What on earth (or space) is Captain Toonhead?
Most of you are probably thinking the same thing as me before I played this game for the first time, what on earth (technically not on earth) is Captain Toonhead? I’m very glad you’ve asked!
Have you ever wanted to play a VR game where you can fire piggy piñatas at cyber chickens or shoot down aerial kittens before they drop bombs on you? Well you’ve come to the right place! You can do all of that and so much more during your time playing Captain Toonhead.
At its core Captain Toonhead is a tower defence game… on steroids. It takes everything you can think of from a typical tower defense game and cranks all the dials to the max, especially when it comes to crazy!
Captain Toonhead has some of the craziest level and character designs which I absolutely love. It makes the game feel so refreshing and sometimes its downright funny. I mean where else would find a tank shark or a cyber chicken.
Unlike the typical tower defence games that we’ve gotten used to over the years, Captain Toonhead does a fantastic job of making the gameplay new and refreshing while catering perfectly for VR players. Not only do players get a recognisable top down view of the battlefield but also a first person on the ground view that really makes you feel part of the action. Each view has their benefits, top down can be used for placing and upgrading turrets and the on the ground view can be used to feel like part of the action as you blast chickens with your dual laser pistols.
After all of this the aim of the game is to defeat waves of enemies, all with different abilities and stop them from reaching your escape ship and getting to your adorable little cube friends called Enercubes. Upon defeating enemies, they will drop scrap which you can collect by throwing your mjolnjrs at them, you can then use them to build or upgrade your turrets.
At the end of each round you are given a score and told how many of your enercubes you were able to save. Yes saving these guys is very important as it’s their job to upgrade your turrets and weapons which is essential as you progress through the game.
Great variety… for the most part
During the few hours of the game that I was able to play I was met with so much variety in terms of character design and turret design. There are some crazy enemy types that clearly took a lot of imagination such as the aerial kitten, the cyber chickens and the sharks running on tank tracks just to name a few.
In terms of turrets there are a wide variety with some familiar types that appear in a lot of tower defence games. There is a standard rocket turret which deals a decent amount of damage and doesn’t cost a lot of scrap to build, there’s a bomb turret which acts almost like a trebuchet, unsurprisingly it’s slower but deals a tonne of damage. Other turrets Include a slow down turret which freezes enemies in place. All of these turrets can be upgraded and levelled up, increasing their stats. Using this variety of turrets players must use their tactical skills in order to defeat increasingly difficult waves of enemies.
In a rinsed out genre such as tower defence, variety like this is so important as it gives the player something refreshing to sink their teeth into and brings new life into the genre as a whole.
One place where I wish there was more variety is with the player held weapons. Unfortunately the only weapon that the player is able to use is a dual laser pistol set up and although they can be upgraded it would be nice to have different weapon types.
A nod to the great voice acting
Captain Toonhead also has some great story, characters and voice acting. The voice acting itself is very enthusiastic and at times actually very funny. It really helps to engage the player with the story and also shows that the development team have put that bit of extra effort in to make their game special.
Captain Toonhead as a character is very relatable also. He’s just found all of his crew dead, they’ve cooked the burrito in the microwave which they were told explicitly not to do and now Toonhead has been made captain and its up to him to carry out the mission by himself. Captain Toonhead takes this unexpected promotion with ease and really comes into his own. He’s a very loveable and relatable character and with the fantastic voice acting he is definitely memorable.
So what’s wrong with it?
So I’ve talked a lot about what’s good with Captain Toonhead but what’s bad about it? And is it missing anything?
So there are a few issues I encountered during my time playing Captain Toonhead but generally they were very minor. Firstly I noticed a few visual glitches especially with the players hands when throwing the Mjolnirs, they tend to bend very awkwardly and to be honest, quite painfully.
Another visual issue that I noticed was with the pointer lasers that come out of your mjolnirs to show where your pointing. These pointers were a very bright yellow and were filled with a pattern that was very hard to look at and it even started to give me a headache if I would stare at it too long.
One thing that I wish was included is collision with your hands. Unfortunately when your holding your mjolnirs or weapons, your hands will just glide through objects and although it is a very small issue, I just think it would be a cool feature to be able to interact with objects, especially on your ship.
Verdict
Captain Toonhead takes the typical tower defence formula and completely cranks it to the max. It has a fantastic art style, voice performances, enemy designs and gameplay features which make the game refreshing in an otherwise dull genre. There are a few visual issues and things I wish were included and that could have given the game the 10 out of 10 it rightfully deserves.
