Review: Zombie Apocalypse (360/PS3).

Zombie Apocalypse is a twin stock 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.

7/10.

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Konami's Zombie Apocalypse lands on XBLA and PSN next week.

If there are two things we like here at Paradox; its shooters and Zombies! So the news that Konami's twin stick shooter Zombie Apocalypse hits both PSN and XBLA next week (September 23rd) has left us scurrying for our wallets in anticipation of yet more undead extermination.

Developed by Nihilistic, the overhead twin stick shooter (yes, another one!) promises plenty of frantic action in what looks to be Left 4 Dead meets Smash TV, and lets face it, how can that be anything other than great!

The game will be priced at 800 MS points and £7.99 on PSN ($9.99 for US customers) and can be played by up to four players.

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Finally the Sonic game we have been waiting for?

Sega have just announced that they are at last developing a Sonic game which will go back to the series 2D roots.

After years of fans complaining about Sonic’s pretty dire 3D adventures, it seems as though Sega have finally listened.

The game, currently known as Project Needlemouse, will be built entirely from the ground up and be in HD which suggests to me at least that it will be hosted on 360 or PS3 and possibly even be a download release on XBLA and PSN.

Just in case you don't get the reference, the very first Sonic the Hedgehog game was initially codenamed "Mr Needlemouse" whilst in development. No other details are known at this point so for now just enjoy the teaser trailer and dream!

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Playfire - Facebook for Gamers.

I have to say it, Playfire has certainly impressed me!

It was quite odd how I found the site in many ways; we had a thread active on my clan forum over at 22g discussing things we would like to see in the future of gaming.One of the things that came up was the idea of a website that collected all of your player data across all of your formats (XBL, PSN, Steam etc) and then lo and behold we discover Playfire!



Hopefully the Steam integration will get better (achievements, direct link to profile etc) and to this end I have already used the feedback option to suggest this and been informed that they have added this to their 'to do' list. I have to say as well it was nice that one of the co-founders of the site got back to me regarding my suggestion so quickly.

For those who have yet to check it out, Playfire is a Facebook type social space designed especially for gamers. Within your Playfire profile you can display both the games you have played and owned (with ratings/mini-reviews), microblog and link up to your PSN and XBL accounts. Instant chat, user made groups, game forums and much more are also present so be sure to check it out.

For those wondering about the Steam Community Network I recently founded on Playfire, it is simply an effort to bring those Steam users on Playfire together. I noted that there was no Steam related group on there so rather than sit back and wait I got a bit pro-active and made one! Hopefully it will take off and people will enjoy taking part. Thanks to all those who have joined so far.

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