Although Looney Tunes dates all the way back to 1930, there is still something hilarious about the classic cartoon series that had rabbits defeating hunters by dropping safes on their heads and wily coyotes drawing fake tunnels on the sides of mountains to deceive roadrunners. With characters as memorable as Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester the Cat and Daffy Duck, there is a valid reason that Looney Tunes still captures the hearts of multiple generations of cartoon fans. Now imagine taking those characters and putting them into a video game. That game is the mobile title Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem, currently available on Android and iPhone.

Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem is an action RPG that lets players collect teams of characters from classic cartoons. Each character has its own strengths and weaknesses, along with some hilarious fighting abilities. For example, Bugs Bunny has a safe dropping skill, while Marvin the Martian has a raygun to shoot enemies with. The idea is to build a team of these classic characters, which are earned through gameplay, to take on other teams of cartoons to win items that help with leveling up and tuning up skills. Each "level" has a series of battles to complete, but players can also go up against other players in PvP to steal crates of goodies from them.

Battles are based on a classic turn-based system, but with each character's hilarious skills, they are a lot of fun to participate in, especially when deciding which character skills to attack with. There are exploding presents, anvils, ray guns and the standard clubbing someone over the head. There are also some characters that have healing abilities. Players immediately know if they have enough power to take down another team before entering into battle, and if they don't, they can spend their items to level up their team until it's ready. The system is very intuitive and doesn't take a lot of brain power to learn.


But this isn't just a fighting game. There is also a small roleplaying element to Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem. By choosing "world," players can build homes for each of their characters and upgrade those homes. They can also participate in tasks such as digging holes and going hunting. Every time a task is complete, the game awards the player with more items for level ups and skill tune-ups. However, accepting tasks requires task points, and that can slow down the process, unless, of course, the player is willing to put up some real-world cash to speed up current tasks that are running. Although the player earns in-game money through battles, it seems easy to run out quickly. But that's generally the way with most free-to-play mobile games.

Another fun element of the game is the animation and music. These are characters that everyone already knows and loves, and fortunately, they keep their classic designs here. The loading screen plays the familiar Looney Tunes theme song that sets the "looney" mood for the game and the sounds during the battles are perfect for keeping things light, silly and fun. The characters' voices sound like they should, and hearing them again could bring back some great memories. There is certainly a nostalgia factor at play here.

Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem is one of those mobile games that players will probably first see as a time-waster, but once they delve into the title more, they will soon realize how much fun it really is. Prepare to spend hours giggling at the crazy and hysterical antics of beloved classic cartoon characters.


OUR RATING:
4.5 out of 5 (Must-Play)