Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated

One of the things I love about entertainment is finding a director or musician that I really like and then going back to discover their past works. That happened to me when I watched David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly. I loved the movie so much that I knew I had to go back and watch Scanners, Dead Ringers, Videodrome and everything else that was available. That's the same feeling I got after I played Serial Cleaner, last year's wildly entertaining clean 'em up game from iFun4All. I was so impressed with the game that I wanted to go back and see what else this Polish developer had worked on. Thanks to the brand new release of Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated on the Switch, they've made my job easy. Unfortunately, this eight year old tower defense game is no Videodrome.

Originally released on the PSP all the way back in 2010, Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder plays out like a mix between Missile Command and a tower defense game. The idea is to move the cursor around the screen, charge up your missiles and then shoot them at the onslaught of enemies. Sometimes you'll only need to target one type of soldiers, other times you'll just need to survive for a set amount of time. But watch out, because letting too many enemies through your defenses will end the match.

On top of shooting at the waves of enemies, you'll also need to use the power-ups and items to your advantage. For example, one item will slow everything down, while another will let you shoot a bunch of missiles in a row without charging up. But here's the catch, these powers will blow up if you drop a missile nearby, effectively turning the game into a juggling act between charging up the attack and picking up items. You can't do both at the same time.

I'm not what you would call a big tower defense fan, so I was happy to see that Paper Wars plays out more like Missile Command than Kingdom Rush. You aren't spending money to set down gun turrets or corralling the enemies into a certain path, because the real emphasis here is shooting bad guys and picking up items.

It's the simplicity that is both its strength and weakness. On one hand, I'm glad that Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder is more of a shoot 'em up than a tower defense game, since it never gets bogged down by buying defenses. But on the other hand, this game needs a little more going on. Don't get me wrong, the action is fun and can get intense in the higher difficulties, but there isn't enough to the gameplay to keep this from becoming repetitive and boring. I don't know if the game needs more power-ups, a wide variety of mission types or all of the above, but there's clearly something missing.

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It's worth mentioning that Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder can be played using both the Joy-Con controller and the touchscreen in handheld mode. I preferred the touchscreen, but the analog sticks get the job done, too. On a side note, I strongly recommend turning off the rumble before playing this game. The shaking is loud, it's aggressive and it never stops. That controller is always rumbling.

Visually, Paper Wars is every bit as repetitive as the gameplay. The paper cut-outs and hand-drawn stages are initially charming, but don't change enough over the different levels and difficulties. Worst of all, the backgrounds are bland and the crates and barrels found in the stage feel almost random at times. Like everything else in this game, you'll quickly grow tired of the repetition.

As a time capsule, Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated is a fun way to look back and see how far iFun4All has come in the last eight years. Unfortunately, as a shoot 'em up/tower defense mash-up, this game fails to live up to its potential. While some of the later missions are action-packed and intense, you'll likely have grown bored of the repetition far before you get there. Oh well, at least Serial Cleaner is still great.