Game Reviews

Shoot U!

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Shoot U!
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Camel Games's Shoot U! is a neat idea, but that's pretty much it.

It's as if the developer drew a rough outline of what needs to be in a game of this type rather than attempting to make something that would sustain interest for longer than a few minutes.

Blast it

Camel has a history of using others games as inspiration, and Shoot U! is basically the popular iOS title Ragdoll Blaster re-written for Android, with a cannon firing ragdolls through an arrangement of obstacles to land on a target somewhere else on the screen.

At first you just need to lob the ragdolls over a barrier of some kind, but the game gets steadily more complex. There are moving barriers, doors to be forced open, and beams to tip up. You can even use the recoil from firing a doll to move the cannon closer to your target.

Even if you finish a level with a terrible score it's often still entertaining completing it the 'wrong' way thanks to the mass of flailing bodies that are left with every failed attempt.

Damn it

While this is sounding increasingly like a straight-up copy of Ragdoll Blasters, it's worth mentioning that several of Camel's other 'tributes' are actually fairly good.

Camel's Kitchen, the studio's take on Halfbrick's smash hit Fruit Ninja, for instance, holds up well in comparison to the original.

But there's none of that polish in evidence for Shoot U!.

The graphics are just simple arrangements of hand-drawn blocks with no artistic flair, the physics are inconsistent, and the touch controls seem to make it intentionally hard to aim.

The levels don't even end when the star rolls out of reach, which sounds like a minor inconvenience at first but gets on your nerves after you tap through the menu to restart for the hundredth time.

Next to the care and attention to detail lavished on something like Com2uS's Slice It!, which looks like a rough game at first glance but hides a wealth of charm and clever execution beneath its child-like exterior, Shoot U! feels just child-like.

Shoot U!

Shoot U! is an amusing diversion, but it's too rough around the edges to be anything more involving
Score
Matthew Lee
Matthew Lee
Matthew's been writing about games for a while, but only recently discovered the joys of Android. It's been a whirlwind romance, but between talking about smartphones, consoles, PCs and a sideline in film criticism he's had to find a way of fitting more than twenty-four hours in a day. It's called sleep deprivation.