Xbox Indie Review: Gerbil Physics 2

There just aren’t enough indie games featuring small animals. Luckily, Pencel Games has released its second installment of fuzzy, destructive cuteness with Gerbil Physics 2. Our expressive, cuddly main characters just need some saving; well, theoretically, we’re destroying them, but I’d like to assume we’re saving them, or at the very least, sending them to a better place.

There are 40 short, but sometimes-elaborate levels with good and evil themes. Make it through these menacing or cheerful levels by using your tools – including bombs, slingshots, and pull strings – to get all the gerbils below a yellow line toward the bottom of the screen, or use the disintegrator to disperse them into oblivion. The left stick controls the cursor to place bombs or apply the other tools and the right and left bumpers occasionally control different objects that can help guide your furry friends to safety.

The gerbils are thankful for your help and will encourage you when they’ve been saved with a pleased “Made it!”  Or, while trying to move them around the screen, they’ll let out little “Ooos” & “ohs.” They’re apparently not fond of being catapulted around the screen by bombs, which is evident by their please-don’t-blow-me-up scrunch-faces after placing the bombs. After failing a level, you’re greeted by an unfortunate “Uh-oh Failure” from your critter buddies.

At the end of each level you’re rated by your completion time, which is located at the top right of the screen during play. There is a slight lag in the time tracking when completing a level and that’s a little annoying when every millisecond counts, but it’s a minimal annoyance compared to the thrill of shooting gerbils around colorfully detailed level. You’ll receive a gold, silver, or bronze star and you can see what the expected gold and silver times are before beginning. If you can’t complete a level due to lack of tools or after disturbing a red gerbil that causes an automatic failure, you’ll be prompted to retry or skip to the next area.

There are 40 levels, each with amusing names such as “Two Gerbils One Cup” and “Drop uh Deuce” as well as referencing other indie games with “I MAED A L3V3L W1TH G3R8ils 1NIT!!1!”  You unlock levels as you play through, with the final stage requiring all 39 medals from the previous levels to play.

Gerbil Physics 2 brings cute and cuddly to the indie game scene, and with the short levels, it allows for a quick play when you have an extra 5 minutes. Vibrantly detailed and delightfully charming, Gerbil Physics is a great buy for just a dollar at the Marketplace.

Visit the Xbox Live Marketplace to add a free demo of Gerbil Physics 2 to your XBox 360 download queue.

Gerbil Physics 2 was provided for review by Pencel Games.  The review is based on the full game, available for 80 MS points ($1).

By Stephanie Yeager at August 30, 2011.