Review: Zombie Apocalypse (360/PS3).

Zombie Apocalypse is a twin stick shooter similar in play to the classic arcade game Smash TV; except instead of a game show you are stuck in the middle of gaming’s latest love affair: a zombie outbreak.

Indeed if you’d never seen the game before but imagined Smash TV with a Left 4 Dead style, you’d pretty much nail exactly what Konami’s Zombie Apocalypse is about and looks like in one foul swoop.

The game can be played solo or co-operatively with up to 4 players (either locally or over your respective network), although be warned that its wise to pick and choose your networked games carefully if you are not the host; lag is very noticeable and ultimately deadly in the fast paced world of Zombie Apocalypse.

You start the day by picking one of 4 characters; Zoey, Bill, Francis or Louis. Ok, ok that’s not quite true but it could be as the 4 characters and much of the games style are clearly influenced by Valves brilliant FPS.

 

The basic premise of the game is to survive through 55 nights of the Zombie Apocalypse. The 55 nights take place in 7 different locations; each filled with a variety of hazards which can be used to despatch the undead horde in conjunction with your 11 weapon pick ups.
 
The hazards vary from garbage shredders to helicopter blades and fireworks shops; and all of them reduce the zombies to even larger piles of bloody mess than your standard weapon load out. The only downside to these attractions is that the action is so fast and frantic you rarely get time to really appreciate the carnage they cause.

As you progress through the game you will eventually open up an additional 7 game modes to put your zombie killing skills to the test. My favourite of these modes was Turbo (which unsurprisingly speeds up the action somewhat) and 7 Days of Hell which essentially just continuously throws thousands of zombies at you until you either kill them all or your thumbs bleed.

Zombie Apocalypse is a fun game and well worth the cost (800 MS points and £7.99 on PSN) if you are a fan of arcade shooters and provided you accept that what’s on offer is nothing new.

There are better twin stick shooters and for some people the amount of zombie games is becoming a bit tiring. Me? I’m still not quite done with the undead just yet and I’m thoroughly enjoying Konami’s zombie blaster despite its unoriginality.

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