Guerrilla Bob (iPhone) Review

Costas Stephanides’s Review

Taking dual shooters to the next level

On the whole dual shooters are pretty much the same. A blood hungry soldier, or sometimes even a pilot, travels aimlessly across a never-ending landscape killing enemies just for kicks. There's very little plot and point to the game. However, they are good fun and developers understandably keep churning them out. Chillingo's latest title takes the genre to the next level and hopefully kick starts a new trend in dual shooters.

Guerrilla Bob is a man with a mission and after a short intro we find that it's one based on revenge. Like any good western, there's betrayal involved. Betrayed by his old friend Bob travels through 8 stages to hunt him down. Given the press release and sneak peeks, it’s not much of a spoiler to let slip that Bob’s old friend is John Gore from the cult game Minigore. Different developers but Chillingo publishes both, if you’re looking for a connection.

Not only does Guerrilla Bob share a character, but the general graphics and mood to the game are pretty similar to Minigore. Guerrilla Bob is a short, almost cubic, character but the developers have flexed their muscles with some of the enemies. Each of the 8 levels ends in a final fight against some pretty large bosses. During the normal levels there 4 or 5 different enemy types and there’s plenty of variation compared to Minigore. Guerrilla Bob also has much better use of backgrounds of any dual shooter. Most levels will have you walking through a ghost town or a canyon. Although you generally walk towards the sunset along a straight path, there are times when you can sneak around buildings to surprise the enemy or find an all important upgrade.

The basic controls are much the same as any other dual shooter; your left thumb controls a directional pad for walking Bob around and the right pad directs and shoots the weapon. The game starts you off with a machine gun but rocket launchers and flamethrowers will make themselves available later. You have unlimited ammo and you can freely switch between the weapons depending on your mood. Admittedly, the rocket launcher is just too powerful when fully upgraded that I rarely switched weapons.

Taking the genre to the next level has also brought in a health meter and first aid packs. You can take quite a few hits before you die and you still start the game with 5 lives. This is not just a 5 minute filler with nothing more than a high score to aim for. The missions are fairly quick but completing the story mode will still take an hour or so. After that, Survival Mode is unlocked which more like the dual shooters of old. It’s worth mentioning that you are rated for each level and you are free to go back and get the A grades with your improved arsenal. If you still want more action you can change to the hard difficulty (although this does reset the game).

Guerrilla Bob is the first game to feature Chillingo’s own online community, Crystal. To be honest, it seems much the same as any other online community. There are challenges, friend requests and achievements to earn. It’s good to see Chillingo have developed their own network and Chillingo fans will no longer wonder whether it’s OpenFeight, Agon or some other network that needs another registration.