Atom Zombie Smasher review

Atom Zombie Smasher (what a brilliant title eh?) is a new game from the guys over at Blendo Games (www.blendogames.com). AZS pitches you as the military coordinator behind the evacuation of a South American country, following a deadly virus outbreak. Think 28 Days Later but with awesome music.



You have control of up to four abilities, of a possible eight, every time you attempt an evacuation of a zone on the game map. These range from snipers, to mines, to barricades, to huge experimental artillery pieces later on. The game presents you with a top-down view of the randomised city that you pick, with evacuees as yellow squares and Zed victims as purple squares. You then attempt to get as many humans onto your Evac. helicopter as you can, as quickly as you can, because when it reaches night, huge hordes of Zed victims begin their attack on you.

The helicopter attracts any human within a certain radius, so you constantly need to attempt to protect them and simultaneously fall back further from the Zed spawn points. The genius move is that you can try each sector as many times as you like, always refining and perfecting strategies, in order to save as many humans as possible. And that is important, as the whole game runs with a dual score line, one for you, and one for the infected. It is punctuated with several important events, such as larger outbreaks for them, or better ordnance for you. This feeds into the country map, where the infection spreads, and can reach critical mass if a certain number of points are randomly put into a zone, causing a further spread and so on. This leaves you with a choice, of either to pick an easy win for easy points, or a higher level area, which will be more exponentially more difficult and rewarding.

Each game only takes about 45 minutes (usually to lose in a spectacular fashion), but you'll definitely come back for more, to refine those tactics, and hear that brilliant, brilliant music.

The game can also be run with 4-player local co-op, provided you have enough game pads (or keyboards if you have a huge desk), which adds another level to the intricate game, as you have to depend on other people on controlling their guys right as well.

All in all, a brilliant, immensely difficult game, definitely worth $15 dollars, and there's even a demo if you aren't already sold on it.

Link: http://www.blendogames.com/atomzombiesmasher/index.htm