The only thing that could break us from this murderous trance was the hint of delicious food as dinner was called. Sessions on Zombie Apocalypse would go on so long the hands on the clock started to spin, days would fall off the calendar and if our concentration could have been broken we’d have seen the seasons changing before our eyes. As ever with these strange games that are ok but not great decent multiplayer holds the key to my positive memories. It gets even better when you have the opportunity to get a little multiplayer on the go. Minor aesthetic changes to mix it up aren’t really that noticeable but still the game stays fresh. You might be surprised but spinning your character and firing your gun surprisingly never gets old. It is proof that storyline, great presentation and complex game play aren’t actually vital in making a game a whole lot of fun.
(Perhaps it might entail a small dose of screaming/manly yelling as well when the difficulty level rises.) This game isn’t about great use of brain-power and skill but relies on a little bit of strategy and a whole lot of luck. It is spinning and shooting with a little bit of running thrown into the mix. Zombie apocalypse is pretty easy to sum up. The high score feature and online high score lists add little in the way of replay value to a game that can be a fair old slog if played from start to finish but I might just be saying that because I ranked so poorly. In addition, for all my complaints about its simplicity I was miles away from the high scores so there must actually be some skill to it beyond constant destruction. It is strangely soothing and a brief play might end up swallowing a whole evening if you aren’t careful. I might be sounding a bit negative again so I will add that there is an oddly therapeutic element to the massacre that could be awkward or embarrassing to have to explain to a psychiatrist. As the game progresses a variety of maps and times of day become unlocked but it still doesn’t change the experience enough that you’d notice. To vary things up a little bit there are challenges to complete (as with any modern game), survivors to rescue and power-ups to collect but these differences mainly change where on the map you run to and then how much firepower you are offering when pressing shoot. If you have played any game like this at any point throughout gaming history you will be on familiar ground here. One stick rotates and moves you, one button to shoot and you run and shoot and run and shoot until all the undead enemies are dead undead. As I mentioned above this is as simple and derivative as it gets. So what makes Zombie Apocalypse unique? Well not a lot really. Vast swathes of enemies to mow your way through all from a birds eye perspective is about as simple as it gets but enjoyable in its own special way. Speaking of brain dead for this task I have chosen Zombie Apocalypse a top-down, throwback shooter released digitally on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network. Obviously this was by reviewing the most mind-numbingly, brain dead, violent videogame game possible. Fully refreshed, this week I decided there was only one way possible to maintain the momentum from this intellectual plateau. After the cerebral highs and mental energy expounded in my previous review of the Encarta Mindmaze I had to take a breather.