Horde: Zombie Outbreak Review
This is definately an interesting game, and mashes up quite a few games that I have played and enjoyed, I usually don't list off games that another game reminds me of unless I get vibes of a big mash up when I play and review a game, and thats the case with this title
The list of titles that this game essentially mashes up (with reasons listed for each) are as follows
Infectonator-This is a zombie game where you get to be the bad guy, and whilst that HAS been done a few times, even to this day it's not done as often as the fight the zombies approach that has been used 1,000,000 times over compared, and to me Stubbs the Zombie and Infectonator were the big early examples of being the zombie in a video game
Age of Empires-This element is on the lighter side of things, but still important nonetheless, this game is an RTS where you essentially attack one army with your own, the army equivalent being the classic humans vs zombies war, as you attack you grow and control a horde and destory structures, kinda like AoE while getting other "soldier" (I use that term lightly) classes via infecting tougher humans
Burn Zombie Burn-The art style and enviornments are fun and campy and cartoony and VERY MUCH remind me of Burn Zombie Burn, the camera view and cheesy music is also shared as well as multiple locations around the world (:
Space Invaders-Get Even-Now I will be legitimately surprised if anyone remembers this game, but for those that did (and those that didn't) this was a Wiiware game back in 2008-2009 that had you take control of the Space Invaders from the game of the same name and you fought bosses and foes and destroyed buildingsz in order to progress around and destroy/wreck the ♥♥♥♥ out the map whilst also completing corresponding objectives, such as destroying generators or towers or beating a boss fight
Rampage-Interactable and Destructable Environments, but less king kong or godzilla focus/parody and more night of the living dead focus/parody
Here, it's essentially that same mission structure (minus the bosses, BUT keep in mind this game is early access, so give it some credence) except its focused on infecting certain number of human types (i.e. 20 swat or 15 military) getting to the destruction quota (for the record, getting to the 100% destruction goal does NOT mean legit destroy all the buildings, buildings CAN be left over when your done with a zone) or destroy a particular number of a type of building, like a hospital for example
Normally I hate QTE;s but this is one of those rare cases where it makes sense or is at the very least tolerable, because you enter partiuclar special buildings and activate qtes to get time and zombie bonuses, this is how you destroy speical buildings
Now all of this sounds good and this IS a fun game, but obviously its not perfect, one of the BIGGEST PROBLEMS is that missions are WAY too long
I legit just finished a run in England where I got to zone 8 (complete objectives to get to other map parts) and the army ATE ME ALIVE practically, and with no checkpoints or extra lives, while this can be a fun challenge, just be prepared for a time consuming game that is easy to start a "run" so to speak, but hard to finish one and unlocks in turn can be grindy
That, and there's no difficulty setting to my knowledge, completing zones gets ya coins to start with more special zombies, (no microtransactions, WOO) but the problem I have is that if its that hard to finish an objective, it may take ya forever to unlock stuff, I don't mind a challenge, but you need to make the challenge FAIR and BALANCED (big letters-emphasis)
Lastly, is that trains are fine as a hazzard (running over zombies) but there's no lights or sounds signaling them and you may loose hunderds of zombies because of this and ♥♥♥♥ over an otherwise great run, I'd rather use up some clock time and fight humans while I wait for a train to pass then loose over half my zombies, so trains need balanced too
Overal Horde Zombie Outbreak is a VERY IMPRESSIVE game for an early access title, and it has major potential and I was both shocked, suprised and happy that it took notes from small known games and big ones too, and made quite an interesting mash up, but it needs to watch it's step and keep an eye on how it responds to feedback and how it makes the game both fun but also balanced, fair and accessible
