Crazy Penguin Wars Facebook Game Review

The first step you have to take is customizing your penguin. Your options are limited when you first start – you can just pick out your penguin’s crazy face. But as the game progresses, you can pick out hats, sunglasses, shirts – pretty much everything to put the “crazy” in “Crazy Penguin Wars.”

But as for the actual gameplay, it’s quite simple. You are pitted against three other penguins, and each of you take a turn. In that turn, you have a few seconds to load up a weapon, aim and fire!

The goal is to kill every other penguin, or at least earn the most points in the level. The matches are timed, so even if everyone is alive at the end of the level, your points are what determines whether or not you win.

Sounds violent?

It is a little bit, but it’s a cartoon without any blood or gore, and the lack of believability (penguins who wear red toques using rocket launchers, anyone?) helps make the violence seem a lot more “silly,” so kids around age nine or ten could certainly get a chuckle out of the game without parents having to worry about being influenced by all the crazy violence.

Of course, Crazy Penguin Wars is suitable for an older audience too. I couldn’t get enough of it! It’s a fast-paced game – in fact, it throws you into a real-time match with very real opponents for your very first match instead of wasting half an hour on “training.” You learn quickly that the setting around you is destructible too, and there are always a few boxes, blocks and items scattered around that you can shoot or pick up during your turn. This aspect reminds me just the slightest bit of “Angry Birds,” but fortunately it doesn’t distract from the fighting tournament, it just added an interesting element to it.

It took me awhile to get very good at Crazy Penguin Wars, but it’s a very addictive game that takes a somewhat familiar concept and brings a quirky new charm to it.

That’s not a novel concept. But it is somewhat strange for combat games.

Combat games are won by destroying everyone else, right? Well, not quite. The game wouldn’t be all that interesting if it only made you worry about one thing. There are items placed strategically throughout the level – which you can move freely throughout, but be careful when jumping off of things, because falling from too high up will damage your penguin, and you can’t jump back up either!

You have to decide if the vulnerability is worth it. Of course, collecting the little trophies hidden under the boxes and blocks of each level will give you a nice pay off in points, so the journey may be worth it. The fun of Crazy Penguin Wars – what makes it so “crazy,” really – is constantly having to decide if you want to be on the offensive, be on the defensive, or be on a quest for items and credits.

The hardest part? You’re glued to one spot unless it’s your turn. And your turn is so short that you usually have to make a decision between making significant movement or shooting someone – you cannot multi-task. Now, the wonderful thing about the game is that you can re-spawn randomly. Your odds of winning after dying and re-spawning are low, but stranger things have happened. Plus, you can still use your second life as a chance to collect some items, blow up a cliff underneath the penguin who’s in the lead (my personal favourite offensive move) or just have some fun blowing up the scenery!

• So what is the key to winning Crazy Penguin Wars? Well, in a lot of cases it means spending a bit of money. Digital Chocolate’s one flaw with how they designed the game structure is that pretty much all of the power-ups, including increasing your firepower, are paid power-ups – you can’t earn anything of significance with the in-game soft currency. Premium currency will buy you power-ups and better guns and ammo, but you only earn premium currency on your own at an extremely slow rate.
• You would have to be playing constantly for about 100 years to earn enough to buy these powerful weapons. So while it is still possible to win a match without all those fancy bells and whistles (as stated, stranger things have happened), your odds of winning without any power-ups are tragically low – so may the richest penguin win!
• Feel like taking a chance? One of your surest bets to avoid death and damage is to not draw so much attention to yourself. You’ve heard the term “a rolling stone gathers no moss?” Well, stay still and gather moss. Because it’s a social game, those playing on the other end would be quick to assume that an unmoving character is distracted or has abandoned their work station. It may even be worth not making a move for your first few turns before you bust out a rocket launch to shake things up.
• Movement not only draws attention to you and makes other players see you as a threat that must be stopped, but it’s risky because of the damage when you fall. If you can’t afford to buy your way to victory, consider being a crouching/hidden penguin.