Gun Bros 2 (Universal) by Glu Games Inc. [Out Worldwide]

[C.Hannum]

Because I am some sort of eternal optimist with freemium games, I decided that, in spite of the general dismissal here on TA, to give Gun Bros 2 a try since it went world wide a couple of weeks ago and the app store reviews are actually pretty good. This was spurred because, among other things, I haven't seen anyone actually review the game much or the IAP in any sort of objective manner, just merely dismiss it out of hand based on short term play where they clearly went in biased from the beginning.

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This is not your father's Gun Bros. They've really upped the ante on arena, enemy, and character design. The general game structure is still the same over all, but it's a definite step up compared to the original. In general, the weapon mechanics are the same, but they've introduced what is actually a very satisfying addition to the weapon mechanics: mods. Each weapon has 3 mod slots, and you can mix and match them as you want giving your active weapon the additional powers of calling in aerial stikes, launching homing missiles, dropping spider mines, make a decoy of yourself, gaing a speed boost, etc.. It's actually a very good system and adds a nice bit of variety and customization to a repetitive, grindy game like a Gun Bros game.

Another key improvement is that the mods and armor are all, technically speaking, found in-game as random crate drops in the missions. Better yet, the armor has become like the hats in The Squids: when you find a piece of armor for the first time, its stat benefits are permanently added to your character without them necessarily wearing it, in other words, *every* piece of new armor is a boon and you can still wear whatever you like for cosmetics. Heck, if you want, you can even sell off a piece once you've collected it once and its stat benefits are yours to keep.

Another redeeming factor is they've done away with most of the timers except for a very key one. You are free to play and replay missions as much and as fast as you want, you get all your Xplodium up front, no waiting on it to "refine" as plagued the GB1 design, and they have added in fast playing "endless" arenas where you earn Xplodium at a good clip (but can't find any gear drops). The big snafu is that individual brotherhood bros can only be used once every 24 hours and the default bro seemingly sucks even more than it did in GB1. Instead of waiting on worlds to be ready again, or on your Xplodium to refine, now you've got to really go out there and build up a large enough stable of GB2 playing friends if you don't want to be playing pretty much everything past the first world solo and, therefore, dependent on your own (hard to come by/expensive) firepower.

Of course, this wouldn't be a Glu game without some serious IAP and GB2 does not, um, disappoint. However, to be fair, it must be said that this is a new leaf for Glu. Not only can you find all the armor and mods as drops in the game (even if some of them are insanely rare and might take playing until your fingers fall off to find), these weapons are cheaper than ever, even if that doesn't translate to exactly reasonable. Still, weapons of considerable power, certainly more than you will actually need to finish the game's missions, are available for in-game currency, and the most power powerful weapon in the game can be had for a mere $78, which, by previous Glu standards, is a steal of epic proportions (and it's only slightly more than double the power of the most powerful Xplodium based gun, which is already meant as a pretty stupidly powerful weapon).

Still, you've got your standard nudge/elbow to the solar plexus in favor of buying IAP:

- The best weapons are only going to be had by paying for warbucks OR taking part in sponsored offers that are going to cost nearly as much or more money, you are not going to be earning them in-game, period. You don't actually *need* said weapons (particularly since there is no shortage of people out there posting their GC nicks who already have such toys and then let you piggy back on their expenditure), but since this game is heavily built on the ePeen stroking feedback loop, you're certainly going to skip a lot of grinding on your way to feeling big and mighty by dropping $30 and buying something like the Spitfires or Snarlers.

- Because the very best armor and mods are very, very rare as drops, they, of course, sell chests in the shop containing three random premium items for a mere ~$10 (3% chance of getting the ultra rare stuff, a 97% chance of getting stuff you'll find easily, w00t legalized internet gambiling!).

- Enemies often have fairly tough shields (called barriers) that come in three different colors, and your weapons can, for a mere 2 warbucks, be upgraded to instantly destroy shields of a particular color. The catch being there are 3 different colored shields, each weapon can only be attuned to one color at a time, and you can only carry 2 weapons... You will either need to obtain at least 3 good weapons so you can outfit matching colored weapons as needed for a given mission (even more grinding or chaching), put up with only being able to deal with 2 out of 3 of the shields (more difficult grinding /play sad trombone sound), or engage in a steady stream of paying warbucks to alter your guns' attunments, and while the game does give you enough warbucks to handle attuning weapons a handful of times as you're gaining new gear, you can't keep switching willy nilly without buying more warbucks. You can certainly make due without constantly paying, but it definitely ups the difficulty to have shields you have to brute force. You're going to want to eventually have 3 different weapons you consider good, which seems to be the point here.

- The game feeds you a stream of offers you "can't" refuse where if you buy a warbucks and/or xplodium IAP of a certain size or larger, they toss in a "free" gun you can't get anywhere else and full sets of armor that fairly rare in-game and have nice bonuses. This means that, viewed in a certain way, the IAP is not as expensive as it looks because if you're patient for the right offer, you can buy gear you want outright worth the same or more than the IAP currency you're technically purchasing can buy, it's almost like getting it for less than half price

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In the non freemium based complaint category, although the game generally controls well, the sensitive area for the sticks is too small in my opinion and, like every other Glu game I've ever played, load times seem extremely poorly optimized.

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All of which is to say, if you like Dual Stick Shooters, at all enjoyed GB1, and haven't sworn a sacred vow to never even give Glu another download let alone any money, it's worth your try. It's got the same testosterone laden over the top 80s action film ridiculousness (and, yet, has toned down the overt sexism markedly), has some interesting arena design for a DSS, and makes a nice counterpoint to Minigore 2 that launched around the same time. You can actually play and enjoy it for free once you find some higher leveled bros to help you get yourself leveled up, and it's got a nice sense of advancement even without spending money once you do get far enough along to start farming missions for drops. And if you find yourself drunk and feeling in a mood to support Glu's strange form of freemium monetization, it's certainly more affordable than any other previous Glu title I've played for whatever that's worth.

[Joltrabbit]

Every freemium game I've enjoyed greatly (Gun Bros, Destroy Gunners Z, etc) has lacked a pay- for-item or service I felt added to the gameplay.

I was going to force myself to spend cash on GB 2 after all the months of grinding, Tapjoy and commercial watching... But I find I'm not playing gb2 as much as the original.

It's better and more challenging which makes it harder to mindlessly grind! I'm confused on how easily I fell into this mindset.