Bee With Gun is a simple, low stress, action-based tower defense five-dollar downloadable title by Ratalaika Games. Simply put, it offers some casual, mindless fun for about an hour.

Playing as a bee armed with pistol, it is your job to defend yourself against waves of incoming enemies using twin-stick controls from a top-down(ish) perspective. Defeating enemies, however, is the secondary objective but they drop currency used to install defenses. The stage is cleared when the enemy’s bases are destroyed which usually takes little-to-no strategy. As long as you keep shooting, you’ll probably win.

Each stage has outlined ghost areas which indicates defense towers can be built there. As long as you have enough cash, a tower can be built which will help fend off the baddies. However, my biggest complaint comes from the lack of explanation. The game just starts without telling the player what to do or what action each of the buttons perform. Sure, I was able to understand all the mechanics after a few stages but having a “how-to” tutorial screen, or even a button map in the options menu, would have been helpful. Plus, there is no direction on how to use the towers or which ones work better in certain situations. Using the other analog stick to select and place towers might be confusing to some without explanation.

I also wish there was some type of a map feature. Some stages are large so you cannot see the enemy bases, tower locations, or enemy spawn points without trial and error. Overall, the stage design, and even the enemy types, repeat but it doesn’t really have a chance to grow stale with the short run time. There is a little sound effect that chimes when danger is approaching though, which is a nice touch.

Thankfully, the difficulty remains low throughout and I was able to fend off incoming waves even after going in the wrong direction (making a mistake). In fact, one of the game’s Achievements is to die for the first time, something that sort of takes effort. Speaking of cheevos, all 1,000 gamerscore can be unlocked in thirty minutes or so through natural play. Achievement hunters will want to take note.

Bee With Gun isn’t a deep game but it is a casual one that isn’t trying to over extend its reach. It knows exactly what it is doing and offers a perfectly acceptable amount of quality for the low asking price. It also acts as a good beginner TD title to get newbies into this underappreciated and underrepresented genre.

By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com

X/Twitter: @ZackGaz

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