Imagine you are a waitress at a remote New Mexico diner and all of a sudden alien space bunnies crash nearby and kidnap your sister. Not too hard to believe is it? I know its happened to me at least once or twice. I just never cared as much as the main character in Space Bunnies Must Die!(SBMD) by Ripcord Games. In this Tomb Raider style game you assume the role of Allison Huxter who is hell-bent on getting back her twin sister from the evil space bunnies.

This game has a real mood and feel to it. The plot and game are very well integrated and it is obvious that a lot of effort was put into its design. Unfortunately, many other things besides good writing and plot are needed to make a quality game. This game struggles in several categories but still is an overall good title.

Graphics:
The graphics in SBMD are not bad by any means but they are not great either. They are 3d accelerated but I was encountering occasional choppiness even in 640x480 on a 12 meg voodoo2. The characters are smooth and organic looking but it was often possible to see tears between the walls and spots on the textures. Lines also appeared to be jagged and not anti-aliased. The enemy dying sequences are very cool as they morph between several textures and appear completely organic. Sometimes the aliens (or God forbid your character) will have their head or limbs lopped off as they die. Needless to say it is very neat to watch. I was disappointed with the weapon projectiles, they were very bland and not very good looking at all. Overall the graphics in this game are good but it is obvious that the engine requires a little bit of polishing and optimization.

Sound:
The sound is one of the stronger parts of this game. There are numerous speech effects which add to the feel as well as some good sound effects. Besides the good sound effects there are also several very poor effects such as the weapons and environmental noises which I found annoying. Overall though the sound was very clear and well recorded. The game did not support any sort of 3d sound which I found disappointing as it would have helped this game greatly.

Story:
The story is very cool and definitely not ordinary which is nice. The story and plot are also well supported by the character's speech and the game's graphics. It is nice to see that someone has put some effort into spicing up the standard "Aliens have crashed on earth" story.

Gameplay:
This is the worst part of this game. I hated the controls. They were clunky and confusing. Even walking was annoying as she would either take small steps or giant ones. This made it very difficulty when attempting to land on a platform and stop from falling off the other side. I also find the enemy AI to be at too much of an advantage. Due to the fact that circle-strafing wasn't allowed, dodging enemy bullets was near impossible. Another annoying fact was that the aliens would reincarnate after a couple of seconds which forced me to keep killing the same aliens whenever I had to return to a room. This wasn't a problem until there was a section where in order to solve a puzzle I was forced to travel between two rooms three or four times. Needless to say it was a waste of ammo and health as well as incredibly annoying. Thankfully the designers left large amounts of powerup health around. I would have preferred better combat instead of just standing and shooting, then healing after.

Fun Factor:
Despite the terrible controls I still had fun playing this game especially due to a couple of the puzzles and the cool little plot additions. I had a lot of fun figuring out how to operate the big gun in the second level and I am interested in continuing on in my mission to eliminate the space bunnies.

Overall Impression:
Mixed. I like the sound and the story a lot but the jerky graphics, clunky controls and pointless combat really frustrated me. Regardless, I think I will keep hacking my way through this game to the end. If you liked Tomb Raider and enjoy a wacky plot then you will probably like this game. Otherwise I would stay away.

"This is just like an x-file," our heroine says at the start of the game. I disagree, this game is more like a bad movie from the SCI-FI channel. The plot behind Space Bunnies Must Die is somewhat cheesy, but nonetheless its humorous. You play a white trash hillbilly girl who's sister has just been abducted by a breed of killer mutant bunnies from space. As your blasting your way through the bunny's headquarters you uncover their sinister plot to enslave the human race. Think of Space Bunnies Must Die as Tomb Raider with a science fiction twist. The company states SBMD has 10 wacky levels, a huge arsenal of weapons, and an ultra realistic 3d person camera view.

-Graphics: My feelings are mixed about the graphics, in some cases they are good, but in most cases they are dreadful beyond belief. Space Bunnies Must Die uses Direct3d, so most of you with 3d cards won't have support problems. Most of the animation's for the killer space bunnies are very basic and didn't leave me believing they were realistic. A lot of the textures like columns, mountains, and other devices are very gritty with little to no detail. There are also several texture problems, such as white lines on the edges of textures. The only time the graphics ever look descent is in the later levels, and even then I wasn't impressed.

-Sound & Control: The background music for SBMD is superb. I haven't heard music that set the tone this well in a game in a long time. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the most of the sound effects. Weapon effects consist of bleeps and bloops, on the other hand the voice effects are very well done. In some cases the sound is great, in others it fails so go figure. The control...what went wrong here? The first thing that annoyed me was, I could only use the keyboard. Secondly the movement is very jerky and lacks fluidity. Many times I died simply due to the control being so awkward and crudely designed.

-Gameplay: The worst thing about SMBD is the save game system, I wanted to throw this game into the recycle bin over and over due to this. To save you must walk under a floating rabbit triangle and save your game. Now it sounds easy, but you can only use it one time and you have to wait forever to find another save game spot. Remember this is a PC game, what's up with the console save system? Generally you run around solving puzzles and trying to blast up mutant bunnies from space. Sounds easy doesn't it? The control utterly destroys this game and I found my self frustrated more often than enjoying myself. One nice addition would have been cross-hairs, so I could actually tell what I was shooting at.

-Fun Factor: If the control was good I might have actually had fun with this game. One of my biggest complaints is the lack of a decent targeting system. I can't write a whole lot about fun factor, considering had no fun playing this game. If your a fan of Tombraider style gameplay, I think even you will be deterred by the bad control.

-Overall Impression: Remember all those bad Quake clones that came out after Quake? Well SBMD is just another bad Tombraider clone. I did not enjoy this game one bit, and I'm sure the average gamer will want to stay away from SBMD. The one thing I did enjoy about this game was the music and some of the artwork, it really helped setup the creepy atmosphere.