Sometimes, a game comes out of nowhere with a concept so insane that you think it would be an April Fools joke. However, when it comes to Squirrel with a Gun, this is no joke. While the game does give Goat Simulator vibes, this open-world action-adventure platform game is an animal of a different breed.
Name: Squirrel with a Gun
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox Series X/S
Developer: Dee Dee Creations LLC
Publisher: Maximum Entertainment
Game Type: Action-adventure
Mode(s): Single-player
Release Date: Windows: August 29, 2024 / PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S: October 15, 2024
For the Love of Acorns (Story)
If you’re looking for a deep story from Squirrel with a Gun you will be disappointed. You play as a random Squirrel who gets into a top-secret lab and eats a genetically modified acorn. You are discovered by one of the Government Agents who are guarding this secret lab, he trips and loses his gun, you pick it up and the chaos begins.
You will spend a lot of time running around a Neighbourhood, Water Park, Government Facilities, and other locations as you are chased down by a Family of Government Agents (The first two bosses are called “Father” and “Mother” respectively) who are out to capture you. You will use a bunch of weapons to defend yourself and explore areas to find more normal and special acorns… and that’s it. No lore, no cutscenes outside of introductions, nothing. Squirrel with a Gun makes you find your own story and fun along the way.
Squirrel with a Gun… or Paintbrush (Graphics)
For such a non-AAA game, Squirrel with a Gun comes off looking like it has a bit of a production budget behind it. While not everything is perfect like the people looking like they came from a cheap copy of Blender, the world that you run around it looks pretty good.
You’ll notice things like the houses having different styles of building objects used, the water has a nice clarity to it, and the trees look like real trees with branches going off in different directions and being full of leaves. The guns also have a nice shine to them, since they are used in close-up “execution” scenes, they need to look as good as possible. I will say though, if you are looking for blood, then look somewhere else as Squirrel with a Gun doesn’t feature any… Which is a shame with some of the physics used in the game.
Squirrel indeed has a Gun… Lots of Guns (Gameplay)
Much like the story, Squirrel with a Gun is bare bones with its gameplay. You’ll be running around one of the many areas in the game, or driving a vehicle like a remote control car or remote control boat, as you look around homes, water slides, a minefield, etc avoiding Government Agents, people who think you’ll be cute, and other hazards as you unlock more and more of the map over time… Oh yeah, and you’ll get guns… Lots of guns.
You start Squirrel with a Gun with access to a standard 9mm pistol, then over time, you’ll unlock things like shotguns, automatic uzis, grenade launchers, bazookas, and other guns. You can use these guns in an offensive mode, taking down people and Agents around you who will do you harm, hold people up for acorns, and even rocket jump to other areas. I spent a lot of time skipping accessing areas by the developer’s intended means because I found something that I could shoot at the ground that did the job better.
You’ll be doing all of this because Squirrel with a Gun requires you to buy guns, unlock clothing (So many cute outfits), and even locations by spending the acorns you’ll find through each area. You will need to collect normal brown acorns through some of the methods above and also do small mini-quests like reuniting a Bride with her Drunken Groom, or bringing a guy a birthday cake as no one is around him to celebrate. There is a lot to do in Squirrel with a Gun that you’ll spend hours trying to find all the things to do.
Finding things to do is the best and worst thing about Squirrel with a Gun, as there is no objective marker, no quest list, or even a map for you to use. If you want to find out what there is to do, then you’ll have to find and climb one of the many flag poles in each area as they give you the layout of a small area at a time, then it’s up to you to remember where things are in order to access them. This comes off as a negative as some locations, objectives, or collectibles are very unclear when it comes to how to access them, leaving a lot of exploring and guesswork to the player which can get frustrating.
Open World Mayhem (Replayability)
Squirrel with a Gun sounds like one of those games where you could spend forever playing it and never find everything you can do in the game, and this is true because the game has no way to track what you have done or what you can do, it’s up to you to find your own fun… Which is one of the worst things to do with a game like this.
When I did my review playthrough of Squirrel with a Gun, I did so while I was streaming on my Twitch Channel, and after about 2 hours, I was running around the first area looking for things to do. I’d climb up the flag poles and nothing was showing up, leaving me to wonder if I ran into a bug to something. It turned out that I missed one small area at the back of the map that led to the next area as I couldn’t work out how to stop a pool from being electrified, with unlocking a boat being the answer. If there was something that said “Hey, you’ve cleared this area, unlock the boat to proceed” then I might be still going to this day, but without minimal assistance in Squirrel with a Gun, I turned the game and my stream off, not feeling like I wanted to play it again for a while.
Squirrel with a Gun: Small Animal, Big Fun (Closing)
Squirrel with a Gun is a game of “it could improve with a bit more time” but if you did those improvements, then you would lose a lot of the charm of the game. Squirrel with a Gun is a game that was made for the streaming crowd, with a lot of wacky things to do and explore in a world that seems large on the outside, but has little to do if you don’t look for it. Squirrel with a Gun is a game that is recommended with a few “brownies” or an “adult beverage”… If you catch my drift.
Review Disclosure Statement: Squirrel with a Gun was provided to us by Maximum Entertainment for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please go review our Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.
Summary
Squirrel with a Gun is one of those games which is a streamer’s dream. A lot of references to other media can be found around every corner, there is a challenge in the level design, and the guns are a lot of fun. However, with no objective marker or quest log, you do spend far too much time wandering around looking for fun instead of having fun, some of the level designs become frustrating to have to do the same thing over and over in order to get to a single objective, only to fall off something and have to climb forever all over again.
Pros
- Squirrel indeed has a lot of guns
- The outfits and hats are cute
- Some interesting references to other video games
Cons
- No clean objectives at all
- No way to work out what you have done already
- Level design can be frustrating at times
