Squirrel with a Gun

Squirrel With a Gun is a quirky, hilarious and a memorable title that provides fun platforming and surprisingly innovative combat.

Puzzle-platformers are nothing new, but Squirrel with a Gun’s sandbox approach and jumping-shooting mechanics help it transcend the absurdist title. The game squirrels away a lot of fun and engaging gameplay that will surprise players not expecting the game’s variety and depth. All I know is, I’ll never look at our neighborhood squirrels quite the same way again.

Although there is little story and no dialogue whatsoever, Squirrel With a Gun certainly has a sense of humour. Controlling a small furry rodent that can carry a rocket launcher and then produce bullet-time finishing moves with a variety of weapons is a heap of fun. Collecting each of the golden acorns and other collectibles effectively makes the game a 3D open-world platform puzzle game with a bad-ass, but adorable hero. The enemies are varied enough, the boss battles are reasonably challenging and the puzzles are designed to encourage exploration. And although the main game is on the short side, players can always head back and collect each of the collectibles that they missed along the way.

We certainly didn’t expect Squirrel with a Gun to be a high-quality masterpiece, but after playing it, we found some of its ideas so clever and fun that they left us with a bit of regret about the overall final result. It’s a project with a high level of nonsense, but it also genuinely shows how much the developers must have enjoyed themselves during its design and release. Enhanced by numerous unlockables and collectibles, the game is wild, delirious, and technically rough (at times unforgivably and frustratingly so). Yet, it’s this blend of mismatched characteristics that, at least partially, gives it a reason to exist in the market.

Squirrel with a Gun is an awesome, immediately charming idea with legs as short as its fluffy protagonist. While platforming around by firing off weapons and causing mayhem in the small sandbox areas yields plenty of enjoyable moments, shallow combat, numerous technical issues, and short runtime left me wanting more. Even the over-the-top boss fights, which are definitely a high point in the zany adventure, come to an end all too quickly and are in short supply. I still adore this violent rodent and have high hopes for a sequel that’s bigger, more fleshed out, and less prone to crashing, but this first shot leaves a fair bit to be desired.