Block Zombies Review

This game’s had me scratching my head for some time now. Block Zombies is entirely derivative and extremely repetitive. The game shows off in the first ten minutes just about everything that can be expected throughout its two-hour or so completion time. It’s a twin-stick shooter with zombies, making for an amalgamation of two of the most ubiquitous and overdone archetypes in today’s gaming world. It lacks any multiplayer support or genuine replay value. All of these add up to a game that I would normally write off as a dime-a-dozen bore. The question, thus, that I just can’t seem to answer, is why am I so madly in love with this game? Why is this a game that I’m so proud to show off to my friends, and why are they all instantly smitten with it like me? There must be some kind of voodoo going on here, because what should be a lame entry into the Xbox Live Indie Game section may just be the most outrageously fun and charming game a single dollar can buy. 

The narrative is paper-thin here. You wake up one day and find a mysterious crystalline structure outside of your house. There’s no sign of life to be found and there are zombies everywhere,. You grab your six-shooter and go out into the surrounding area to save the world. That’s it. Frankly, in a game like this, that’s all there needs to be. Your initial pistol is serviceable and features unlimited ammo but is slow and weak. Throughout the course of the adventure, you’ll find weapon upgrade parts fairly regularly that are dropped by your undead assailants. What these lifeless brain connoisseurs are doing with weapon upgrade parts in their pockets is a mystery, but you’ll find little reason to complain. Being able to consistently upgrade weapons for clip capacity, damage output and firing rate keeps the game addicting and fresh throughout the entire duration of your journey. Couple in the occasional discovery of new weapons and single-use items (all of which are upgradable) and you’ll find yourself engaged in a surprisingly fun loot hunt that never lets up.

What’s even more surprising is just how much fun the game is as a whole despite its undeniable repetition. You set out to find a massive crystal that needs to be destroyed. Once this is done, three alpha zombies are spawned. These are massive cadavers that take a serious beating and are always flanked by a posse of smaller undead. After these three bosses are dispatched, another crystal pops up on your map, and you set off to destroy it. Three more alpha zombies spawn, and the process repeats itself. Over and over again. Somehow, this never manages to get old! With hordes of zombies to take out between you and every objective, the game’s fast pace never lets up, and the difficulty curve is almost flawlessly subtle. There are a meager number of zombie types to contend with, ranging in different sizes (and thusly differing amounts of hot lead required to take them down) with the only notable exceptions being exploding zombies and little ankle-biters that move far quicker than the rest. While the exploders are generally the most real threat, getting one to explode from a distance and having it take out a large group of zombies for you is just undeniably satisfying every single time it happens. 

Aside from the addicting gameplay and the near-perfect controls that support it, the game’s standout feature is its charm. From the moment the first title screen pops up, it becomes obvious that this game is in no way meant to be taken too seriously, and it benefits greatly as a result. The graphics are entirely voxel-based, which gives it a 3d spin on a retro look. This graphical style has been utilized before to great effect (check out 3D Dot Game Heroes on PS3), and its use here works wonders. This style of gameplay could have easily been given a dark and violent aesthetic, which would have solidified its generic standing. Instead, the game is bright and colorful, and there’s just something so adorably endearing about the way the zombies look, and the way they fall to pixelated pieces when they’re killed. Simply put, the game’s as fun to look at as it is to play.

Despite the fact that this game doesn’t look like much on paper, it’s easily one of the best games I’ve yet encountered in the XBLIG section. Even the credits are fantastic; they’re made up of zombies walking towards the bottom of the screen while holding up letters that form the names and titles of the fine folks involved in the game’s development. You’re given control of the main character during the credits, and are allowed to shoot at the zombies with unlimited ammo. In three words? Best credits ever. The bottom line here is that if anything I’ve said in this review has sounded even slightly interesting to you, then you’ll find that $1 is an almost absurdly reasonable price tag for a game that you’ll have fun with – and continue to have fun with – for a good deal of time to come. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some adorable undead friends to whom I’d like to introduce my pixelated flamethrower!

Block Zombies was reviewed with a copy provided by Nostatic Soft. You can download the game in the Xbox Live Indie section for 80 MSP ($1).