Game Reviews

Meowcenaries

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Meowcenaries
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It’s amazing it’s taken this long for a games company to capitalise on the strangely hypnotizing phenomenon of LOL cats.

But can a game about militaristic cats that can't spell entrance as easily?

Let slip the LOL cats of war

Meowcenaries follows four feisty felines as they set off on a mission to rescue the president. It's all very heroic and deliberately tongue-in-cheek, which adds a great deal of entertainment value to an otherwise shaky shooter.

As always, you’ve got the left virtual analogue stick to control the movement of your Meowcenaries – who all follow your commands in a single-file line – while strafing is handled by a second stick on the other side of the screen. We’ve seen it plenty of times on iPhone, and it’s as welcome here as always.

The difference is in the way your cats arrange themselves as you move.

Although the lead cat is in position, that’s not necessarily the case for the puss at the back, who could be hung out to dry if you're not paying close attention. Once you get used to this buddy movement system, positioning your Meowcenaries carefully can increase the spread of fire when shooting at BadCatz, which all adds an interesting control dynamic.

I doesn’t haz cheezburgurs

But despite the hilarity of its premise and unending good humour, Meowcenaries plays like a bit of a (LOL) pig.

The action is never particularly hot, with a lot more walking going on than shooting. Even when the fire fights do heat up, they’re over pretty quickly with the fastest gun generally coming out on top.

The animations are also very stilted, to the point at which it’s hard to tell whether graphics are rough or the game is slowing down; either way, it’s jarring to look at.

Meowcenaries is meant to be cartoony, of course, so it’s hard to criticise it for having sparse, cel-shaded visuals, but there’s no excuse for them to be quite so repetitive.

The permeating good humour is a benefit to your collective of mercenary moggies however, and makes up for a significant degree of the lacklustre gameplay. From the text-speak quips to the LOL cat-style instructions, it’s hard not to laugh along with Meowcenaries – even during moments when you find the gameplay slow or stilted.

So the question really is whether that’s enough to carry the game for you?

If Five Minutes To Kill (Yourself), or South Park Mega Millionaire are recent favourites you might enjoy this, but anyone looking for a hot new shooter to play will find Meowcenaries to be more of a mangy stray than a cool cat.

Meowcenaries

Genuinely funny from beginning to end, Meowcenaries’ sense of humour is its only saviour; the shooter aspects are distinctly dry and awkward
Score
Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.