Angry Bunnies: Colossal Carrot Crusade Review - Screenshot 1 of 2

More and more cheap titles on the Wii U eShop are being released with amateurish production and design, and Cypronia's Angry Bunnies: Colossal Carrot Crusade is only a half-step up. A port of a 3DS Angry Birds clone, Colossal Carrot Crusade contains the exact content of its 3DS counterpart, but with added online leaderboards. While the game is markedly better than the recent "Flappy" clones in the eShop, it's still a poor man's Angry Birds that's lacking in most areas.

Angry Bunnies follows the exact same gameplay as Angry Birds. For the few gamers who have not played the huge franchise, the premise is rather simple: fling angry birds into wooden, stone and ice structures that house trapped pigs in order to destroy the structure and kill the pigs. In Angry Bunnies, players fling angry bunnies into wooden, stone and ice structures that house trapped foxes in order to destroy the structure and kill the foxes. Like Angry Birds, there are different types of bunnies that have special abilities. In addition to the regular blue bunny, there is a brown bunny that speeds up when the stylus taps the GamePad; a white bunny that triggers several little explosions upon impact; a large green bunny that has more weight and can destroy more structures at once; and a "bomber" bunny that drops egg bombs when tapped while in flight. Additionally, each level has three carrots to collect.

Angry Bunnies: Colossal Carrot Crusade Review - Screenshot 2 of 2

There are five "story" modes, each with 30 levels to master, but there is no actual "story" to be found. The shoddy presentation is prominent throughout; the poor, low-res visuals recall the most generic of '90s PC shareware graphics — thankfully, though, the game runs at a better frame-rate on the Wii U than it did on 3DS. The sound effects — which amount to one-note dumb bunny "ouch" bites and simple crash-boom-bangs — are grating after a few minutes of repetition, but it should be said that they're improved over the tinny 3DS version.

These shortcomings would be easier to swallow if Angry Bunnies nailed the familiar gameplay, but it unfortunately fails in that area. The visual instructions for new birds — which also rip off Angry Birds' intuitive tutorial style — are not clear until experimenting with trial and error and restarting the level. Flinging the bunnies on the GamePad while having to look up at the TV screen to see the full stage is disorienting, and with no instruction at first the player will likely have to start the first level over several times. The bunnies also take far too long to disappear after a turn.

Conclusion

Angry Bunnies: Colossal Carrot Crusade is still an unoriginal waste of time and money, with the minor technical improvements and online leaderboards doing little to help the experience. There are actual Angry Birds games on Wii U — buy those instead. At $8.99 (at launch) for a port of a clone, gamers are recommended to take their money elsewhere.