With the success of Left 4 Dead, the Resident Evil series, and the sweet zombies mode in the latest Call of Duty, it’s easy to see why the zombie craze has taken off. Zombies are a universally hated foe across all races and cultures, and the ferocity of their bloodlust is only matched by the cheesiness of their inherent humor. Couple that with modern game’s reliance on making sure there’s a gun in your hand, and you’re basically left with the all around perfect foe. Certainly not one to sit out a party, Konami and Nihilistic Software (the guys behind the underrated Conan game a few years ago) have churned out Zombie Apocalypse. Zombies are pretty cool, and the apocalypse, in the context of a game, isn’t too far behind, so I bet you’re wondering if those two things are twice as awesome when they’re combined. Oh, let me tell you…
The Undead: Myths and Realities
From the moment I started Zombie Apocalypse, the influence of its peers became immediately clear. The backing music, a slow burn tension builder full of intense guitars, seemed to have been lifted directly out of Danny Boyle’s fantastic 28 Days Later. On top of that, the character select screen was not unlike that of Left 4 Dead; I got to pick between a spunky girl, a random black guy, a military guy with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and a non-descript white guy. You know, just like in Left 4 Dead. From the onset, that specific lack of creativity made Zombie Apocalypse feel cheap and uninspired; if they had to left the presentation aspects straight out of successful zombie archetypes, what was that going to say about the gameplay?
Honestly, not much, because the basic gameplay, for about a half hour, was a good amount of fun. Following the twin stick shooter model, the left analog stick moves you around while the right fires your infinite-ammo rifle. You’re thrown into one of seven arenas, and you’re tasked with annihilating the undead hoards, staying alive, and building your multiplier. The multiplier does its best to act as the game’s hook; the longer you stay alive, the higher it builds, and the higher your point total goes. Kills increase the multiplier at a fairly steady rate, but chainsaw executions boost it by three at a time – at the high risk of leaving you incredibly vulnerable. Survivors also pop up from time to time, providing a huge bonus if you can manage to keep them a live. All in all, it’s a solid/risk reward template, and it functions quite well in the initial stages.
Speaking of the stages, they do quite well to accentuate the gameplay. They’re all highly detailed and beautifully rendered, each showcasing a common zombie-themed archetype (graveyard, gas station, carnival, city fair, etc). Each stage also arrives with a handful of level specific area hazards, like razor blade car washes, jet engines, cases of fireworks, and other dangerously useful remnants of the apocalypse. Thankfully, forcing the living dead into one of these deathtraps nets a few extra bonus points.
After 5-10 minutes of endless bloodlust, the “day” will be over and you’ll move onto the next day. This is where Zombie Apocalypse tries it’s best to vary its formula. New types of zombies slowly trickle out; a Puker’s vomit puddle slows you down, a Big Boy kills you instantly if he touches you, a Queen releases flying insect things to make your life hell, and a Kamikaze lives up to his title. You’ll be able to shake a couple of the normal zombies off by racking the analog sticks, but the other seven zombie classes (which also include Dodgers, shotgun wielding sheriffs, and knife throwing Granny’s) are quite adept at keeping you on your toes. A steady drip of new weapons, like molotovs, twin machine guns, flamethrowers, grenade launchers, and your standard rocket launcher also do well to assist you in your cause.
After Zombie Apocalypse has thrown all of those at you in various combinations, it introduces minor stipulations to a few days, such as using a chainsaw only, blacking out everything but a halo of light around your character, or pitting you against a tentacle monster boss. The game seems to run out of tricks around day 30, and that’s really where the problem begins. As I mentioned above, Zombie Apocalypse was a decent amount of fun for a half hour. But then it proceeded to repeat itself into infinity, and I was nearly tearing my hair out with boredom by the time I finished the game, after about six hours, at day 55.
You got Groundhog Day in my zombie movie
There just doesn’t seem to be anything worthwhile to incentivize progression. Your score suffers if you die, but dying doesn’t halt progression because you have infinite continue. Forcing myself through the seemingly infinite tedium of Zombie Apocalypse brought back memories of a friend and I doing our best to beat (the also infinite continue blessed) Rampage on my Nintendo; we played the game well beyond the point where it stopped being fun, and continued only for the sake of completion. Now, twenty years later, that same friend and I were stuck doing the same thing after two decades of advancement in game design. That didn’t sit well.
After I beat the game I unlocked a “7 Days of Hell” mode, so I gave that a shot. What I then found was a cool brown filter that added the perverse and highly appropriate charm of grime to the aesthetic, but the gameplay was still riddled with the same problems – only amplified tenfold. 7 Days of Hell actually pits you not against a few hundred zombies per day, but several thousand over the course of seven 30-50 minute single days. When I finished that mode, I actually wound up with a higher kill count than I did in the normal campaign. Even the hardest members of the high score core probably won’t be able to stomach trying to progress through 7 Days of Hell because, even if you’re going for the trophy (as I did), it was an exercise in tolerance.
I wanted to see if I was just being a grumpy and didn’t “get” the game, so I opted to try and play through some of the campaign online. Two days after the game’s release, I was unable to find any games. And every attempt since then has resulted in my PS3 freezing and requiring a hard reset to make it reboot itself. I tried this on two different PS3’s and got the same result both times. I’m not sure if the servers aren’t in place or if no one’s playing Zombie Apocalypse, but I wasn’t able to play it online.
I feel like I’m slamming the game pretty hard, but that’s only because it’s such a disappointment. Even Burn Zombie Burn, a little title released on PSN earlier in the year, did something original and engaging, neither of which even strives to achieve. The game is completely functional, doesn’t have any bugs, and it actually looks pretty damn good, but it’s one of the most shallow experiences I’ve had in quite some time. Sure, Zombie Apocalypse can be fun if you and three friends sit down and try to romp through it, but the lack of surprise and constant repetition will easily sour the experience.
EDIT – 09/27/09 – Nihilistic has acknowledged online connectivity issues and it appears they’re on their way to getting it sorted out.
