Review: Funky Smugglers is an enjoyable & quirky take on airport security

If I had to guess what 11bit Studios' next game would have been (the team behind the amazing Anomaly: Warzone Earth) it most definitely wouldn't involve anything to do with airport security, funk music and wacky characters. Turns out, that's exactly what were getting. Funky Smugglers has enough quirk and charm, coupled with some addicting endless play that will undoubtedly have you scanning passengers for hours.

The premise of Funky Smugglers is fairly simple. Passengers are boarding plane after plane, and it's up to you to make sure nothing dangerous or deadly gets brough on with them. As they walk through the giant X-ray machine, you'll see items highlighted in red that are a threat to everyone's safety, such a spiders, saws, uzis, hammers etc. However, you'll have to make sure to avoid any green items, which are airplane safe such as teddy bears, rubber ducks and coffee mugs.

The aim of the game isn't just to weed out these potential threats, but to go for the high score. Each time you place a finger on one of the hazardous items, you can leave it on the screen and continue swiping any other dangerous items along with it. This will build your combo multiplier. However this multiplier doesn't last forever, so you have limited amount of time each swipe to get the most amount of red items, all while avoiding the green.

The various power-ups serve to boost your high score even further, such as slowing or speeding up time, allowing for high combos, or giving you the magnetic powers which automatically draw every red item toward your finger, just watch out not to hit any of the green ones.

You can also take part of massive team battles, which has you aligning with a team of your choice, which in my case was Funk vs. Gangnam. Of course, I absolutely had to join Gangnam, even though we're currently losing. After you align yourself with a certain team, you earn points for them as you play. It's a neat multiplayer element which doesn't directly involve playing with other people simultaneously, but rather as a community.

It's almost become somewhat of a standard these days to include ongoing missions that require you to complete secondary tasks while playing each level. These include missions like grabbing extra two lives while at full health, toss items 20 times or throw 30 items without making a combo, just to name a few. These will undoubtedly keep you busy for a while, as once you complete one, a new one takes its place.

I also can't deny the amount of humor present in Funky Smugglers. The premise alone is already ridiculous enough to induce a chuckle, but from the caricatured characters, down to the description of travelers (Peaceful mermaid hunters to Atlantis or rough gamblers from Guatemala) you're sure to have a smirk on your face the entire time. The music also deserves a mention since it'll have your head bobbing from the very second you'll start your game.

Funky Smugglers is a mere $0.99 which for the amount of fun you'll be having, is an indredibly low asking price.