Time to kill zombies…again…
All Zombies Must Die is a 4-player co-op RPG side-scrolling shooter in which you obviously go around putting zombies out of their misery with a variety of weapons. Should you lock and load for another killing spree?
You get quests from gates that stop you progressing till you complete them such as kill a certain number of zombies or finding a specific item in an area, the zombies keep coming so don’t expect things to be easy. The problem is that the formula of the game doesn’t change beyond this, so you know what to expect from the rest of the game within the first few minutes, it becomes second nature and repetitive and predictable as a result.
It’s not to say it isn’t fun at times, because it is…especially when playing with 3 other players online, but it’s a rather shallow experience in the end. The dialogue is cheesy as you would expect and the characters are clichéd beyond belief. The zombies do vary in design though; some will become different when exposed to electricity or toxic waste, which mixes things up somewhat. I just wish the actual design did as well.
It definitely feels like a traditional arcade shooter where you go around collecting ammo, while avoiding zombies and picking up new weapons like shotguns, assault rifles, baseball bats and the like. It’s good in small doses, but once it’s all done there’s little reason to come back for anything other than unfinished achievements. The art style is nice, like it belongs in a comic book world, and the dialogue does make jokes about the design at times, which is self-mocking and good, although it does work against it makes it all the more obvious.
The Verdict
All Zombies Must Die is sadly a shallow experience with predictable gameplay and nothing new to add to the table. It’s nice to have RPG elements like gaining XP and levelling up from killing zombies and completing quests, but Dead Island already did this so it’s hardly new to the killing zombie genre. It’s not a terrible game and it does have its moments, but it just doesn’t offer enough for the price tag.