WAR RATS: The Rat em Up

WAR RATS: The Rat 'em Up is a prime example of a dark, gory concept ruined by shallow design. Beyond the initial shock value of its ultra-violent rodent battles, the strategic layer lacks any real meat, forcing you into static, repetitive encounters that fail to engage your brain. Since the levels offer zero dynamic flair or variety, boredom sets in long before the blood clears. To make matters worse, the final boss is a complete garbage-fire of bad mechanics. Beyond the gimmick, there’s almost nothing here worth recommending.

8/10. I actually liked the throwback style to Flash games of yesteryear, but I didn't really like friendly-fire as a design choice. It makes it way too prohibitive to use and experiment with most of the weapons. That said -- there is an option available at game start to disable Friendly Fire, but it automatically locks you into the easiest difficulty mode, which I found --surprise,surprise-- a little too easy. Idk. Ymmv. The other nitpick I had is that you are given a choice of 'starting weapon' on game start, and these are mutually exclusive for the rest of that save file, with no way to swap from one to the other. This was confusing and annoying because I was seeing a lot of drops and powerups for a starting gun that was unavailable to me. However, even with these little nitpicks, I had a lot of fun with this title and adored all of the ratty-themed artwork.

Cool rats! I had fun playing this game

[table] [tr] [th] [b]✔️ The Good [/b][/th] [/tr] [tr] [td] • [u]Addictive Tug-of-War Loop[/u]: The blend of 2D side-scrolling shoot 'em up action with lane-pushing strategy and tower defense creates a constantly engaging combat flow. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] • [u]Brilliant Hand-Drawn Art[/u]: The visceral, nostalgic 2000s Flash aesthetic looks fantastic in motion, packed with personality and delightfully over-the-top cartoon gore. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] • [u]Satisfying Unit Roster[/u]: Calling in distinct rat reinforcements like Ratineers, fast-moving Rat Hounds, and heavy Grunts keeps battlefield tactical choices fun. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] • [u]Punchy Arsenal Variety[/u]: Unlocking and experimenting with weapons and deployable turrets provides plenty of firepower to chew through incoming enemy lines. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] • [u]Forgiving Death Loop[/u]: Keeping purchased gear and upgrades across failed attempts softens the blow and keeps forward progression feeling rewarding. [/td] [/tr] [tr] [td] • [u]Chaotic Rat Warfare Theme[/u]: The unhinged lore, crude rodent humor, and bizarre cyborg TechnoRat enemy designs give the entire campaign a memorable charm…

Looked like it was going to be something up my alley but unfortunately there are some really odd decisions that make the game not enjoyable. Why is there friendly fire in a 2D shooter where you also have your own troops blocking your shots (even if you turn it off)? Worse, the enemy can shoot slightly above your troops, meaning you'll get hit while you can't shoot back (unless you have one of those guns with an arc trajectory). Why is the game unnecessarily grindy? To make things worse, the currency is shared between everything. It would have been much better with a currency for the battle and another for everything else outside of it. Edit: As per the dev suggestion, I went back and there's indeed the option to turn off the bullets hitting your own troops... but... I have to play it on easy. That's why I didn't even noticed the first time, I always play my games on normal difficulty. I'm sorry dev, but this should be just an option that shouldn't require playing in the easier difficulty. As predicted, that difficulty setting is just boring. Since enemies have less health and there's less of them, i just steam rolled them easily.

It's cool but gets repetitive real fast. A lot of buildables feel really not-so-impactful (aside from the T3 raturrat). Some really big complaints: - Death means you lose a lot, outside of Ironrat difficulty. No respawns, you just get put back in the hub area. I'd prefer it if we have a long respawn timer or something, that would be cool. - Teleporters do not transport your troops. - The Speed Shrine is WAY too overpriced. 250 for a buff that just ups speed is really punishing imo. - You don't really command your troops, they just mindlessly go in one direction. If they reach the base and aren't an engineerat, they just despawn. It'd be cooler if they waited out on the perimeter incase of another wave. - Some of the guns just don't have particles? I'm not sure why. I can't where the bullets are going in this case. - Gear feels kinda meh. Like a system just put in at the end. I never really thought "wow my build really needs this".