(Note: video commentary is from YouTube uploader, not from me). Today’s the first of a few game reviews with a seasonal theme. “Garden Gnome Carnage” is a cult indie favourite that I reviewed back on Day 103, and “GGC X” puts a Christmas skin over the original game. The soldiers have been converted to elves, the helicopters to Santa-staffed sleighs, the gnomes carry up deadly cheer-infused presents to drop down the chimney rather than the bombs of the previous game.
Overall gameplay stays refreshingly ridiculous: you play a garden gnome protecting a mobile high-rise building from the enemy. You can whack them down as they try to climb up your building, given you’re at the end of a bungee cord. You can call in air strikes if things get too hot and heavy. You can grab bricks and throw them at enemies. A cat will try to climb up the building to replace bricks you expend in its defence, but to reap that benefit you have to make sure not to accidentally knock it down before it reaches the top. Don’t forget the crazy mini-games that seem to have little, if anything, to do with the rest of the action.
If you have the first game then you only need to get this re-skin if the idea of a scrooge-infused resking sounds awesomely amusing. If you don’t have the original, then this sequel is as great an entry point as the first.
Here’s what the developer (Ludosity Interactive) has to say about the game:
“Christmas, Schmistmas. STOP THOSE PESKY CHEER-SPREADING ELVES!!”
Writings of Mass Deduction 