


The build shown at the Konami press conference in San Francisco only showed a couple of levels – a car junkyard and a blocked-off urban crossroad – but if the rest of the game is of the same quality as these two levels, we’re in for one of the best downloadable titles yet. But as a multiplayer-oriented title that has the same drop-in-and-play, tongue-in-cheek flavor of Castle Crashers, having an equal playing field across the roster makes sense. None of the characters seem to be fully fleshed or have any meaningful differences between each other, like weapon specialties or running speed, so it’s currently a little unimaginative to say the least. In addition to a round-up of stats that pop up after each wave is defeated, the roster for the main characters is “the black dude”, “the white dude”, “the white chick”, and “the old white dude”. Thankfully, if just the normal household zombie catches you, you can shake them off, but if a large zombie happens to get a hold of you, you can kiss one of your few lives goodbye.įor better or worse, the comparison to Left 4 Dead can’t be ignored. Making sure that you’re always moving and side-strafing, yet keeping to the center of the playing field so as not to get blindsided, is key to your survival. High-score addicts will want to guard any survivors until a helicopter comes in to rescue them, if just to claim the quarter-million point bonus. These temporary upgrades will not only rack up your point total and kill count, keeping your score multiplier high, but they provide great cover for any survivors that you need to protect. If you’re more methodical in your approach, you have zombie bait as well, which is (of course) in the shape of a fluffy-wuffy teddy bear.īut regardless of your shooting style, you’ll be glad to come across the limited-ammo weapons that are randomly scattered on the playing field for your sadistic pleasure: a gatling gun, a super shotgun with a piercing four-shot spread, a grenade launcher, and an ever-delightful flamethrower. While the sticks power the infinite-ammo rifle – the bread-and-butter of your arsenal – you can always also whip out a chainsaw and hack the helpless horde with unsuppressed glee. It’s a control scheme that’s so fast, fluid, and effective that it makes you wonder why it was ever replaced with mindless button-mashing. Simple and straightforward, the controls are mapped primarily to the dual-analog sticks (finally) – the left stick is used to move and the right stick is used to shoot. Waves upon waves of monsters spring up from the ground like ugly daisies along the edge of the screen and inch towards your soft fleshy body, with their mouths ready to gnaw on your trachea. The story (oh, like you need one) pits you in a fixed top-down square arena, as large as the screen, with only your trusty infinite-ammo rifle to defend yourself against the… err… zombie apocalypse.

Killing zombies with shotguns, chainsaws, and flamethrowers has never failed to be instant grati-crack, and like another downloadable title, Burn Zombie Burn, Zombie Apocalypse takes that concept and runs with it until its face is covered in the bowels of the undead.
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“Fast” zombies, however, are my kind of horror (as in, I’m a ninja), but as many would argue, “fast” zombies are paradoxical jibber-jabber nonsensical hullabaloo.įortunately, the aptly named Zombie Apocalypse, developed by Nihilistic Software and published by Konami, combines slow zombies with fast-paced run-and-gun action into a Horde-mode, Left 4 Dead, Smash TV shoot-fest merry-go-round that all translates into carefree, unadulterated fun. I’m not averse to the concept of overwhelming swarms of brain-eating corpses infesting city streets and the occasional outlet mall I’m just not afraid of monstrous manifestations of the creeping eventuality of death. I know it’s sacrilegious to say this as a video game nerd in America, but I have never cared for zombies.
