What you won’t like
Network delays and loading screens
Above: A loading screen in Guns Up!
Guns Up! requires an online connection. The problem with that is that it’s a slow-loading game. I’ve had to deal with a long first-time initialization and update screens. Then, once I log in, it takes a while to load each screen every time I click on an option. Battles take a while to load, too. It feels like forever sometimes.
This is simply not acceptable, given the kind of game that it is. Guns Up! is a title that you want to play while you are in between sessions of big games on your PS4. If it were a mobile game — which it very easily could be — then you would quickly lose patience with it.
Sony has to fix this problem, hopefully with updates, that will keep this live service playable.
Your soldiers could be smarter
Above: Action from Guns Up!
The soldiers are simpletons. They march head-on down roads and pathways. When they encounter an enemy, they start shooting. But, if your enemy has a line of troops at sandbags with a machine gun nest behind it, your troops will shoot at the soldiers and then get mowed down by the machine gun. That’s where you have to use one of your expensive tacticals like a missile strike to hit the machine gun.
I appreciate that the game is simple, but the soldiers could have a little more common sense. I don’t want to use my limited means of interacting just to bail them out of tough spots. If a flamethrower is attacking, your soldiers will walk right into it. And if you lay down tear gas, it will take out the enemies. But your soldiers will also advance into the tear gas and incapacitate themselves. That’s pretty dumb.
You have a “rally flag” among the tacticals that you can use once or so in a match. It’s important to use it more as a retreat option so that your surviving lead attackers will come back and group with the reinforcements. You can also use it to retreat to the safety of the transport truck, which has a machine gun as a last line of defense. A better way should exist to control your troops, making them attack where you want them to go or to outflank enemy positions. And it would be nice to have a retreat option that doesn’t cost you one of your expensive rally flags.
Conclusion
Above: Victory is your main objective.
Guns Up! will look familiar to a lot of players through its similarities to Clash of Clans. But, it has enough going for it to be unique and enjoyable. It is vastly more interactive than a lot of asynchronous multiplayer offerings that have proliferated on mobile, and it successfully brings some of the accessibility and simplicity of mobile games to the PS4 console.
I hope that Sony fixes the slow loading times, but I don’t feel like that’s going to kill off interest in the game entirely.
Score: 70/100
Guns Up! is available now on the PlayStation 4 via the PlayStation Network. It is a free-to-play game with microtransactions.