Killer Bean Unleashed : Years of Hard Work

 Games and apps that are based on movies are almost always bad, correct? Well Killer Bean Unleashed takes on that challenge. The smartphone app is a classic style shoot 'em up with a very unique theme. Everyone in the game is a bean, similar looking to Mr. Potato Head of Toy Story but with longer arms and legs and with a tendency to hold guns. The graphics are smooth sprites of 3D rendered objects. Background environments are 3D. Killer Bean Unleashed fits into the genre of Run and Gun (Metal Slug, Contra). You play a spy with an attitude and two handguns covered with golden dragons who's been betrayed. Luckily there are not any civilians in the game, just you and the bad guys. Unload on them for FREE.


Killer Bean Unleashed is based on "Killer Bean Forever", an 85 minute CGI movie with tons of action and choreography with smooth graphics by Jeff Lew.  

www.killerbeanforever.com

In Killer Bean Unleashed, you have a health bar so you can actually take more than one hit. Double Jump allows you more freedom in the movement department.  Cutscenes are detailed screenshots like a comic book (speech bubble included). This reduces load time and app size versus using actual videos for cutscenes. The cutscenes also probably look better like this than if they were 3D rendered by the phone. They also remind me of detailed Final Fantasy backgrounds on my Android ,that were drawn to look fabulous (lighting is usually better this way) instead of imitated by programs to look real. Although the game plays in 2D style, the 3D background has a little depth that changes the view  as you walk. There are health packets (medkits) and special ammo in the levels so that you may continue your rampage. You'll need them. UNLOCKABLES include a Triple Jump ability, an increased healthbar, and 9 other types of ammo. His shoes reminds me of Michael Jordan Basketball Shoes. Types of ammo include Magnum Bullets, Electron Bullets, Fire Bullets, Exploding Bullets, Grenades, Photon Bullets, Rockets, Beam Splitter Laser, and Fire Bomb.                        

With all the work put into the game's eye candy features, maybe they didn't want to invest more into the game, so they cut back a little on the gameplay. For example, you can only shoot straight horizontally. No up, down, or diagnonal shots allowed (The bad guys can shoot at angles). One feature that was added into the game was the ability to jump on enemies to kill them (like Mario but with multiple landings needed). Not many platform shooters have this in their game. In those games, you can't touch the enemy. The enemy is treated like a untouchable indestructible bullet. Adding a melee capability would probably change  KBU's mechanics, but it's a thought. A retry button in the menu during a level would also be appreciated. 
Tips for Killer Bean Unleashed:
         -Beans with yellow jacket drop heath and ammo.
         -Shooting at beans may require less jumps on them to kill them.
         -There is a chance that your bullets hit an enemies bullet, defecting each others shot.

How do I get coins in Killer Bean Unleashed?
One thing the tutorial forgets to teach the player is that after a mission, on the left hand side of the screen, you must press "award coins" to receive coins before pressing on "Next". Award Coins is a little blended in with the briefing page, while Next if bright blue, so one is easy to miss. For a while I avoided the award button because I thought it meant Purchase coins. I'm not sure why it is an option to press or not press award coins. In my opinion it should be automatic that the player receive earned coins without further input from the player. 


The game is extremely difficult and I cannot pass level 4. I haven't bought anything in the game or seen any boss fights besides the screenshots of the tank and helicopter(both 3D looking). Shoot 'Em Up's are not my thing, but still I expect to get farther than that and be allowed to see more of the Killer Bean's cool, ironic, joking, spy, shoot em up attitude. It's kind of interesting to see that the difficulty isn't a more common complaint in the user reviews on Google Play. BTW it has over 4 out of 5 stars.

Your regular bullets look more like those from a Civil War musket.

The Developer(s) at Killer Bean Studios  have the game Xperia Play Optimized. The touchpads are only used for moving a cursor to make selections in the menu, but it's a lot slower than using your touchscreen to make the selections(which is allowed too). The R, L, and Select buttons switch your weapons (up and down) while the X button is for jumping, and the SQUARE and CIRCLE buttons shoot your weapon. If you consider yourself  pro at Platform Shooters then I suggest you give this game a try. It's FREE so don't worry about that.

Quite impressive especially considering it's based on a movie that doesn't look very low budget at all. The movie itself is also on sale right now for $5.99 until July 4th 2012. Regularly it's priced at $9.99.
You can check out the The entire first scene on the killerbeanforever channel on Youtube. The channel has Over 2 million views. This app uses Unity, something we've written articles on before.