Whoever said that you needed an army to break through the German defences on the beach of Normandy never met Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Cannoli. The sole-survivor of the Thugtown incident in the 1920’s is back for more, but now comes faces to face with a new enemy. Does Vinnie have what it takes to take down the ‘Dark Don’? Welcome to our review of Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2!
Welcome to the 1940’s. Europe is being torn apart by the war, the USA is preparing for battle and the mob does business as usual. Only this time they went to far, even for Vinnie’s standards.
Prepare yourself to go to war after you make a shocking discovery about what actually happened during the end-stage of the Thugtown Massacre from Guns, Gore & Cannoli 1.“Just when you thought you were out, we’re pulling you back in!”
Crazy Monkey Studios
After creating their first IP, Guns, Gore & Cannoli, Crazy Monkey Studios began with the development of the second installment of the series. CMS has been around since 2010 and are located in Kontich (Belgium). Next to GGC they developed the RTS Warparty for Android and iOS and the more card-based game EMPIRE, which was also developed for mobile. Since it’s a small Belgium company I’m really happy to see that our neighbors (since I’m from the Netherlands), can create outstanding games as well. We can’t really compare them with Guerilla games yet, but hey, who knows what the future holds.
Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 – Storywise
The game gives a small flashback towards the first installment, which was basically a mixture of Italian slur, killing stuff and zombies. Throw a huge bucket of cartoonish graphics and guns on the whole mess, and you get an ode to the old school flash games. And I mean this in a good way. They really spiced it up with the second installment. According to Crazy Monkey Studios this version of Vinnie features the following upgrades:
KEY FEATURES:
Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 continues the rich, engaging gangster story of the first game and includes all the fast-paced action you’ve come to love, we made the best even better, with:
Upgraded character mobility – Vinnie has received a massive upgrade in his mobility features. 360 aiming, double jumping, kicking, jump-kicking, dodge rolls, somersaults, dual guns and a weapon wheel.
Campaign mode – Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 features a full single or multiplayer campaign mode, packed with action, humor and animated cutscenes.
Rich environments – We pushed our artists to the limits to produce the best immersive, atmospheric backgrounds, smoothest animations, and coolest special effects, setting a new benchmark for 2D games. Look for opportunities to bring down walls, explode barrels, drop crates on top of enemies, blow up cars and even kick your enemies through doors. Enjoy watching the corpses of your enemies fly through the air like ragdolls after you blast them away with your rocket launcher.
Immersive world and period – Walk around in the European battlefields of World War 2. Every level of Guns, Gore & Cannoli breathes the 1940’s. Every inch of the game is like a picture straight from the second World War era. The cars, the furniture, the speakeasy clubs, the music, the propaganda posters, the streets and the weaponry reflect the turbulent time that the 1940’s were.
Online and local Co-op mode – You don’t want to die alone in the trenches? Well round up a platoon of 4 players and get blasting. Play as Vinnie in the solo campaign, or have up to three friends jump in at any time to play together while fighting through hordes of Nazis, zombies, monster, gangsters, cops, soldiers, tanks, submarines… in this all-new and incredibly fun arcade-style co-op action game. Teamwork is essential to surviving waves of enemy goons.
Humor – ‘War is hell’ unless you are Vinnie Cannoli and you turn every problem into a cynical joke, blurting out one-liners and snappy comments after a nice, juicy kill. Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 will be a fun experience, not only to play but also to watch. Funny one-liners, screaming deaths, comical dialogs and hilarious enemies make you play this violent kill-simulator with a smirky grin on your face.
Let’s dissect them one by one. You’ll get why soon enough. Vinnie is indeed very mobile and makes it a versatile character to play around with. Due to the 360 no-sc- aiming, it can sometimes be a little difficult on the handheld mode of the Switch to align the targets in the right way. Especially if you have to switch weapons in a massive fight, which can lead to certain death in some cases. The campaign of GGC2 can be played in singleplayer and multiplayer. I recommend playing it in singleplayer on normal and then try the harder modes with some friends, you’ll enjoy it to the maximum. The story mode is not that long though, you can play through the whole game in under four hours – which is not a bad thing since it delivers what it preaches.
The world they created for this game is indeed a good example of the 1940s. I felt like I was walking through the clubs of New York in the beginning and minutes later through the French villages of Normandy, destroyed by war violence. I really liked the cartoony features of the game. It was very distinguished what they were trying to create, but on the other hand, they show a image of Europe and the USA which has to be taken with a little bit of salt. And of course the Italian mob speaks with the hand movements we all know and love – and yes, the Germans all talk like Nazi supervillains, straight out of an old James Bond movie.
One other thing I really liked about the sceneries they created was the fact you can use lots of it to kill off bad guys. Dropping ACs, blowing up cars, kicking them into spinning fans – if you can dream it, they probably put it in this game.. If you want you can even turn enemies against each other, which of course means fewer bullets wasted..
Cannolicolusion
I won’t spoil too much about the plot, but I sure hope they make Guns, Gore & Cannoli 3. I liked the game as it is, but preferred to play it in docked mode, since I could use my Pro Controller. This gave me more control over the movement of Vinnie and choosing my weapons. It’s a game with a huge wink at history and even some Belgium traditions (go find them!). But due to the fact it’s rather short and I had some issues with the controls, I’m lowering my score with one point. So if you like some heavy action, but with humor, zombies and nazis? Guns, Gore & Cannoli 2 is a game you have to play, it’s such a gem.
