Over 9000 Zombies Review.
Developer Loren Lemcke
Publisher Masteronic
Platform PC (Steam)
Release Date Out Now
Reviewed by James Horan
From the uneaten brain of Loren Lemcke comes “Over 9000 Zombies” a top down shooter published by Masteronic for the steam community. This appears to be Lemcke first big release and it is a solid entry into a difficult market. While “Over 9000 Zombies” is enjoyable in short bursts, it struggled to hold my attention long term.
The game itself is a top-down shooter with a tower defense twist. Killing zombies drops scrap metal for you to collect, this is what you spend on building your defenses. This twist does add a lot for the game, you are not just running in circles trying to shoot zombies you are trying to collect and manage resources so you can build your defenses too.
Over 9000 Zombies has both a multilayer mode and single player mode. I say single player mode rather than single player story as there is no real story to talk about, no cut scenes, no intros, you are just dropped straight into the action and have to start blasting and surviving for as long as you can.
As the title suggests, there are zombies, lots of zombies. I never quite sat around long enough to count all of them, but I have been assured that there is indeed over 9000.
The game play mechanics are really solid, for a first attempt the game plays really well. It might look simplistic but don’t let that fool you, under the hood is a complex engine running things.
The controls are pretty simple to get to grips with, movements are handled by the arrow keys and shooting is controlled by pointing and clicking the mouse. If you have played a top down shooter before you should have no problem getting right into this.
Graphically the game doesn’t push the boundaries at all. This simple retro approach is fine for a 2D top down shooter like this, and you can easily see what is on the screen no matter how cluttered it gets. However this approach makes it harder for the player to connect with the game. While we don’t expect indie devs to produce ultra-high-resolution graphics, at the same time I have little want to play games that look like what I was playing 20 years ago (some might say that’s the point but it does nothing for me).
The music on the other hand is one thing that really works, It builds at the right time and gives you that rush of blood you would want (and need) if there was an actual army of the undead surrounding you and your loved ones.
Not wanting to take anything away from the game, like most top down shooters they are limited, and I felt it got repetitive pretty quickly. While the turret building does add something different to focus on, it isn’t enough to save it, and it struggled to hold my attention for long periods of time.
Overall: Over 9000 Zombies is a solid enough title (if you are a fan of top down shooters). The game is in early access and has a lot of potential. The main gameplay mechanics are there, so it is really just about tweaking and adding more content from now on. This is a specific type of game for a specific audience, and while it won’t change the mind of those who don’t enjoy top down shooters for those who do this is worth a punt.
SCORE 3/5
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