Overview – developed by NYX Digital and published by Funbox Media, Zombie Town is a mission based zombie shooter with 5 distinct missions to select from. Fight off the hordes of the undead as you try to survive the apocalypse, protecting your neighborhood and ridding it of the zombie invasion. This title is available for Nintendo Switch, Steam and PlayStation platforms, with a link to each version of the game at the bottom of this review.
Disclaimer: before I get into the review, I would like to thank Funbox Media for providing the copy of Zombie Town that was used for this piece, via the Keymailer service. The provision of this software has not influenced the contents of this review, all thoughts and opinions contained within are my own.
Now with the introductions out of the way, let’s get into the review. The game is light on plot so I will be going straight into covering the gameplay for this release.
Gameplay – Zombie Town is a rather basic and simple zombie shooter, where the player controls the hero character and battles the zombies that appear. The action takes place in a side scrolling style, with the player able to move their character around the screen, similar to a beat em up. There are three actions that can be performed as the hero character, firing the equipped weapon, using a knife to shop and push some zombies back and a grenade that deals big damage.
The weapons have limited ammunition, with more needing to be collected from defeated zombies and ammo boxes. There are also health boxes to heal damage, toilets that contain coins (more about that later) and explosive barrels that will deal massive damage to zombies. The knife has no limit to how much it can be used, but the grenade requires time to charge when it is used the first time. If the player loses all their health, they will fail the stage and need to try again.
There are 5 total game modes for the player to challenge, with stages that are all functionally the same, taking place on the same stretch of road for each of these stages. Before selecting a mission, you see the icons on the map, which move randomly and don’t really give the stage select any depth. The game modes that players can take on are as follows;
- Run for your life – hunt down zombies and clear the streets of the hordes, with the objective being to take down a set number of zombies.
- Protect the street – defend the barricade from the approaching undead, taking down a target number of enemies while defending a barrier.
- Collect coins – collect coins up to the target number, with coins being dropped by defeated zombies and hidden in toilets.
- Stay alive – survive for the allotted time, avoiding and fighting the undead while an on-screen timer counts down.
- Kill zombie boss – battle the boss zombie that will appear and attack the player, which is heavily armed and very resilient.
At the end of the stage, the player will be given a coin reward that will be added to the coins that were earned from killing zombies. The coins that have been earned are added to the players total, which can be used in the in-game shop. While in the game shop, the player can unlock new characters and weapons for the player to use. This is alongside the upgrade system, which allows players to improve the abilities and power of their character and weapons.
The upgrade shop offers players power-ups, improving the power of the active player character and the weapons that can be used. However, there is an issue with the weapon upgrade system which can negatively impact the player progression. During play if the player fully upgrades their base weapon without buying a new one, they will be locked out of buying any other weapon. This requires the save to be deleted if players want to try again and get other weapons.
There is little in terms of variety when it comes to the gameplay loop of the game, as the same 5 missions occur on the same stage. This makes the game feel copy-pasted as the stages have the same basic layout, the defense stage is the only one that is different, with the barricades that cover one side of the stage. This doesn’t prevent the feeling of tedious monotony that occurs during play, with the repetitive stage layouts and repetitive gameplay.
The progression system for the game is as uninspired as the action itself, all of the characters feel the same to play, with little to differentiate them. The five game modes are available from the start, with the ability to just play one type of stage. This does little to change the feeling of boredom that can occur, as it is mostly the same stage every time with a slightly different objective. It may have felt different if they were structured in packs, but alas they missed that trick.
As this game is on the PlayStation, there are trophies that are available to unlock, with the ability to earn a platinum trophy for getting them all. This is the only real incentive to play the game, as there is little else to do with this title once all 5 levels have been played once. There is a leaderboard system, but this feels a little redundant when playing as it appears to cap out at 1000 stages cleared. There was potential for this to be fun, but sadly it falls short of what it could have been.
Now with the gameplay covered, it is time to move onto the other aspects of this release, starting with the controls.
Controls – the controls for this release are incredibly simple, with three action buttons and the movement stick. This makes the game easy to pick up and does give it an arcade style to the game feel, but it can feel slow due to the way that the action works. The gun play is reactive but can feel like it lags at times, as there seems to not be a buffer for the fire input. Then there is the melee which is quick and the grenade that feels delayed.
Difficulty – there is little in terms of difficulty with this release, as the challenge is about the number of zombies you kill, the amount of coins that you collect and how long you survive. The only way that the challenge gets tougher is that some of the zombies will take more damage to kill, the requirement for the stage increases or the boss does a little more damage. This is trivialized by the upgrades, as fully powering up the player character makes then almost unkillable.
Presentation – sadly the visuals of the game are a little bland, as there are only a few different zombie types and the street stages are the same throughout. This makes the game feel like a flash or mobile game, which gives it a cheap feeling which is a bit of a letdown. The sound is made up of the same music tracks and effects that repeat over and over, which unfortunately intensifies the feeling of monotony that set it after the fun started to fade.
Final Thoughts – from the outset, this game looked like it could be fun and challenge that I could really get sunk into, but sadly that wasn’t the case. Unfortunately I was disappointed with my experience, there is little or any depth to the game loop. The premise of pick a stage, pick another stage that looks identical but a different objective and repeat is not fun. I am unable to recommend this unless it is on sale, it lacks any true depth and the weapon bug was a real frustration.
In the end, I give Zombie Town a final score of 2.5/5. This is a simple and repetitive zombie shooter, lacking any real depth and challenge after playing for a couple hours, a game breaking bug and copy paste stages. The only real saving grace is there is fun to be had in bursts, but the potential to be more than it is was sadly missed. If you do want to pick this game up or check it out, links to the different versions of the game are below.
Link to PlayStation version (HERE)
Link to Nintendo Switch version (HERE)
Link to Steam version (HERE)
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