Final Exam (PC) Review

Final Exam is a very fun game… when it isn’t trying to rip off other games. 

What we’re talking about here isn’t exactly cutting edge; it’s a four player co-op, zombie themed shooter where three men and one woman find themselves fighting seemingly infinite hordes of zombies.  The zombies range from the typical run-up-and-hit kind, all the way to the tank zombies, and spitting zombies… Sounds familiar doesn’t it?  However, unlike other multiplayer zombie games, this one is in 2.5D.

The game starts out with four friends on their way to a high school reunion, when their car wrecks and they get stuck in a small city overrun with festering monsters. You get to pick from four characters: Cassy, Sean, Nathan, and the oddly named Brutal Joe. In all honesty, that is really the only “story” in the game, so on to the gameplay!

Final Exam itself is extremely easy and, even on the hardest difficulty mode in single player, it only took me a few hours to beat. The fighting is repetitive for the most part and only a few combinations (at least that I could find) exist. 

The character you pick comes equipped with a melee weapon and a pistol and grenades can also be picked up during stages to help combat some of the hordes you will encounter. As I mentioned, the zombies themselves come in many shapes and sizes including acid-spitting dogs, exploding zombies, and bat-like monsters- but it’s almost always standard stuff.

Multiplayer is just what you would expect it to be too. The game is more fun with some buddies, but that comes at a price as it becomes ridiculously easy.  Really, though it’s great to have four friends blasting away at the game with you, it speeds up this already short game to a point where it can be beaten in one to two hours; and while that is fine for a game like Left 4 Dead, (I’ve been waiting to use that comparison this whole review) where it’s fun to replay, most of the missions in Final Exam feel like a grind to get through.

Final Thoughts

After a while, the game feels like a grind, and isn’t worth a second play through unless you find yourself very bored and needing something to play. Say, when a blizzard has taken the roads of your entire city by storm.

*Looks out at the snow covering his driveway*.