NOMBZ: Night of a Million Billion Zombies

The formula has hit written all over it: you are armed with a crowbar and handgun and you are stranded alone in a city teeming with zombies. Running through the streets, it's up to you to find other survivors who are battling the zombie horde and carrying their own set of unique weapons. In essence, this is a zombie movie turned game. And nobody knows more about zombies then yours truly. Into this conundrum walks a mountain of a man, his name is Mot and he's got survival on the brain. With his handgun and crowbar, Mot is ready to deal death to the already dead; the only way to kill a zombie is to destroy the brain. Problem is, after playing this game for 15 minutes, you are going to become bored. Unfortunately, the game tried beating the "almost guaranteed hit" Left 4 Dead to market but forgot to put innovative gameplay and some surprises into the game itself.

Zombies are, quite frankly, the most popular monster, in my opinion. Having a game with zombies instantly perks the ears of any horror-game fans out there. Throw in a certain, comic book flair and an almost Tim Burton sense of humor and on paper this thing should be tearing up the downloads. But the problem is that NOMBZ only has one thing going for it - the zombies and sadly they grow tiresome very quickly. The point of the game is to get through the city via sections. In order to do that you run your characters via a third-person view through the streets as zombies amble and stutter towards you. Oftentimes there are forks in the road (take the street going right or the one going straight) but they ultimately lead to the same place in the end. Once you reach the end of the level, there is a large glowing white circle you must stand on and defend for a few seconds. This is done for the simple fact that the developers want you killing zombies instead of just running through the levels.

 
"No, the smoking section is here, the burning section is over there."

And run you will. As you move, the zombies will move with you. Running through the level and not killing anything will result in you facing a wall of zombies rushing you at the end; you won't make it. Instead, you must engage in a rather bland strategy, which is to move into areas with a handful of zombies and then take them out, moving to the next and doing the same. Now the kinda-cheesy thing about the game is that you may or may not put the zombie down permanently when you attack them. If the head explodes, then you know that you did your job, but about half of the time, you will shoot a zombie twice and it will fall down. No matter what you do then, that zombie will get up eventually and come after you. And the thing about this is that there is no way to ensure a complete kill. You could shoot a zombie at close range and blow its head off and then do the exact same thing to four other zombies and never kill them. It is frustrating since there seems to be no way to increase your attack ability.  

Another stinker about the game is the total lack of, well, anything. As you run through the streets, there are alleys everywhere and cars and other items, yet you never find a single thing. No health, no different weapons no coins or comic books or anything. And once you play this game, you realize that this game would greatly benefit from this sort of thing. I know, that sounds tired, but trust me, there are so many nooks and hiding spots in this game it's a tragedy there is nothing to be found. Ok, that's not true, you do find other characters, but still, what a disappointment.

 
"So that's what a gallbladder looks like!"

The graphics are what you would expect from a casual download game. Zombies sort of look like Terrance and Phillip from the South Park. Large lower jaw, flat mouth, intentionally comical expression, and it works for the game. This is casual game and I will admit, the look of the zombies and characters works. What doesn't work is the recycled levels that show the same thing over and over. Burning cop car, right turn with an alcove containing three cars and a zombie; alley with a large dumpster and a zombie. It would be one thing if things were different colors and contained different amounts of zombies, as well as different types of cars burning, but no, it is the same time and time again. Oh sure, they increase the zombie amount as you increase your level, but the red or green or whatever hue everything has and the recycled graphics really do get old, like changing the ambiance color is going to fool anyone.

One thing that more than frustrated me is how the zombies attack. Each character can only take a few bites or claws before dying, but since the game is controlled with a strafe left and right configuration, often times I would slide off to the side and the zombie's attack would miss me by a mile (really, very far) and yet I would still take the hit. This torqued me more then anything; chinchy development, even for a casual game.

 
"I'm sorry, I can't remember - what is it we are playing again?"

There is some decent audio; the theme music that plays is decent enough, but the sound effects are lacking even the basic noise. Why don't the zombies moan or scream? In fact the only noise I could detect from a zombie is when you shoot a fat one, they blow up and make a "fart" sound, as if the reason they are fat is because they are filled with gas from all the bloating going on. Where's the screams of victims from far away? I know this is a bargain game, but sheesh.

Which brings me back to the in-game action - when you shoot one of these chubby buggers they explode and if you are in the blast radius, you get injured, but the zombies don't do anything. You naturally expect the others to go flying if you blow up one that seems to be filled with methane gas, but nope, they just keep coming.

Gameplay: 6.2
You pick up other survivors and can rotate through them to try out their weapons, but if the main character Mot dies, the level is over. Easy enough to control, silly how things react to the actions in the game, exploding zombies and attacks from nine feet away will frustrate you.

Graphics: 6.0
They have a certain flair and fun, but the repeated look of the levels gets old. For a city as big as this one, there is surprisingly little in the streets.

Sound: 5.3
Eh, they don't move the game forward at all and both voice work and decent sound effects are MIA. There is a funny song called "shoot the zombie" that is mildly amusing.

Difficulty: Medium
It's not fair how the zombies can get you from so far away, and this adds to the difficulty as well as the inability to effectively put a zombie down the first time, with each encounter. I'm not saying it doesn't infuse some realism (I can't believe I just said that) but it's a cheap way to increase the difficulty.

Concept: 6.0
The idea is a good one, the end product, I believe was a quick rush to market.

Overall: 5.8
I get what this game is - a quick casual game featuring zombies, but just because it is a casual game doesn't mean it has to be poorly executed. I hope there is a sequel and they address the glaring problems the game has.