Zombieville USA – Review
There is a plethora of zombie related iPhone apps for sale on the iTunes store from entertainment apps to apps that let you zombiefy your own photos but most of the zombie related apps are games. While many of these are easily forgettable and not as much fun as a game with zombies in racing karts or a game where zombies become bowling pins for you to launch you ball at, there are a few gems in there, and one of them is Zombieville USA.
Zombieville USA is a very simple game in both design and premise, but these are what make it such fun and one of the best and most addictive games I have on my iPhone. You play as a single character who side scrolls across a zombie infected street jumping into houses as you pass them to collect money or ammo. The characters range from a S.W.A.T. team member to a clown and have many varying characters in-between, including both a ninja and a doctor. As well as the aesthetic difference between the characters they each cleverly have their own advantages and disadvantages, e.g. the clown collects a lot of money but uses up a lot of ammo quickly.
The game itself is very simple kill the zombies you come across, collect money to buy new weapons and ammo at the end of each level and try and survive for as long as you can killing as many zombies as you can. As you progress, as well as new weapons being introduced, new zombie enemies are also introduced, these include a light blue zombie (the average zombie is a sickly green colour) that is faster than the usual slow paced green zombies but their bite is not as strong and they are weaker so are killed easier. The other kind is a dark green zombie that is the opposite of the light blue zombie, slow and strong.
While the game is very simple, this is what makes it so enjoyable. When you complete a level and have enough money to buy new weaponry you feel excited and when you die at the teeth of the zombie hoard you feel disappointment that you weren’t able to survive. And while many games today are trying to take the zombie genre in new directions by adding bowling balls or racing karts, Zombieville USA keeps true to the one thing all zombie fans have in common, the many, many ways a zombie can be killed and how each time a zombie falls under your Tommy gun or chainsaw it never feels repetitive.
And all for £1.19/$2, who can argue with that.
