Blast Em Bunnies Review

Blast ‘Em Bunnies is the newest game from Australian indie studio Nnooo, one in which you are put in control of a Bunny armed with upgradeable weapons, with your objective being to survive as many waves of various species of Evil Bunnies as possible, without forgetting you’ll need to go up against the usual big Bosses as well. With the option to hold a singular weapon type, you stand on a platform in the middle of a field, rotating 360 degrees in all directions while trying to kill the Evil Bunnies before they kill you. The more Evil Bunnies you are able to kill and the more missions you complete, the more coins you will earn that can be used to buy some upgrades for your weapons and for yourself. Blast ‘Em Bunnies has a simple concept that might become monotonous after a while, but it doesn’t stop it from being super addictive.

As I’ve mentioned there is quite a decent variety of Evil Bunnies available in the game. Besides the bosses that randomly appear from time to time, there are six more “species”; Walkers, Runners, Grenadiers, Blockers, Flyers, and Burrowers, plus two special ones – the Golden Bunny, and the maniac Throat Slitters. The first six do pretty much as their names suggest with three different colours used to distinguish between their difficulty levels. The Blues are the easiest one, followed by the slightly tougher Yellow ones, and finally the hardcore Reds. The Golden Bunny can be best described as a the rabbit version of the famous Golden Sonic transformation, which will appear running around the arena. Once you shoot him you will be put into a frenzy mode where you are invincible and just have to kill as many Evil bunnies as you can while the power lasts. The Throat Slitter Bunnies are the most sadistic characters in the game and like the Golden Bunnies, they will randomly appear on the map with a baby bunny in their hand and a big knife in the other. If you don’t kill them quickly they will slit the poor little bunny’s throat. It all sounds a bit too hardcore for a game that has such a cartoonist aspect like Blast ‘Em Bunnies and ensures that BEB is most definitely not a kids game!

The weapons that you can use have been divided into four categories; the Rifle, the initial weapon which you start with, Mortar, Machine Gun and Laser Beam. All can be upgraded with extra barrels, increased fire power and different types of ammo, all being veggie and fruit related, like carrots, pumpkins, watermelon seeds, and much more. None of the weapons have any type of crosshair, which will be frustrating until you get used to it. To upgrade and buy new weapons you will need to collect coins, that can be earn by completing missions and by shooting the coins which are left by the Evil bunnies once you kill them.

Blast ‘Em Bunnies features two modes – the Survival mode, and that of Slaughter. Survival is the main mode of the game, in which you will try to survive as many waves that you can while collecting coins and fulfilling the missions. The Slaughter mode is similar to Survival but the main difference is that you only have two minutes in which to eliminate as many bunnies as you can. Both modes have different difficulty levels; Easy, Normal, Hard and Super Hard for Survival mode and Normal, Hard, Super and Ultra for Slaughter mode. In order for you to get access to the various difficulty levels, you will have to beat the game on the previous difficulty level which then unlocks the more intense ones.

Selecting between modes and their difficulty levels is made on the main menu, with detailed information about which mode and corresponding difficulty level being shown in the upper left corner of the screen. To change between them you will have to use the Y and B buttons, which isn’t exactly the best way to do it and feels a bit strange. But hey, at least it’s only a menu! The main menu is also a bit strange since the mode options are pushed to the upper corner and the options that are shown in the center are the ones that will take you to the Armory menu, where you upgrade and buy your weapons, the Utilities, where you can upgrade your health and change the arenas and bunnies look, and last but not least the Store, that will take you into the Xbox One DLC store of the game.

Speaking of DLC, the game already has a bunch of packs at launch, wth the majority covering new arenas and skins for the Evil Bunnies alongside some coin multipliers. The DLC can either be purchased individually, in packs or in a complete bundle. The downloadable content wasn’t available to be accessed until the release date of the game, so I’ve played the majority of it as if it was only the main game. With the DLC now unlocked, I’ve been given the opportunity to try them all. Besides the coin multipliers, all the rest just change the aesthetics of the game, with the only part directly affecting the game being the coin multipliers. These can be helpful in order to unlock the various upgrades quicker but it is completely possible to unlock all without relying on them. It might take a bit of time but eventually, you will get the coins needed to unlock them.

The controls of Blast ‘Em Bunnies are the simplest that you might find in a game, they pretty much assume the usual look around with the analog sticks and shoot with the Right Trigger. Apart from that there aren’t any other controls that you need to worry about. Graphically, Blast ‘Em Bunnies brings many comparisons with the cartoonist and kid friendly art style used with the Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare games. The scenarios are all full of colour and animated with a day/night cycle that gives a nice touch to it. The sound on the game isn’t bad, all the guns have their own sound effects, as well as their various ammunitions. The Evil bunnies aren’t left wanting in the audio department either with them loving a war cry or two before they start attacking.

One aspect that Blast ‘Em Bunnies has that makes you become a bit too addicted to it are the achievements. There are a total of 73 and will grant the usual total of 1000 points once you earn them all, but pretty much all achievements very easy to get since they are mostly gathered by doing small tasks during the game. If you are an achievement hunter looking for some easy games to boost up your score Blast ‘Em Bunnies is most definitely one of them.

Blast ‘Em Bunnies is a minimalist game, with everything right from the controls to the gameplay being simple and easy to learn. Even without the DLC, the base game is an enjoyable experience that allows for a good break from the more complex stuff that you can go hands on with nowadays. Although you must remember that the game doesn’t have a great deal of longevity and can, and will, become repetitive after a while.

If you are looking for an easy game to play without much thinking and a way to boost your gamerscore a bit more then Blast ‘Em Bunnies is one for you.