…I R3V1EW3D A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1

Developer: SKA Studios

Demo/Buy: Xbox Live Marketplace

Portal touched gamers’ hearts and souls with ‘Still Alive’, the song sung by the decaying computer at the end of the game over the credits. We learned of cake and happiness from the poor dying computer. It was the perfect end to a near perfect game: A musical gaming gem.The newest XNA effort from the developers behind The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a game entitled I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MBIES 1N IT!!!1 As the menu comes up, a little blurb reads ‘IT’S A TW1N ST1CK SH00T3R. It does exactly what it says on the tin and it has a kick ass song to rival Valve’s effort that you can download from Ska man himself James Silva’s blog.

…Z0MBIES is a refreshingly basic game. It’s a top=down, dual-stick shooter much like Geometry Wars, except that instead of neon shapes you’re battling the undead. There are a variety of weapons from shotguns to flamethrowers to rocket launchers and each zombie you kill emits a pleasing little splat of gore. To be honest, you’ll play it the first five times just to hear  what sounds like a werewolf dying as it shrieks ‘I made a game with zombies in it. It’s only a dollar, I hope you buy it!’ over the top of some wailing guitar. It’s when the chorus hits a screeching level and the metal distorted fuzz kicks in properly that you want to start paying attention to the tiny pixellated zombies on your screen because all of a sudden the game will spawn a horde of the undead blighters right in front of your face. There are a variety of enemies out to guzzle upon your innards, from your average reanimated corpse, to mecha-zombies (arcade versions of the Tanks from Left4Dead), to strange luminous,, grinning snakelike miscreants and some odd shapes that look like they’ve just wandered over from Geometry Wars to see what all the fuss is about. As for pickups, well aside from the weapons there are some glowing blobs that recharge your shields, the occasional extra life and…yeah….that’s pretty much your lot.

The game is only 80 Microsoft Points, but it is worth every one of them. Don’t expect Xbox Live, because there isn’t any. But there is local multiplayer, up to four of you can take on the undead and rack up some sick zombie pwnage, which is quite fun for a little while although it can get a little repetitive. And that’s it. It’s a gloriously accessible little game with the same bleak watercolour soaked visuals  as we saw in The Dishwasher, and it’s a perfect fit for those moments where you’ve got five or ten minutes to kill. Aha! Kill. It’s a pun, see, because you get to kill zombies too. I made a funny………oh never mind.

The Short Version: No depth but then it costs less to buy than it probably would to play a single game were it at an arcade. Twin-stick, kill zombies. Laugh. Repeat. Sweet cheap simple satire.

CGI Rating: