Garden Gnome Carnage
| Title: | Garden Gnome Carnage |
| Creator: | Ultimortal |
| Reviewed on: | 15 Feb 2010 |
| Genre: | Arcade |
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Review
Reviewed by on 15 Feb 2010Who would have thought blasting little creators of joy and happiness could be so much fun!? Garden Gnome Carnage is just that...and more! You are put in control of a large red building, rolling about on remote controller wheels, whilst ridiculously hanging from the chimney top!
Your only goal is to prevent the little red elves from scaling your building and (god forbid) put a present down your chimney. Using the left and right arrow keys, you have the power to move your building, thus swinging yourself from side to side. Using your body as a human wrecking ball, you must knock the elves before they have a chance to reach the top. But they're only the ground troops! You also have to hit the flying sleighs full of elves and presents. They may not be as fast as your modern day air-crafts, but if ignored, will do the job!
It takes a little bit of getting used to the close-to-realistic ropes physics of your garden gnome, but once you get the hang of it, it's really addictive. Ultimortal has even uploaded video-tutorials to youtube to get you going.
You start off on level one, which is understandable, where you get the odd casual elf climb up your building. As time goes on, word spreads, every elf in New York is on your case! You're not alone in this mission impossible, you can call in an air-strike to blow those elves to pieces. You begin with three air-strikes, so you must use them sparingly.
You also have a small furry companion to replenish your weapons. Hit the small black cat off the screen and catch him again, to make a little princess appear to re-stock your air-strikes. Also, leaving Cat reach the chimney will repair all of your bricks so you can fling them at un-suspecting elves!
A fun aspect of Garden Gnome Carnage, is the combo system. By hitting elves off the flying sleighs or vise-versa, will start a chain of combos. When a slay hits the ground, it explodes thus causing more elves to fly, they in turn could hit another sleigh and the loop continues!
The graphics are very easy on the eye, and give a retro yet high quality feel to the game. The elves look cute but don't be fooled by their little red hats, they mean business!
The sound in the game is very retro, but really fits the game well. It creates just the right mood, so you can get blasting elf, sleigh and cat to smithereens with a cheery Jingle Bells song to cheer you up! You get a great sense of achievement when you fill the combo bar which is summed up by a big head that comes in from the side of the screen and shouts "Woo hoo" at you!
Gameplay is where it's at in Garden Gnome Carnage. Swinging your body from left to right hitting anything in your path! And once you reach a high enough score, reinforcements are sent to help you. There isn't much of a menu in the game, but that let's you get straight into the action and start nuking them elves!
The game includes 16 unlockable "pro-tips" telling you little secrets and tips for the game.
Garden Gnome Carnage won 2nd place in Yoyogames' first competition. Loosing out to "Frozzd".
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You can't play Garden Gnome Carnage just once, the gameplay will have you screaming for more! The neatly drawn sprites, the retro Christmas songs, the oddly addictive rope physics and the want to get a higher score are all factors that will pull you in to play again! Just remember, when Christmas comes and Santa tries to land on your roof...try not to get carried away!
Score Breakdown
| Graphics : | 4.0 | |
| Gameplay : | 5.0 | |
| Sound : | 3.0 | |
| Replay Value : | 4.0 | |
| Total (Not Average) : | 7.0 |