Guns, Gore & Cannoli is that type of game nobody can hate and that is just really fun to play. It is nothing new, but simply fun and goes its own way – quite successfully, in fact. There is not much to dislike in Guns, Gore & Cannoli, nonetheless, we start at the beginning and explain what this game offers.
To begin with, Guns, Gore & Cannoli is a 2-D action game that is immensely fast-paced. Crazy Monkey Studios published it in April 2015, but only recently the game came out for Xbox One. On September 25 it was released on Microsoft’s console as the first Belgian game ever, a version for Playstation 4 is still to come. Along with the new version came an extra game mode (called versus mode), extra skins and a new AI.
„This AI can calculate all your moves and tricks 1 million times faster than you do and can predict the future. It’s prediction: You will die.
Do you think your reflexes and years of experience can outsmart 21kb of seemingly random gibberish code? Find out soon!“
To be frank, after a first glimpse I thought the game was boring. I saw zombies (to which we come back later) and repetitive gameplay. Despite my prejudices I gave it a try and as it turns out the game is HILARIOUS! You can even condone that there are stale enemies. They might be not quite innovative, but they are perfectly staged so that they fit the witty and ironical setting of the whole game. I mean, there are zombie stripper with whips…
It made me laugh, it made me scream, it made me rethink my expectations on games.
„Imagine The Godfather playing Metal Slug on the Night of the Living Dead.“
Even the story is interesting, one of those where you guess the ending and it most certainly ends up the way you expected, but you still want to know what happens in between. Guns, Gore & Cannoli is a game that does not necessarily require a story. However, there is one incorporated, although one could have done that by adding additional elements (what else would they be, if not additional?!?) that the player is free to explore. Yet, interrupting the otherwise fluent and fun gameplay with cut scenes and slightly too long dialogues leaves the player with a feeling of abstraction – fragments of plot infusing the dynamics of the action sequences.
Yet, this is complaining about first world gaming issues. The game is humorous and highly entertaining, even more when you have friends to play it with and if you like zombies, this is your game and you need it. There is not much more to say, Guns, Gore & Cannoli is a steady game with comic-like graphics. No innovations, nothing to make wrong. But I would not be me, if I had not more to state:
The music reminds me of Mafia 2, thus it is perfectly on point, it conveys a dangerous, yet blithe feeling that you expect in a game set in the 1920s. You can choose between different devilish archetypes, who look stereotypical and the outer appearance has no influence on the character, but it helps to distinguish your character from your friend’s and it adds a bit more singularity and fun. The mafia-setting works out well, the multiplayer is surprisingly easy to customise and makes a lot more fun, while it is not getting easier and it turns this casual game into a game you want to play with friends while eating pizza and drinking too sweet drinks.
The only concern I have is: Why did they use zombies??? Those enemies seem to be everywhere, they appear to be developer’s favourite choice instead of creating something unique, or at least less bovine. Guns, Gore & Cannoli, on the other hand, created amusing versions and varied them regarding difficulty – for instance, there are football zombies that are fast or slow poisonous ones, all of whom secrete toxic smoke from their throats when you shoot the head off. Moreover, there appear other enemies as well. To conclude, I still hate zombies and even this game cannot make me like them. However, the game does not suffer damage by using them, at the end the gameplay and fun is more important than undead vermin. I had (and actually still have) a lot of fun with this game and so does my friend, who played with me.
Watch the Xbox One release trailer below these words and purchase the game either on Steam or your Xbox One. If you like the game as much as I did, share the love.