I know what you’re thinking: You love side-scrolling indie games almost as much as you love zombie games, but there’s just not enough titles to satisfy your insatiable lust for the two, let alone one title that does both. Well buddy, thank God for the people at Crazy Monkey Studios and their new title Guns, Gore and Canolli, a game that incorporates all the freshness of zombie games and innovation of side-scrollers and rolls them in with all the charm of cookie cutter Italian stereotypes to produce a game that’s just as much fun as it is groundbreaking!
That’s some good cannoli!
Guns, Gore and Cannoli puts you into the role of Vinnie Cannoli, a wisecracking mafia tough guy during Prohibition who gets sent to the city of Thugtown to find a small-time gangster at the behest of the Godfather… I mean, they don’t actually call him that, but he is the Godfather. But Thugtown is in the middle of a full scale zombie outbreak, and to get his man, Vinnie is going to need to gun his way through not only zombies, but also soldiers and mafioso. This might normally be the point where I give a shallow game credit for knowing not to put a lot of thought into its story, but the game’s limited plot points were surprisingly dull and distracting. And while I really don’t care about political correctness in games I’m surprised that at time when the community is as hypersensitive as it is that GGC unapologetically plays up so many Italian stereotypes (With some good knocks on the Germans and Irish as well). I wouldn’t even mind if the humor was there, but this game cracks jokes that would have been corny on Saturday morning cartoons.
That’s some good cannoli!
Guns, Gore and Cannoli has one thing going for that and that’s its look. It is a very pretty game, with graphics that are hand drawn and have the pleasing cartoon colorfulness that’s right on target for its tone; even blowing off someone’s head with a high-caliber revolver has a wacky Itchy and Scratchy quality that works well. Both characters and backgrounds are colorful and well-varied, and aesthetically it would have been a standout home run if this were a few years ago or a different genre, but instead it’s just another forgettable cartoon zombie game.
Gameplay wise I was ready to accept a pretty standard side-scrolling shooter and that’s about all I got. Vinnie starts with a .45 pistol and unlimited ammo, but comes into possession of a wider arsenal of shotguns, machine guns, magnums and even a flamethrower. The weapons all play differently, and certain enemies are easier dispersed with certain weapons which starts out fine, but after a while the mobs start to grow so big that you can’t really switch between weapons fast enough to deal with foes properly – The right gun becomes the gun you have right then. After a while I didn’t think too much about how to best use my arsenal and just picked whatever I had a lot of bullets for. Sometimes I found it was even more expedient just to run by enemies, and as there are no points to be awarded, and only a few enemies drop ammunition, there’s really no reason to clear stages if you can simply run to safety.
That’s some good cannoli!
Guns, Gore and Canolli is a competent enough entry, but it wears thin quickly and I felt it neither does anything innovative nor captures classic run-and-gun excitement that you might expect from a similar title. The one aspect that I actually enjoyed was that zombies, the army and the mafia would fight each other, and sometimes it was easier to stand by and let two swarms of enemies kill each other than engage them myself. Maybe it says something that I liked the part where I didn’t have to play the game, but there was something satisfying about letting big groups of ghouls and mobsters kill each other then stroll through picking off the survivors.
That’s some good cannoli!
There isn’t a whole lot else to the game so I don’t want to belabor the point, but it’s just an underwhelming experience. The game is clearly a showcase for its art with gameplay and comedy as an afterthought and while that’s fine, it’s just feels flat. It has some other small issues, like the limited number of sound clips it recycles ad nauseum, or it’s cumbersome title that obviously should have been Don of the Dead, but overall it’s just a nice looking, largely unfun and forgettable work. The game also lasts a paltry three hours, which was longer than I cared to play, but also not a great deal at the price of $9.99. If you really, really like the graphics, or sincerely just can’t get enough zombies, maybe there’s something here for you, otherwise just go play Metal Slug.
That’s some good cannoli!
This game was reviewed using retail code provided to us by the publisher.
