Game Reviews

Zombiewood

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Zombiewood
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It's not entirely clear why zombies have taken over Hollywood in this latest shooter from Gameloft, but it may be because they felt discriminated against in the casting of zombie movies. The roles are always taken by humans.

Before the zombies can get around to remaking Dawn of the Dead on their own terms, however, some average Joe has come along to spoil their fun with his slicked-back hair and his dual semi-automatic pistols.

Dead good

Zombiewood puts you in the middle of a Californian zombie outbreak, and finding your girlfriend is your main objective.

Across several locations, you're required to follow markers to find missions and then carry them out to earn coins and progress the story.

There's a great deal of variety where the missions are concerned, with tasks ranging from simply blowing incoming zombies away to driving over them all in vehicles. There are also some lovely homages to zombie films gone by.

Zombiewood features plenty of content, with dozens of missions to play through, a huge range of weapons to buy and fire, and special items that can alter the playing field in your favour whenever the zombie hordes get a bit too much.

We wood

There's a levelling-up system that counts XP for each zombie you will and each mission you complete - the higher the level you reach, the better gear you can purchase.

You can also interact with the environment, shooting caps of fire hydrants to make gushes of water throw the zombie masses back, for example.

And you've got a dynamite superpower that can clear the screen when things get really rough, which also doubles as a close-quarters melee weapon. Zombiewood definitely can't be faulted in terms of content variety.

Bit wooden

While Zombiewood does a good job of piling on the content, it doesn't offer much more in terms of gameplay and fun than all the other similar shooters already plugging up the smartphone gaming space.

At times the controls can be unresponsive, and it occasionally seems like the main character is refusing to go exactly where you tell him.

You fire automatically, but only straight ahead, which can be incredibly awkward when there are zombies all around. If a zombie is behind you, it's necessary to run into him before you fire on him.

It also feels a little lazy in places - especially where visuals are concerned. The graphics are nice enough, but there's a lot of repetition, with every single lady you're asked to save looking exactly the same, and surrounding areas simply repeated all over the place.

Zombiewood is great fun, and fans of shooters will no doubt get a kick out of it, but if you're looking for the next leap forward in smartphone carnage you'll be disappointed.

Zombiewood

Zombiewood is an enjoyable enough shooter with plenty of missions to play through, though you will instantly forget it the moment you stop playing
Score
Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.