The dual stick shooter genre is familiar territory for Chillingo, and Guerrilla Bob capitalises on the success of one of their previously published titles; Minigore. After having joined the army, Bob is framed by John Gore who is jealous of his success. Kicked out of the army, Bob is out to exact revenge on John and anyone else who dares to stand in his way.

In a game like this one a story isn’t so important however. What is more important is that you’re having fun wielding an array of weaponry, wreaking as much damage as you possibly can. This is where Guerrilla Bob excels in its level based format and although there is a survival mode with a fairly spacious map, it’s in the seven other levels where you’ll find the most fun. You get a real sense of exploration rather than one of trying to survive as long as possible—thanks to levels that have hidden areas and an assortment of new elements—like trying to outrun a bulldozer, firefighting over narrow bridges and even standing on a raft whilst trying to dodge fire from all sides. If anything, we’d like more of these gameplay changes interspersed throughout the short hour or so long campaign.

Length is somewhat of a problem in this title, but it is justified by the attention to detail that the levels actually have—you have multiple stage bosses and many different enemies that will try and seek you out if you’re tentative enough. Tents scattered about the levels spawn infinite numbers of enemies and so should be torched before you become overrun. Preferably with the flamethrower—one of three weapons found in the game, the others being a machine gun and a rocket launcher. It is disappointing that you can’t upgrade these to your liking, instead finding the power ups scattered around the environment, but this is understandable given the brevity of the main game.

The control scheme is absolutely perfect, we could not find one thing wrong with it—the thumb sticks can even be hidden if you feel comfortable with the placement, but even if you leave them on they never crowd the action. Weapon selection is easy, and as you have unlimited ammunition you can just simply spray fire around everywhere. What’s also great is that each weapon is better in different situations than the others, so you’ll quickly learn to use the flamethrower to torch enemy cover, and the rocket launcher to deal spread damage from afar.

Guerrilla Bob looks as great as it plays too—the lighting, explosion and fire effects being the most impressive, but each level comes into its own with a bold, vivid colour palette that suits perfectly the desert setting. Roads amongst the parched sand are often cracked and lead to nowhere, and there are many barriers and fortifications that you can tear down. True, the path trodden is rather linear except for those rare nooks and crannies that you may find a score bonus or two within. We’re not as impressed with the audio—the music is nondescript whilst the gunfire is often interrupted with Bob shouting abuse, which is about as funny as it is convincing.

Nonetheless, we can still heartily recommend Guerrilla Bob. It looks fantastic, and is definitely worth the £1.79 for the depth and content that you get here. It is brief, but you can extend the life of the game through the survival mode which should please fans of social gaming platforms—Chillingo’s new Crystal service makes its debut here, and you can collect achievements as well as post high scores from right within the game. We think if you like dual stick shooters then you would do well to pick this one up.

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