One of Cartoon Network’s most popular animated series is Regular Show, and it’s all about a rag-tag group of characters who work at a city park where crazy stuff happens on a regular basis.  In one of the episodes, a rival park starts a prank war, and the whole episode parodies war movies like Rambo and Terminator.  This game is based on that episode.  Gene, the rival park manager, steals a time machine so he can go to the past and win the prank war for good.  Now you must help Mordecai, Rigby, Skips, Muscle Man, and the rest of the gang take their park back in this very creative tower defense style game.  The Great Prank War is available to download on iOS devices, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore (reviewed on iPad here).

Now before you start groaning about this being yet another tower defense game, it’s actually a pretty creative take on the genre.  In most tower defense games, you build turrets and guns to fend off waves of enemies trying to destroy your base.  But in The Great Prank War, it’s like a ‘reverse’ tower defense game.  You control a single character and must charge through enemy waves of soldiers and their own gun towers, destroying them so you can build your own prank gunners to protect your base.  You win the level when the mission objective is completed (usually by defeating minions or towers), and then you can destroy the main base on the other side of the playfield to complete the level.

In the game there are four areas, each representing one of the four seasons, with four levels in each.  You can play as Mordecai, Rigby, Skips, or Muscle Man, each one has varying movement speeds, attack, and defense.  You start out with only Mordecai and Rigby, but you’ll unlock the other two characters as you play.  You’ll pick two characters to tackle a level, and can switch out between them at any time; handy for when your energy gets low (the player not on the field will regain energy over time).  Use the touch screen to tap where you want your character to go and who you want them to attack.  Slide your finger around to view any part of the map.  In each stage you start out at level 0 and can gain experience by defeating enemies.  Reach a high enough level and you’ll be able to use special attacks to help you defeat enemies and protect your base.

In each level, you’ll start out on the left side of the playfield at Benson’s car and must make it to the right side to destroy the enemy base.  Along the way, you’ll have to defeat enemies and their towers, but you’ll mostly be focusing on attacking the latter.  Once you destroy a tower, you can build your own prank gun turret to protect your base from ever-approaching soldiers.  These turrets include egg guns, fart bomb cannons, glue guns (good for slowing the enemy down), and rapid fire tomato blasters.  Once you unlock the tomato gun you won’t need to use any other though.  Keep an eye on your towers and repair them if needed.  If your character loses all their energy, you won’t lose the level; you’ll just respawn back at Benson’s car where you started.  The only way to lose a level is if enemies make it to Benson’s car and whittle down its energy to zero.  At the end of each world, you’ll have to defeat a boss character, a giant robot mech based on one of the characters from the show.

The only problem you may have with this game is that it’s a bit short and easy.  I managed to zip through the whole game without getting defeated once (although there were a couple of close shaves), and I usually have trouble with most tower defense games.  There are side missions you can complete to earn extra stars per level, which increases the replay value a bit.  And it is a Cartoon Network game geared toward kids anyway.  The visuals reflect the feel of the TV show very well, and once nice touch is that as you play levels, the trees get increasingly more toilet paper on them!  If this review sounds confusing, don’t worry, the game does a great job of teaching you how to play.  The Great Prank War is great for tower defense novices and fans of Regular Show alike.

Kid Factor:

Even though the game is about war, the violence is all silly and cartoony.  You attack with goofy weapons like eggs, tomatoes, pies, and stink bombs.  Defeated enemies usually just disappear or have a silly animation (the bull enemies turn into steaks, for instance).  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and younger players may need help since the game requires a bit of multitasking.  If you’re OK with your kids watching Regular Show on TV, they’ll be OK with this game, too.

Tags: Game Reviews, Television