Gunslugs PS Vita review

Gunslugs is fast, manic and darn hard. Continuing the wave of super challenging PS Vita games, Gunslugs is no different. Armed and dangerous, you’re catapulted straight into the thick of it.

Forget lighting up a Cuban cigar, rolling out a map and explaining your game plan on your snazzy liveried van’s bonnet.

Hell no, you would be toast even before striking the match. You get the picture? Good.

Gunslugs is your blast to the past and OrangePixel’s way of educating you the way gaming rolled moons ago, but with a modern day gaming twist. Along with the extremely gifted guys from Abstraction Games, Gunslugs arrives PS Vita trained and complete with the slickest of controls. Ready to do some major damage? You bet.

Starting with two character’s to choose from, both armed with equal levels of arrogance, it’s show time. Johnny Rumble is your shade wearing quiffed hero, while Gun Chick is the blonde eyelid flirter. Side scrolling from left to right, your goal is to deactivate 3 flashing beacons then sprint to the safety of the waiting chopper. Leaving the heap of mess behind, you then continue to the next level.

Stopping you on your deactivating way are a barmy army of armed pixel privates, trying to gun you down any which way they can. Each of these fallen soldiers drops medi-packs and gold coins which need to be bagged before they disappear into the ether.

Don’t think these tiny bad asses fire pea shooters either – these guys can bring your health bar down to zero in milliseconds with a cocktail of flamethrowers and deadly grenades. So yeah, get use to dying. It’s only the experienced and patient that survive here.

You really have to be on your guard and if best behaviour is gunning down as many foes as possible, then be on that too. There’s no Snickers chomping Mr T to help you out here when things get a little hairy.

Luckily, you can commandeer the odd tank or two and pound your enemy into submission.

As you advance in later levels and encounter end of level bosses, this little PS Vita title really keeps the heart pounding. If you play in a clever way you’ll realise that this is not a quick Die, Die and Start again type of affair.

Conserving your life gauge and gaining continues makes Gunslugs a clever game indeed.

Scattered throughout the random generated levels are shelters which provide some extra gaming additions. It’s here where you can be transported back in time to the Gameboy and old style stand up arcade cabinets.

These levels give you an opportunity to grab extra gold coins and play some excellent retro platform games. These levels are fast, brief and really require skill if you’re to complete them.

As you don’t get long to master each bonus level, they really bring a fresh feel and a big replay factor to Gunslugs.

Your gold, blood, sweat and tears are transformed into the Leaderboards, and not forgetting Gunslugs also offers Cloud saving too.