Of Carrots and Blood

For as much as I enjoy a good dual-stick shooter, I find myself complaining that too many of them are ultimately pointless. They just throw you into a boring arena and hope you'll enjoy the gameplay enough to shoot for a high score. But that's not something you can say about Of Carrots and Blood, the brand new shoot-em-up from Trite Games. The point of this game is simple: Keep the mutant horde from devouring a giant carrot. I don't know if that's enough to base an entire game on, but at least it has a funny title.

Don't expect a deep story here; this isn't that kind of game. When a volcano erupts and takes out most of the city, Dr. Leo McGriffin enlists a brave bunny to fight off the mutants in the forest and collect all of the DNA backups. If you can do this, the three-eyed doc will be able to resurrect the town and all will be saved. It's a simple concept that does just enough to get us into the action.

Once the formalities have been taken care of, it's off to keep the attacking monsters from gobbling up a very frightened carrot. Our hero races around the screen picking up power-ups, dodging attacks and killing everything that gets in the way. But don't get too excited, because the cowering carrot is not immune to friendly fire.

The goal is straight forward -- kill as many mutants as you can, grab the DNA backups they drop and then rush them over to the good doctor. You'll also want to pick the pieces of brain left by each downed bad guy. This currency is used to buy equipment and new power-ups. You'll also need to spend the brains on resurrecting the townspeople, because apparently Dr. Leo McGriffin still has student loans to pay off.

There are more than a dozen characters to choose from, each available for use after they've been resurrected. The cast runs the gamut from a banana-throwing monkey to a sword-wielding girl to a shuriken-tossing ninja. You'll also pick up a number of novelty glasses that will change the visuals of the game in weird (and often obnoxious) ways. Between buying items and finding all of your friends, there's a lot to spend those hard-earned brain pieces on.

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Unfortunately, you'll grow sick of the grind long before you've unlocked everything. There isn't a lot of variety here, so expect to go into each battle doing the same thing. The enemies come out in the same waves, drop the same power-ups and never seem to mix things up. It's also a shame the characters aren't more unique. Sure, they each have noticeably different weapons and death animations, but it would have been nice to see it go a little deeper.

Although repetitive, I did find the visuals charming and the soundtrack upbeat. It's an easy game to get into, especially with a second person involved. The gameplay is fast and it definitely gets tough after you've massacred a few hundred mutants. Of Carrots and Blood is certainly not an essential shoot-em-up, but is fun in short bursts.