Brutal Gamer

Burn Zombie Burn (PS3) Review

By Zeth - April 1, 2009 - 16:30 UTC

Zombie games are seriously taking over at the moment that is for sure! Thing is do we really want yet another Zombie game? Surely Left4Dead, the Zombie mode in COD:World at War and Resident Evil 5 all have this covered yes? Well yeah but two salient points stand out 1). Killing Zombies is frikkin’ cool, 2). Burning Zombie and then killing them = coolx2 !

Coming from Developer Doublesix, via Kuju, is this absolute gem of a PSN title. Exclusive to the Playstation Network the title of the game sums up the action perfectly. Your a dude, there are shit-loads of zombies, you burn them, then you shoot or blow the crap out of them! Simple, end of – review done.

Trouble is Burn Zombie Burn is actually a whole lot more than what appears on the surface. If you took this as a simple run and gun, Smash TV / Geometry Wars / Robotron homage then you would, for the most part, find it an absolute blast. Limited maybe, repetitive for sure, but certainly great fun. You would have little tom complain about when you dropped your £6.99. That said you would miss the entire point of the game if you just did this. The game is not about just annihilating wave after wave of zombie scum. Oh no, there needs to be a serious dollop of cunning and a large side order or strategy if you are going to get the most of of the game and progress through it’s six levels.

Graphically Burn Zombie Burn is a blast. It’s one of the better looking downloadable titles available on any platform and the animation and art style set it up perfectly. Striking a balance between old school schlock horror movies and Rare’s own Grabbed by the Ghoulies the art is fantastic and vibrant. There are swarms of zombie lurching, running, flashing or flailing and each looks comical and well defined. The animations of the undead lumbering around after you are, in equal measures, panic inducing and laugh out loud funny.

The game is simple enough to pick up. You play a suitably stock teddy-boy’esque greaser, styled somewhat akin to Bruce Campbell from The Evil Dead, called Bruce – surprisingly. You must clear as many of the Zombie horde from each scenario. That’s is. The more you clear the better score you earn and the further you move towards unlocking the next level or some of the few unlockables in the game (more later). The real skill is that “Burn” element of the game. As you make your way around each of the 6 game arenas you are faced with a variety of the undead horde. You have a simple choice, kill them straight or make them extra crispy first? Both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. If you kill them straight out then they are easier to target, more shambolic and drop power-ups. If you kill them when they are on fire (you achieve this by running at them with R2 held down) you not only rack up better power-ups like health and TNT but you also, and this is the real crux, crank up that multiplier. To achieve the scores you need for later levels you need to start racking up major scores and to do this you need to set zombie alight. The trouble is when you do that they turn from absent minded, shambling, zombie to possessed maniac zombies who are about to die anyways.

The secret is striking the right balance between cranking up the multiplier and being able to survive for more than two minutes. This is aided by a huge arsenal of 12 weapons (shotgun, uzi, pistol, TNT,chainsaw etc) that help you rip apart the eight zombie types in the game (standard, shielded, exploder etc). Weapons and power-ups are dropped at you lay waste and you must balance the zombie drops too as burning zombies drop different items to standard ones. All in all this adds a large strategic element to the basic Smash TV like gameplay. The power-ups offer another layer to the strategy as you level-up your TNT from basic to proximity and finally to remote detonation. This allows you to place (or kick) your TNT and then blow the crap out of huge clusters of Zombie sending your multiplier through the roof.

Sound design is also great as the suitable horror themed music plays out and the calls, screams and groans of the undead are punctuated by satisfying and gratifying bouts of extreme gun fire and the dulcet tones of a lawnmower grinding zombies to bits. The small snatches of speech are well executed and even after repeated play fail to start grating on the nerves. Also a special mention to the sound the baseball bat makes when you charge a hit and unleash it – a VERY amusing “THWACK!” is heard – priceless.

Longevity is a toughie as these games, like Geometry Wars, rely on your need to better your score, to improve you performance against your friends. There are a small number of unlockables such as Art Work and visual styles to unlock and these add a small touch to the over package but are easily taken or left. There is also support for Trophies and that again aids longevity and can be key if you’re a real score-whore. The inclusion of local 2-player co-op is a great bonus and provided you have a friend near-by then you are going to add a large amount of mileage to the title. No one has ever leveled criticism about the longevity of titles like Geometry Wars or Tempest as the point of these titles is that they are short arcade blasts that last as long as you are engaged to beat your score. Like GW this title has that elusive “one more go!” element about it.

The only real criticism I can level against the game is that it can get hard, really bloody hard in the later stages. This is partly due to the sheer number of enemies (which cause zero slow down I might add!) and partly due to the control scheme used. Instead of using a two stick solution with one moving you and the other shooting in the pointed direct. Doublesix have opted to let you lock to strafe or auto-target the closest enemy. This works in the main stay but the controls that Geometry Wars and Super Stardust use are much more intuitive and I feel would of suited this title better. With that said the controls that are in place work well enough, it just gives you finger ache after a while hammering on the X or R1 buttons.  One last thought before I sum up – this game screams PSP conversion… No dual analogue stick conversion to worry about.

In conclusion: This is a fantastic time waster and a great example of what the PSN has to offer on it’s store. If you like Geometry Wars, Smash TV, Robotron, etc then this is not going to disappoint. Along with Flower & Pixel Junk Monsters this is my favourite PSN title to date.

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