Face wave after wave of unstoppable bunnies, yes bunnies, in this turret defence game from NNOOO. It’s a bright, colourful and cute little game in which you must protect your burrow from the invaders with deadly force. In an arena setting (the first arena is a farm in a canyon) you take control of a turret and face off against the waves of incoming enemies. They take eight different forms, such as the ‘Boss bunny’ – a tank style enemy, the ‘Runner bunny’ – a fast moving strafing bunny, and even a rather dark ‘Throat Slitter bunny’ – that, well, slits the throats…of baby bunnies. One of the bunny types can fly too, so make sure to watch the skies as well as the grass whilst sat in your turret.

Your turret comes in four different flavours, with each briefly attained by shooting crate drops. You start with the carrot turret rifle as your base, but as you kill bunnies they drop coins, which have to be shot to be collected and soon fill your wallet. With this currency you can choose turret upgrades, these include the ‘Runner bean laser’, the ‘Turnip mortar’ and the ‘Watermelon pip machine gun’. Each has a different type of fire with their own pro’s and con’s. for dealing with your fluffy foes.

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The arena have two different game modes: Normal and Survival. I personally found survival more fun, but it may just be my obsession with beating my own scores. Each mode has different difficulty settings which are unlocked through play. There’s also additional content available through the store, such as new arena types (five in total), character skin packs and modifiers to level up quicker.

It’s an easy game to jump in to for some quick play; perhaps you only have five minutes before heading out, or perhaps you’re in the mood for something a little less taxing than your usual game. I actually found it relatively challenging and for the first few attempts I didn’t survive long, less than 2 minutes in fact, but it soon clicks and the ‘your best scores’ table is wonderful at tempting you back in for another try. For anyone who gets locked in to the self-challenge of always trying to best yourself, Blast ‘Em Bunnies can certainly reel you in. I got locked into a survival loop for an hour just trying to beat my time. Perhaps it’s none of this that makes you want to play, maybe you just hate bunny rabbits with their cute little noses and their fluffy little tails, and you want to obliterate them in great numbers, and if so this is definitely the game for you, I don’t judge. Sit down, grab a carrot and send them to the furrier.

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However, despite my chirpy chatter through this game review, and a recommendation for the bunny slaughterers out there, I feel the game would be better suited to a mobile device. It would be perfect for a quick minute here or a short commute. The design is quite pleasing aesthetically, with cute characters and pretty smooth animations; its something that people who play Candy Crush or Temple Run might find appealing, but as a long-session gamer, its not really for me. The controls would also be fine for a mobile device, as they consist of simply turning your turret and shooting. As a full console game I’m not sure it carries the weight behind it, apart from competing with myself on time trials I found the whole thing pretty lacklustre.

Only having one arena to play was a surprise, as you’d think out of the six available you might get more than one with your base-game purchase. The ‘missions’ are just achievements really and add nothing extra to your play. It’s not that the game itself is badly made, I just wasn’t stimulated by the content and therefore lacked the encouragement to purchase the extra modes, arenas and themes. This may appeal to some, and maybe I just didn’t get it, but I’m not going to be putting any more hours on this myself.

Thanks to Xbox and NNOOO for supporting TiX