FutureFive New Zealand - Consumer technology news & reviews from the future
Story image
Android App Review: Nun Attack Run & Gun
Mon, 23rd Sep 2013
FYI, this story is more than a year old

I'm not going to lie, “Nun Attack” might be my new favourite two-word phrase.

And the best thing about it is that in this instance it's totally accurate: Nun Attack: Run - Gun is a game where you play as a Nun who runs, gunning down Halloween-ish baddies before they attack you.

There's also some jumping involved, but I guess they didn't want to give away everything in the title.

The animation style is fun and has a big-headed exaggeration that'll be familiar to anyone who's a fan of Pixar or recent Disney movies.

Free games you download on your phone are never going to compete with GTA5 or anything, but this one looks better than a bunch I've seen. This one actually looks like someone's put some effort in.

Nun Attack reminds me a lot of the games of my youth with its 2D platforming and single-minded focus. Move from left to right. Avoid the traps. Shoot the monsters. Don't die.

Oh and also you're a nun. This bit is less like the games I played as a kid.

But like those games from the olden days it can also be punishing – some of the enemies or traps cause instant death if you fail to avoid them, and you have to be quick just to cope with the platforming side of things. But it isn't so difficult that it puts you off playing, or at least it didn't for me.

The one major complaint I had with this game is that, like many others, it doesn't do so well on a smaller screen. You can play the game without any trouble (although a larger screen certainly couldn't hurt), but the text in the menus is very hard to read – unless you're playing this on a tablet (or maybe a larger Galaxy) then you pretty much have to accept that you won't be able to read your score.

This is all right though. The how-to-play instructions are given in pictures rather than words, and I'm able to happily play the game without knowing exactly how many coins I've collected. I can see the werewolves, and the skeletons, and the nun, and that's enough for me.

Ultimately, Nun Attack passes my two most important tests. Firstly, it's free. And secondly, I'm probably going to keep playing it once I've finished with this review. There aren't that many games I've found that I can say that about.