Captain ToonHead vs the Punks from Outer Space Review

Synopsis:
Ever wanted to beat a T-Rex up with a chancla, while building powerful towers that shoot piñatas, hot sauce and heat-seeking fireworks?
Captain ToonHead is the VR tower defense game of your cartooniest dreams.

Publisher: Teravision Games
Reviewed on: SteamVR (AMD Ryzen 7 5800X, 32GB RAM, RTX 3070, HTC Vive Pro, HTC Pro Wireless Kit)
Also available for: Oculus

Cast: Daniel Amerman, Paul Mackie, Brent J Schraff, Samantha Dockser, Bart Flynn, Maria Elena Heredia, Lorena Fuentes Blanco

Developer: Teravision Games
Executive Director: Enrique Fuentes
Producers: Cyndi Ordonez, Paul Mackie
Lead Developers: Nicolas Nieto, Jose Goncalves, Julian Munoz
Lead Tech Artists: Edgar Blanco, Daniel J Lezama
Music: Daniel Zambrano

Captain ToonHead vs the Punks from Outer Space is a fascinating twist on the tower defence genre and an enjoyable and different type of VR game. The game rapidly sets itself up with a quirky story about a janitor named Elliott, who finds himself as the sole survivor of a special mission from Earth and now is Captain of a ship through a string of peculiar events.

The story comes thick and fast in the early stages, setting you up on a mission to fix a toilet. Elliott creates a set of magnetic hammers he calls “Mjolnir.” These special hammers, when thrown, return to the owner; they also build and repair devices. Using these hammers, Elliot removes the broken toilet and creates a new one in its place. However, a freak accident occurs in the kitchen in which a broken microwave and a burrito kill your crewmates and leave you alone on the ship with the onboard AI “Janine-5.”

Radiated crew member aboard the ship — *Flynn and one of the irradiated crew members — image captured by the author*

Janine-5 assists Elliott in his mission and quickly promotes him to Captain upon seeing the results of the accident. A large span of time is skipped, and during this period, Elliott designs a costume and takes the name “Captain ToonHead.”

Arriving at the Trash Planet, we engage in our first mission. We find a bunch of energy cubes; they are sentient and begin to tell a tale of horror about being used by Captain ToonHead’s enemy, Nicholas Voorhees, for malicious experiments. Hearing this, Captain ToonHead feels the obligation to assist these poor creatures and proceeds to battle the space punks.

A single gate splitting into two enemy paths — *One gate, two paths — image captured by the author*

The first portion of the game is a simple tutorial and aims at teaching the player the basics. It covers building turrets, enemy types, rewards, and cash systems. It’s a fun tutorial that lasts about five to ten minutes. Following this, you take the rescued cubes back to the ship, and the story carries on. Janine-5 discovers that they can use the cubes to upgrade gear, and a few more turrets are born. There is a range of turrets unlocked throughout gameplay, and each has its perks, weaknesses, and weird names. Some are better for dealing with air targets, others for ground, some just deal mass damage. Each turret is also a place for you to shoot from; moving from turret to turret allows you to see and shoot from different vantages, while the eagle-eye view lets you feel and see the entire battlefield. With the right upgrade, you can eventually ride the turrets and defeat the enemies in an exceptionally fun way.

Escorting cubes and the pizza rocket during a mission — *Saving the cubes and our pizza rocket — image captured by the author*

There are many enemy types, continually developing to be harder to kill and more capable of stealing your cube friends. Some enemy types can take multiple cubes during their run. Starting with the cyberpunks and progressing to a Cyber–T-Rex, they were at times a pain to deal with while looking cool. As you advance, the enemies also get upgrades, including shields, armour, speed boosts, and bombs. Building appropriate defences is the key to success.

The goal is to defend the cubes from approaching enemies. It starts with one door and one path to defend. As the game progresses, so does the difficulty: multiple doors, multiple paths, and tougher enemies make the tower-defence sections longer, and strategy becomes key. Upgrades further the progression and better equip Captain ToonHead against the ever-increasing strength of the enemies.

*Upgrading a turret from the eagle-eye view — image captured by the author*

The player’s weaponry is limited (in a good way), keeping switching tight: the hammers, dual pistols, and granny’s chancla (a flip-flop). The hammers build and upgrade turrets. The pistols attack enemies; upgrading them reveals weak spots and turns them from single-shot to auto with higher damage. The chancla destroys assistance items like booster rockets, shields, and health bots. It also stuns enemies — perfect for letting your turrets finish them off.

The game has sci-fi music and sound effects. Each turret, gun, chancla, and enemy sounds distinct, helping you identify threats at gates even when they’re out of sight. The voice acting is well thought out and really adds to the overarching story. While the dialogue can be cheesy, there are many moments that are touching and funny. The out-of-this-world tale has a broad scope; though the premise seems plain at first, later stages bring depth and comedy — and the radiated crew still hanging around the ship kept me amused.

Play

Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. I hit some issues while playing: noticeable stutter when large waves spawned, and the game came close to crashing — once losing audio completely before recovering. This happened multiple times and was a decent annoyance.

Captain ToonHead vs the Punks from Outer Space is a refreshing, fun change-up from standard VR titles. The tower defence playground is perfect to enjoy. The story has the right kind of grit while remaining light-hearted and fun, which kept me coming back. At roughly six to seven hours, it’s the right length for a VR title — and worth the time.