Minigore, the epic adventure of John Gore, has been released by Chillingo into the app store. Though it is only a single-level 3D survival shooter, Minigore is Maxi-fun!
You are John Gore, a cross between Paul Bunyan and one of Gumby’s blockheads. You are alone in the woods when you hear a noise. Turning around, you come face-to-fur with a hideous black creature with ridiculously sharp teeth. Ka-blam! Another noise. You spin around in time to… Ka-blam! Another one down. Here comes a big one. Ka-blam! What the… Blasting him just spawned a bunch of tiny ones. Ka-blam, ka-blam, ka-blam! They’re everywhere… and they are all headed your way. Keep shooting, John! You must hold off the onslaught as long as you can. There are too many….. ouch…..I can’t shooampphfpsm…… (silence, save for the gentle chomping sound coming from the hairy, black mass deep in the forest). How quickly you die is up to you!
With only your weapon and your wits, your task is simple: shoot all of the attacking Furries. There are regular Furries, Giant Furries, Minifurries, and Firefurries. Eventually, you will die. Shooting a Giant Furry leaves regular Furries to deal with. Shooting the regular Furries leaves a small group of Minifurries. Blasting these guys leaves you safe…. for the moment. On occasion, a deceased Furry will leave behind a four-leaf clover. Collect three to turn John into a flaming beast capable of destroying Furries by simple running into them. The more clovers you collect, the longer you remain in this state. It is temporary, however, so be aware that you will become John again, vulnerabilities and all. Your only defense is your feet and your weapons, which include your default machine gun with unlimited ammo, the double-barreled shotgun, or the exploding booby trap to surprise the Furries. Touch a Furry once and you lose some clothing and show visible signs of attack. Touch a Furry again and it’s all over but the chomping.
The graphics are beautiful and the framerate is super smooth. There is a cool soundtrack playing in the background, though you can play tracks from your own library if you wish. Minigore uses a dual-stick control system. The left stick (blue) moves John in any direction. The right stick (red) aims his weapon and fires. The controls work flawlessly and feel intuitive and natural. The game also supports screen flipping and uses OpenFeint for leaderboards and trashtalking… er, chat. Sound easy? Switch on Expert mode and show us what you’re really made of.
Minigore is considered Episode 1, with much content and user-involved improvements to follow. Chillingo is working on co-op play for a future update, with unlockable characters from some of your other favorite iDevice games. Minigore has drawn comparisons to games like iDracula for its control scheme and survival shooter style, though we preferred the graphical presentation of Minigore over its competitor. At $0.99, it is certainly worth picking up for its enjoyment value and upcoming updates. We give the current installment of Minigore a solid 4-Dimple rating.
Minigore gets our AppSmile 4-Dimple rating:
