It Came From Canada: Gunner Z

Posted by Carter Dotson on September 11th, 2013
+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad

BitMonster, the creators of last year’s Lili, have a brand new game called Gunner Z that they’ve just soft launched in Canada and three other countries. As such, I scarfed some poutine and readied myself to take down some zombies.

This is an on-rails shooter where players control a gunner who must take out waves of zombies and the occasional human zombie sympathizer driving weaponized vehicles. Why humans are sympathizing with the zombies is unexplained, but it’s rather progressive!

Visually, and in gameplay, there’s a large debt owed to Zombie Gunship and to a lesser extent, Razor: Salvation. The truck players fire from moves periodically between waves with occasional targets to hit while moving, but the majority of the game is fending off zombies from a static position; with the only movement coming from the ability to raise or lower the height of the gunner to get a better angle on the enemies. Lower heights make it easier to get headshots, but higher heights give splash damage weapons like rockets an aiming advantage.

The gunplay is important: the rockets are powerful but limited, and the standard gun has unlimited ammo but is generally only suitable for taking out single enemies at a time. Of course, there’s upgraded guns and rockets to take advantage of, too, along with different color schemes for the trucks. But considering everything’s seen through a monochromatic color scheme, it’s the ultimate cosmetic enhancement.

There’s a good chance that Gunner Z doesn’t see the light of day worldwide for a while. According to BitMonster’s announcement post, they’re not even sure if the game will be free, and they have a lot of tweaking to do with difficulty balance, in-game currency and how it’s handed out, and even how much content is in the game. This may be a longer testing session than some other soft launches, more akin to The Drowning’s several-month test than a server stress test like what Madden NFL 25 wound up doing. This should be an interesting game to follow.

iPhone Screenshots

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Gunner Z screenshot 1 Gunner Z screenshot 2 Gunner Z screenshot 3 Gunner Z screenshot 4 Gunner Z screenshot 5

iPad Screenshots

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Gunner Z screenshot 6 Gunner Z screenshot 7 Gunner Z screenshot 8 Gunner Z screenshot 9 Gunner Z screenshot 10
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