Gravity Badgers (Wii U) Review

Gravity Badgers doesn't have much in the way of a story. The little bit of story it does have puts the player in the role of a gravity badger. Led by Captain Bayback, the badgers are at an all-out war with the honey badgers… or at least something like that. Story sections are presented in pictures before the start of each level. No text is used in the story sections, so what is going on in the pictures is really up to interpretation by the player. Besides adding some pretty neat hand drawn artwork to the game, the story sections don't serve much of a purpose. The player can start anywhere in the game, even the end if they so desire, which makes following what little story it does have nearly impossible.

Okay, so in a physics-based puzzle game like Gravity Badgers the story isn't ALL that important, as the gameplay is what this title really focuses on. It's fairly simple; take the badger, shoot it out into space, and try to get it in the warp portal. This is easier said than done, as each level has various obstacles and planets that need to be either used or avoided. The gravity of the planets will either pull the badger to them, or push them away. These planets are used to help guide the badger safely to the warp portal, or send them flying off into the far reaches of space. Various other obstacles are added throughout the game, such as pipes and warp points, but the core gameplay never changes and it is easy to become bored or disinterested.

Gravity Badgers controls much like Angry Birds: Space on mobile phones. On the GamePad touch screen, the space badger is pulled in any direction the player so chooses, with power being controlled by how far it is pulled, and is then released to go hurling through space. The concept is simple enough and anyone can get a feel for it. Unfortunately, the touch screen can be rather unresponsive, which makes Gravity Badgers a chore to play at times. Because precision plays a major part in the success or failure of each level, unresponsive controls will sometimes see the badger being released unintentionally, or in the wrong direction. Usually the touch screen works great, but Gravity Badgers fails to uphold that tradition.

At 140 levels, plus some bonus levels, Gravity Badgers offers plenty of badger-flinging action. 140 levels is quite a bit, but as most of everyone knows, just because a game has length doesn't mean it's good. Throughout the 140 stages, the level design doesn't change all that much. A storyboard is shown, and then players are made to fling a badger through space. The level design is sometimes clever, but never masterful. After playing through the first couple of worlds, players will find themselves quickly realising they have seen just about everything that the game has to offer. The one highlight of this game is its boss battles, where one is fought at the end of each of the five worlds. The gameplay is changed up just enough during these fights to make the game interesting again. The only downside to the boss fights is that out of 140 levels, there are only five of these.

Gravity Badgers offers enough content to last a while, but only if it can hold the player's interest. The inclusion of more boss battles could have helped out the game, but unfortunately they are few and far between. It's pretty obvious that Gravity Badgers is trying to play off of the success of other games, like Angry Birds: Space , but it never gets to the level of quality in those other franchises.