not very intelligent and will sometimes become stuck in the environment. Once while fighting a boss character I was able to get him stuck on a piece of the environment while I killed off the bad guys coming from the opposite direction. My friend Karl showed me this glitch and all though highly amusing, it is definitely something that should be fixed in future updates.
Watch on Mobile
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Gun Bros Game Play
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Gun Bros Game Play 2
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Gun Bros Game Play 3
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Gun Bros Title Screen
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Gun Bros Loading Screen
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Gun Bros Explodium Refinery
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Gun Bros Options
Fun Factor:
Gun Bros is an extremely fun game to play. The controls are very intuitive making it a game that anyone could pick up and begin to play, without any instruction.
As you play through the game you are given the ability to purchase new guns and equipment which upgrade various features of your character. This allows you to really personalize your character and customize his unique play style to your own.
You can also pay Glu Mobile for extra in game currency in order to skip ahead in the game without investing all the time. I love this method of supporting quality games. In game purchases allow the developers to offer the game for free which makes it available for more users. However, all of us have a bit of a lazy side and who wouldn’t trade $2 for all the latest and greatest ass kicking gear in the galaxy!
Addictive:
Gun Bros is extremely addictive when you first play it. Each wave of baddies can be exterminated very quickly, and the more waves you conquer in a row the higher the amount of money you will make from that mission. The equipment store gives you lots of great items to spend your money on, and there is no shortage of baddies to try them out on.
The game story line is hilarious. I especially love the catch phrase “Don’t be a T.O.O.L. Enlist in Gun Bros Today!” Humorous dialogue and in game commentary make this game and others like it that much more fun to play.
The two biggest detriments to the enjoyability of this game is it’s lack of multiplayer and it’s repetitive gameplay.
For a game that has been released since October 28th of 2010 it is severely disappointing that the developers have still not released multiplayer support for this game. The developers keep promising it’s integration, but the feature has still not arrived in all of this time. To be fair to Glu Mobile this is a cross-platform game which includes iPhone, Facebook, and Android; so they are probably working on making the multiplayer cross-platform as well. I would expect that to take a lot of work. That being said single player games always tend to lose their replay value after one play through, and many times I can’t even commit to them enough to get that far.
The second issue I have with the game is that most of the monsters in the game are just redrawn versions of a monster you have already encountered. Sure they have new abilities, like shooting one more fireball, but more original content would do a lot for this game. This is a problem the developers have begun working on and recently they added a new zombie planet with unique new monsters and a new game play style. Let’s hope we keep seeing more of this from them.
Graphics:
The graphics for Gun Bros are incredible. This game plays flawlessly on every device I tested it on. In fact the larger the device I used the more incredible the game play experience was. Very few games are optimized so well to run on tablets. Even though the gameplay style is a little different, the graphics of this game are in competition with games like Dungeon Defenders or Guerrilla Bob.
I love the fact that the game also includes cartoon pinup girls. It just adds to the goofy tough guy theme that permeates the whole game. You feel like you just got dropped in the middle of the movie “Last Action Hero” and it is time to kick some ass!
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
Gun Brothers does not take advantage of either Accelerometer or of Vibration. This does not in away detriment the game experience, because in order for the game to play properly on so many devices certain restrictions had to be set. No phone would be able to display this game in portrait mode and still be playable due to the dual thumb stick controls. Also certain devices like the Motorola Xoom are incapable of haptic feedback and so vibration would not be possible. Even if they were to include vibration in the phone versions of the game, the feature would be annoying and not beneficial. Imagine if the phone vibrated just once for each baddy you killed, by the end of the zone your hands would be numb!
The music soundtrack in Gun Bros is awesome! It really draws you in to the game and adds to the addictive gameplay elements that already exist in this totally awesome game. The track doesn’t get boring despite it’s repetitive nature during battles and helps instead of hurts the game’s overall playability.
Tags:
Android App,
Android Apps,
Android Game,
AndroidTapp.com App Review,
Arcade and Action,
Glu Mobile,
Gun Bros,
Multiplayer,
Shooter
Categorised in: Arcade & Action
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