Age of Zombies Review

Age of Zombies is a game that you’ve played before. There are countless top down zombie shooters available on the market already, but the guys at Australian developers Halfbrick have done a great job at keeping this genre from growing old just yet. You play as the conceited, but strangely loveable, “super badass” Barry Steakfries who’s on a mission to stop the evil Professor brain’s plans to destroy humanity by sending zombies back and forwards through time.

The game makes up for the obvious graphical limitations of a mini by throwing an insane amount of enemies on screen at once. It’s the very meaning of a back to the wall shooter as there are times where you are being chased by what seems like hundreds of zombies. One wrong turn can result in you being backed into a corner and completely overrun. You start out each level with the basic Pistol that has unlimited ammunition; however you will not get very far using this alone. Stronger guns and power-ups, such as shields, will randomly appear on each level, and to have any chance of surviving the onslaught you will need to make sure you pick these up as quickly as possible. The gameplay is so smooth and well done that anyone and everyone can pick up and enjoy. It’s extremely satisfying when you mow down a gigantic horde of zombies as they mercilessly charge towards you.

When you play for the very first time the controls may seem a bit awkward, the direction that your shots are fired is controlled with the X, O, Triangle and Square buttons (Press two at the same time to shoot diagonally). While this is a little annoying at first, it doesn’t take long before you wonder why you even had a problem at all, and you’re soon free to enjoy the games arsenal of Flamethrowers, bazooka’s, Shotguns, land mines and more.

Normally a game like this I would recommend for when travelling, or to play when you have spare ten or fifteen minutes. I can’t do that with Age of Zombies as I guarantee you’ll lose track of time and end up playing a lot longer than what you had planned. The game is fairly lengthy for its size; there are five different periods of time that you’ll visit, Including Ancient Egypt, Feudal Japan, 1930’s America, somewhere in the future and the prehistoric period. Each locale contains three levels, and a quite challenging boss fight to overcome as well. Aside from these boss battles though the levels aren’t really that varied, in fact the only thing that changes is the layout of the arena’s and the zombie’s appearance. Despite all of that though, the gameplay is strong enough on its own that not once did I feel like I was getting bored. As well as the main campaign there is survival mode which is where the real challenge comes in. This mode allows you to play the levels over again, only this time with no lives, to see how long you can survive for. For some there will also be a lot of replay value here as your score’s are saved to the leaderboards, so you can always go back and try to beat your previous best. These are offline only though unfortunately, it would have been nice to view and compare other people’s scores as well.

What really stood out for me was its tongue in cheek humor. The game doesn’t take itself seriously and it was never meant to. The dialogue is genuinely funny throughout, Barry Steakfries is the self titled master of the one-liners and during cut scenes as well as the levels themselves, comes out with phrases such as “this doesn’t look like bob’s ultimate beer n’ burger bar, this is more like zombies all up in my shit restaurant”.

If you go into age of zombies looking for a serious shooting/action game with a lot of depth then you will be disappointed. But if you’re looking for a fun, addictive and humorous title that will provide good entertainment for a few hours, then this is perfect.

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