As the undead relentlessly pour out of every part of the stage you’ll soon realise that Zombie Apocalypse, the latest from Nihilistic Games, isn’t going to be a push over. In fact you’ll quickly loose track of just how many enemies are bearing down on you, all of them hungry for the taste of your brains. Seeing as the aim of the game is to shoot and not count them, it’s easier just to get blasting and keep on your toes.
This forms the basic gameplay of the twin stick shooter, with players desperately trying to avoid the flesh eaters in the confines of each stage, whilst scoring as much as possible by thinning out the hoard in the only way possible – guns. Lots and lots of guns.
Using the various weapon pickups that range from chainsaws, shotguns, flamethrowers and even Teddy Bears packed with love (and some handy C4), the screen is soon awash with enough blood to redefine the term `bloodbath`. There’s also more than enough limbs, entrails and split heads to go around, befitting the games influence from the horror genre.
Each stage has different environmental kills that enemies can be forced into for bonus points such as vehicle compactors, jet turbines and even helicopter blades, so there’s more than enough killing power at your disposal to get the job done. The action gets even more hectic with up to four players able to play the stages co-operatively, but no matter how many are engaged in the slaughter the sheer number of enemies means they’ll all need to keep their wits about them and make use of all the weapons they can get their hands on.
It isn’t long before the game mixes in other undead creatures to accompany the standard zombies, uping the ante and keeping things varied. These include creatures who are able to hold on to the last vestiges of their humanity just long enough to remember how to handle a shotgun (making them extremely dangerous at close range) or the super-zombies; abominations like the Queen, an undead débutante who spews out flesh eating scarabs from her stomach or the Granny, an elderly zombie whose toughened skin makes her extremely hard to kill.
Zombie Apocalypse has lots of nice little visual and audio touches that plant it firmly in the horror genre. From the music which draws its inspiration from the better parts of the 28 Days Later soundtrack, to the fact that failing to rescue a stranded survivor results in them quickly coming back as one of the undead horde, there’s more than enough to entice horror fans. While the game doesn’t add anything new to the twin stick shooter genre, Zombie Apocalypse lives up to its aim to make blood soaked dismemberment as much fun as possible and, for that alone, it’s worthy of a purchase.