We Hate Zombies

Title: Zombie Tower Defense (click to play)
Style: Top-Down Strategy
Source: ZombieHead.org

Considering everything, I thought today would be a good day to review a game that could get your juices flowing. Mind juices, that is. A little bit of a strategy game is what I’m saying, so that makes today Strategy Friday. (For all readers from the Future, today is Friday. If you don’t agree because of your time warps, you can go f#!@ your self.)

So what does the Strategy Friday Stork bring to our door step? Zombie. Tower. Defense. … ! Like the build up there? Good, because that’s the most excitement you’ll get out of the game.

Zombie Tower Defense is your typical tower defense game. You just shoot at zombies, and by you, I mean your towers, strategically placed and upgraded. There are some different types of zombies and blah blah, but really it’s just the run-of-the-mill tower defense game. There isn’t a whole lot of special stuff going on, as in none. You could be shooting at anything, anything at all. Babies, Marshmellow men, boxes of crackerjacks. Anything, and this game would still be the same.

Which, fortunately, is alright, because all tower defense games are fun as long as you feel like you’re winning. Unfortunately, this game doesn’t really bring with it the whole satisfaction of annihilating zombies thing, so it loses points there. Oh well, at least it doesn’t crash my computer.

Game Score:

Graphics:		2.0
Sound:		?
Fun Factor:		2.0
Satisfaction:		1.0
Total:

Title: Zed Town (click to play)
Style: Top-Down Shooter
Source: http://npgam.es/

In ZedTown, or Zed Town, or whatever, you get to play a guy with a gun. This is actually not unusual for zombie games; in fact, it’s pretty standard. As this standard guy, you move around some maps and shoot zombies in the dark because you’re apparently a vampire and can’t hunt zombies at sun-up. Or there are no windows in this town, I don’t know, but every map requires a flashlight and is dark as hell.

As this quite standard guy running around dark standard houses in Zed Town, you’re task is to clear the building/town of zombies and otherwise rock out. I don’t know why you would want to cleanse a village with no other survivors, so the whole premise is kind of dumb to me. Why not go find some other survivors, then clear a town? Why take the risks on yourself? Why be so standard? And dark? And alone?

And hopeless?

Shooting zombies is good fun, I suppose, but every zombie game has some good-fun-shooting-zombies thing going for it. And, at that, there are only a small selection of guns that aren’t terribly exciting. Standard, really, except reloading some of them requires reloading one bullet at a time. Kind of a pain, actually.

Unfortunately, I kind of hated this game because I couldn’t have any fun running around in the dark with a flashlight. Maybe if I was playing at night it would be a different story. Maybe if I had the sound on I would have been able to hear the direction of the zombies without having to see them. But I doubt it. No, I think this game is just a good try at making a better game, and if killing zombies is the most enjoyable thing your game has to offer, why make it so hard to do? If realism was the goal, who would realistically choose to fight in the dark?

And what the hell is with that white box on the left side? Could the contrast be any more painful to stare at?

The only thing I did like was that each building had a little sub-story blurb you could read before jumping into it. This didn’t really help set the mood or anything, but it was kind of fun to see other people write about zombies. And the end of the world. Like me.

Game Score:

Graphics:		1.0
Sound:		?
Fun Factor:		1.5
Satisfaction:		1.5
Total:

Title: Zombie Mayhem (click to play)
Style: Side-View Shooter
Source: Sun-Studios.net

This zombie game is a little different than most. First, you play a kid with a bow and arrow as the only weapon, and some sadistic fuck has tied up all your friends in a field, right on the other side of a zombie spawning pool.

If you wait too long to shoot, the zombies will jump on you like a fat kid on a box of tootsie-rolls, but if you shoot too much you’ll inevitably spear the friends whose very lives you would die trying to protect. When you do, the guilt and remorse is so stunning that you choose to forsake the rest of your friends and let the zombies rip into your stack of flapjacks. That’s the sad ending and the struggle of your existence. In this game, but also in real life.

While the game is simple, without the flair of weapons or struggle against various indestructible foes, it’s simplicity is what makes it so damn addictive. You can jump into a game, and after killing a few kids you end up getting the hang of it no problem. Then it’s not about the skills of using weapons and running around, but just a simple test of speed and exactness. Like zombie tetris, and I get a god damn tetris every time.

I thought this game was awesome and almost lost my job over it. I almost wet my pants because I couldn’t stop playing to go to the bathroom, and then I almost wet my pants because I was so excited. Do I think shooting a zombie with a bow and arrow is a good idea? No, hell no, but this game makes it fun and enjoyable, so who fudging cares.

If you don’t like, I hope you get tied up to a post on the other side of a zombie spawning pool.

Game Score:

Graphics:		3.0
Sound:		?
Fun Factor:		4.5
Satisfaction:		4
Total: