Zombie Apocalypse – Review (XBLA/PSN)
Zombie Apocalypse is a slightly more up-market version of I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES or a much more down-market version of Left 4 Dead; a fact that it in no way attempts to hide with the characters being virtual clones of Zoey, Bill, Francis and Louis.
Zombie Apocalypse is a dual stick shooter where the left stick controls your character’s movement and the right stick controls where you shoot. Standard hand guns have unlimited ammo but various projectile power-ups appear as you play, from shotguns through Uzis to flame-throwers. Players also start off with a chainsaw which dispatches zombies in record time at the disadvantage of having to get up close and personal. On paper Zombie Apocalypse looks to do everything right but it’s the dullest… game… in… the… world.
Set across 55 repeating levels players are provided with no story but simply leap from location to location where more zombies can be killed and if you make it to the end you get to see a celebration dance that gets incredibly tedious incredibly quickly. There is some variation on the zombies with slower ones being able to take more damage, sherriff zombies shooting back at you and beauty queens birthing bat zombie things; there’s even a boss zombie that is hugely anti-climatic every time it appears.
The game cheats about half-way thorough by making the zombies twice as tough and radioactive, artificially lengthening an already too long game. Why don’t you just make some more variation in the gameplay Konami!?
Solo play will have you slitting your wrists long before you make the end of the game and with unlimited continues you will eventually get there, if you have the patience. Multiplayer is slightly more fun but when jumping into a game you will rarely find a dedicated enough bunch to make it all the way to the end with. Often people get bored after just a couple of levels making it much harder to get a good score.
What little fun there is to be extracted from Zombie Apocalypse comes from being a score junkie. Multipliers are awarded for killing zombies, +1 for every 5 deaths inflicted or +3 for an execution move with your chainsaw. Blowing zombies up or killing them with level specific terrain deaths (sucked into a jet engine for example) also increases it more quickly. Dying resets the multiplier giving you even less incentive to continue to the end.
The backgrounds, animation and character models are all top quality for an Arcade game but the music and sound effects treat it as being much more serious than the gameplay itself. The main title screen is very ‘Fallout 3′ and the music is very ’28 Days Later’ but exploding teddy bears and kung fu celebrations detract from any sort of moody atmosphere the sound could evoke.
It’s impossible to recommend Zombie Apoclaypse to even the hardcore zombie game players. If you like this I would recommend getting Nation Red instead or, if you’re limited to playing on the xbox, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMBIES is 10x the fun for 1/10 the price.
XBLA version reviewed and is available for 800MSP. Also available on PSN for $9.99.
