Game Reviews

Burrito Bison

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iOS
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Burrito Bison
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iOS
| Burrito Bison

Burritos: delicious spicy meat-based treat and nefarious portal into a world of killer gummy bears. That's the case according to Ravenous Games's new bounce-'em-up, Burrito Bison, at any rate.

Following a surprising supermarket altercation, our titular hero is zapped into a world of candy-coated pain, forced to wrestle to the death at the hands of those gelatinous ne'er do wells.

Bum rush

Essentially, Burrito Bison is an elaborate game of keepy-uppy, where your helpfully rubberised buttocks cause you to spring enthusiastically off anything your nether regions touch. The only things that slow you down are gravity and the occasional gummy police officer.

Thankfully, the world is alive with gummy detritus, from airborne balloons to a heaving throng of scarpering critters.

The trick is to use your limited Rocket Slam pants (yes) to ground-pound at the most opportune moments - bouncing up to reach dizzying heights then slamming down again in a bid to maintain enough velocity to crash through each gate leading to the next newly themed area.

Fast food

In that respect, Burrito Bison is a game of pant management, observation, and timing. You need to hit the right mark on the wheel at the start of each round to catapult off at maximum speed, while careless deployment of your undies mid-game will cause you to hit the earth and grind to a fatal halt.

Burrito Bison is very definitely a game of luck, too, with randomised level layouts meaning one attempt might see you flying carefree as you bounce along a generous arrangement of balloons while the next might see you fumble in seconds.

Store manager

Thankfully, help is at hand, with a variety of items available to keep your momentum up. Balloons, hand gliders, pogo, sticks and bombs all help lift you higher, some requiring careful timing to work while others merely require that you crash to earth in the right place at the right time.

Additionally, each attempt nets you a generous amount of coinage to level-up various skills in the store. You can fork out dough to increase the appearance of specific helpful gummies, power-up your initial launch, smother yourself in oil for an extra degree of slipperiness, and a whole lot more.

Equally welcome is the fact that Ravenous Games has avoided the temptation of in-app purchases, meaning everything is yours for nothing but a bit of a bounce and grind.

Chance encounter

If there's one issue with Burrito Bison, it's that upgrading these items is basically mandatory for success at first, with early attempts at progression pretty much futile.

There's a degree of smoke and mirrors here, as you don't so much grind to improve as grind to get the game to where, you suspect, it should be in the first place. It’s a kind of reverse difficulty curve that conspires to quash any possible skill-flexing satisfaction.

Soon, though, the game opens up and there's a gleeful thrill to Burrito Bison's action. Its furious, eye-searing speed and wing-and-a-prayer tension prove consistently exhilarating, particularly alongside the blistering cartoon visuals and pomp and grandeur of the very silly score.

Burrito Bison might only have one idea but its a simple idea done astonishing well. So tuck on in - it's delicious.

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Burrito Bison

A simple concept delivered with gusto, making Burrito Bison's basic butt-hopping an intensely exhilarating ride
Score
Matt Wales
Matt Wales
Following a lifetime of adventure on the high seas, swabbing the editorial decks of the good ship IGN and singing freelance shanties across far-flung corners of the gaming press, Matt hung up his pirate hat and turned his surf-seared gaze toward the murky mysteries of the handheld gaming world. He lives to sound the siren on the best mobile games out there, and he can't wait to get kraken.