Story

The time is the present a city has been suddenly filled with the souls of the dead. It was a top-secret plan to utilize the dead for military purposes. Just before it was ready for operation all was, thrown into darkness by someone unknown. A year later, the city had become the home of the dead. Who? Why? The only thing certain is that the world's fate is the hands of 3 agents.

Making absolutely no sense at all, that's exactly what it says in the cheap-ass manual. You'd think that a multi-million dollar company could hire some decent writers. Anyway, I'll try to translate all that nonsense. Okay, what happens is that there was this government project that experimented on raising an army of undead soldiers. The whole thing went haywire when some psycho turned a whole town into zombies. Now three heroes have to save the world from destruction. Yeah, I know it sounds lame but that's basically the game's entire plot.

Graphics

This is definitely the game's best feature. All the characters are well presented (especially the chicks in the game! Drool...) and the zombies along with the bosses are convincingly gruesome. One of the biggest problems in the graphics area however are the poor camera angles. There are times when you can't even see what you're doing and where you're going. When the screen is crowded with lots of zombies and you're on two-player mode, it's hard to tell where you are. Also, some of the graphics aren't as smooth as they could be because there is a slight case of blockiness in some parts of the game, especially on the huge bosses. While the graphics are very good, it becomes apparent that more effort could've been established to polish the engine overall.

Sound

The game's sound effects and music are pretty decent. The tunes are all appropriate and fit the game. I suggest you turn up the base when you play this game, but you better hit the "mute" button when all the characters start talking. The voice acting so horrible that it's even worse than the Resident Evil series. The voices sound so stupid that it's not even funny. Again, this game is made by a multi-million dollar company and they should at least have the resources to find some decent voice actors.

Gameplay

Zombie Revenge's gameplay is just horrible. The controls suck big time, the action gets repetitive, and the game gets stupid. So stupid, in fact, that it's actually kinda fun. The controls in this game are so inaccurate that it's almost impossible to attack or shoot where you direct your player(s). To illustrate, I point the gun on a certain zombie and then I end up shooting something else. In addition, pulling off special combo moves is quite a chore. You have to punch, press and hold the punch button again to do a grab, which bites because most of the time, you end up just throwing another punch. Since this is an M-rated shooter, there should be blood spilling everywhere right? Wrong. They bleed green in this game and a special code is required to unlock the red dye. What's up with that? This game is already rated M so what's with the censorship factor? The game's action gets really redundant. All you have to do is run around and hit whatever looms in site whilst before the timer expires...for the entire duration of the game. There simply isn't anything else to do. Thankfully with the two-player feature, the game becomes more enjoyable. So, when you get frustrated, you can just kick your partner's ass all over the place making it totally hilarious.

As for the game's special features, they're just awful. The extra fighting mode is so stupid and lame because the first person that strikes first will always be the winner. If you manage to make the first hit, all you have to do is keep pressing the punch button and you'll combo strike them to death. Also, why is there a "CPU vs. CPU" mode? For intermission or what? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Overall

This is definitely a game that you should rent or borrow only. Don't waste your money on Zombie Revenge unless you REALLY liked the arcade version and you want another action type game in your library. More time should've been spent on this game, especially on the controls and voice acting.

· · · Raziel