Summary
Squirrel with a Gunis exactly what you think it is. You control a squirrel with a gun. It’s that sort of zany, hard-to-control chaos that Goat Simulator has successfully marketed as hilariously good fun, embracing the fact that it’s utterly bonkers. I love Goat Simulator and, knowing that Squirrel with a Gun was following in its hoofsteps, it felt like a natural game for me to check out at Gamescom. But I was very, very wrong.
There aren’t many games that I spectacularly fail at to this degree. I was all too aware of spending too much time on the same section, completely mucking it up failed attempt after failed attempt while some poor PR person had to sit there and watch the horror unfold. Eventually, I tapped out. Despite still using up most of my 30-minute slot, I had not progressed far. I hadn’t even completed the tutorial. I left wondering if I had to suddenly turn in my gamer card.
I was terrible at aiming the squirrel when jumping. It sort of glides a little so the jump always felt off to me. That’s not the squirrel’s fault though, it’s entirely my fault. I just can’t aim. So you can imagine how well I fared at firing a gun with said squirrel too. Abysmal. For the most part, you can just fire at will and you’ll eventually hit something and that’s fine. The agents shooting back at you aren’t particularly difficult to defeat and none of them managed to kill me. My own enemy was myself. And recoil, it turns out.
The squirrel doesn’t carry an appropriately-sized firearm, you see. That little squirrel uses whopping great human-sized guns, and the recoil really does push you back. This was something I underestimated frequently, to the point where I’d get pushed back and back farther until I was in lava. Whoops. For the most part, I could get through the majority of what I played after the initial realisation that I would never control the squirrel, the gun, or the aim that well. I was just brute forcing my way through parts with little skill or fanfare.
As well as that first opening jump stumping me for a while, my next downfall came in the form of a section near the end of the tutorial, or at least what was ‘the end’ for me. There was a section with vertical poles of varying lengths coming down from the ceiling that you had to jump between to progress upwards.
After failing many, many times, the PR person kindly pointed out to me that there were platforms that I could use instead. For these, I had to use the gun’s recoil to help make me jump far enough to reach the next platform. Suddenly, my worst enemy was my best friend. Until I reached the top and had to progress across bridges you lowered by shooting targets and I kept firing myself off the platform altogether. Recoil giveth and recoil taketh away.
Ultimately, I left a failure. When I returned home, I told my son all about Squirrel with a Gun as he’s the biggest Goat Simulator fan I know. He scoffed at my tales of woe and so at launch, we installed it and he got ready to show me how it was done. I must admit, I took some pleasure in seeing him also struggle to get to grips with both rodent and recoil. Like me, he had utterly underestimated this little squirrel. I tried it again but failed miserably again. Unlike me, my son is sticking with it. It’s become a challenge to him that he aims to overcome and he chips away at it one part at a time, taking a break when he gets too frustrated and returning when he feels in fighting form once more.
For Goat Simulator lovers, Squirrel with a Gun is a must-play. Just don’t be surprised if it’s not as easy as you think. You’re in great company in the loser squad who can’t control a squirrel with a weapon, at least.
