[quote][i]This is the [b]33rd[/b] review of the Steam Redlight series, a series where I purposely seek out negatively or controversially rated games on Steam to see if they're as bad as the Internet says they are. It's accompanied by a video review that can be found [b][url=https://youtu.be/LxC-h5Gyzq8]here[/url][/b].[/i][/quote]
[b]In summary, I don’t recommend this game, and as a numerical score I’d give it a 3/10[/b]. The game, while having handfuls of humorous points, does have some flaws. It lacks critical parts of exposition, has tons of mismatched assets, and really doesn’t put a lot of effort into using using the RPG Maker engine. Mostly everything not mentioned is unremarkable, and it lacks the kind of detail I’d expect from a $10 game.
[h2]Introduction[/h2]
In Zombie Fooker: Starring Doug Fooker (which I’ll just call it ZF for short), you play as... Doug Fooker. A man who wakes up after being knocked out for some time. He awakes in his friend, Kim’s house, to a strange mist that’s taken over town. This mist has been turning people in zombies, mutants, and uncontrollable horn dogs because everyone is bangin’ in the streets. In the halls. In the walls. Everywhere.
Anyway, if you happen to talk to Kim at the start (because it’s optional) she asks you to get her keys from the airport so you can skip town. You begin your quest with the four weapons she has stored in her house and you go from Point of Interest (PoI) to PoI on a largely linear journey, picking up keys to unlock doors. You’ll meet other humans, zombies, and inbetweeners who want to join your journey, drain you of your ball juice, and even kill you. Everyone (and thing) in this town also happens to be naked, so it really sets you up for some choice encounters for the random encounter system.
The main draw of the game is the random encounters that happen as you walk — much like how Pokemon or older Final Fantasy encounters would pop up. These encounters lead to 3D animations that touch a variety of sexual endeavors which you can read about in the [i]Mature Content Description[/i], which is pretty accurate. Aside from these random encounters, there’s zombies that appear around the overworld and sewer system, if you run into them you’ll be able to battle them for some exp, but is the only trash mob you’ll encounter in the game on the. Since this game is built on RPG Maker, its combat system is simple and turn based.
The game is relatively short — I completed it in two and a half hours since I had experienced some complications, but since those are patched, and on the current [b]Goddess Zort[/b] patch, it could probably be beaten in an hour or less.
That’s about everything we need to cover for the foundation, so let’s talk about what I enjoyed.
[h2]The Good[/h2]
The game’s strongest perk is its humor. Some of it is campy and corny, but it’s funny and gets a chuckle. The texts, with the occasional typo, are purposely designed to be funny, and the game has some chuckle-inducing lines if your humor fits this game’s target audience. In addition to texts, some of the games’ scenarios add to some overall hilarity, and these scenes are complimented by the various, memorable faces of our protagonist, Doug.
There are things in the game that are [i]unintentionally[/i] funny, but I don’t hold those much in the game’s favor. It’s definitely a game where its shortcomings can be considered points of humor.
Something that I’ll mention here that isn’t reflected in the video is the developer’s action taken off of my criticisms I made in the video. I originally had two points of concern, one of which was successfully resolved, and one not. The developer does care about the game to respond to criticism in a way, especially on such a tight turnaround. I posted a video at 11:30, and Feral Termite patched out one of my bugs no more than two hours later.
Unfortunately that’s about all we can hold in the game’s favor, so let’s move onto the things I liked a little less.
[h2]The Ungood[/h2]
First up, the game world is [i]really[/i] interesting, but there’s no real effort to answer these and the game even dismisses them in a pretty hand-wavy way. There are two questions (and more) that came up that could definitely benefit from some coverage, which are [i]”How do zombies cause infection”[/i] and [i]”Who is Pookie?”[/i]. The former is interesting because damage from the zombies don’t seem to spread any illness, nor does full on unprotected intercourse with them, so it’s a little hard to feel a sense of danger that’s anything more than just a plot device. For the latter question — the world tells us about a mist that causes uncontrollable sexual urges, yet you encounter a humanoid in the sewers who is willing to join your team [b]and[/b] she seems to be unaffected by the mist. These kind of exceptions should have some answers because they contradict the world’s rules.
I mentioned earlier that one of my bugs were patched out (the re-recruiting of characters, overriding their character sheets), but one of them [i]wasn’t entirely[/i]. An effort was made, but the bug still exists. A party member, Zort, has a move called counter-attack where she can’t really be hit. You go against a pretty significant enemy that you can’t flee from, and if you find yourself in an environment where Zort has no weapon attached (as the developer patched in the ability for Zort to hold weapons in response to my video), she can’t do any damage and can’t be hit, which means that the fight [b]can’t end[/b]. The developer has inadvertently made Zort an extremely strong character since her Brawler class allows her to hit three times with a weapon, such as the baseball bat, so now Zort is essentially invulnerable and has unbeatable DPS performance.
Another weakness I identified was the mismatched assets. The game is rife with common assets found in RPG Maker games with little customization [b]aside[/b] from the CG scenes, but this means that the sprites and overworld images typically do not match what is seen in the CGs. This is true for several characters and backgrounds. In [i]some[/i] cases, parts of the background are just absent and the default checkered background that shows transparency reveals itself.
Lastly, I think the worst of the offenders is probably the lack of effort placed in utilizing the RPG Maker engine. The engine is present as a tool for the story, but is kind of like an unseasoned piece of meat that only intends on curing some hunger but is lacking any taste. The only mechanics in the game is a singular skill from Doug that’s largely unreliable and a singular healing skill on another party member. There’s no interesting combat mechanics, and it seems so detached from the game at large that I wonder if it should have just been waived in favor of a traditional Visual Novel style game.
I did originally, in the video, complain about pacing. Before the most recent patch, you had to grind to meet a DPS check against a character in the latter part of the game. Since the change where all party members can put on any weapon, this grind is a little less necessary and the obstacle can be overcome relatively easy. This however, just provides more strength to the point that the combat in the game seems unnecessary.
[h2]The End[/h2]
Anyway, that’s the end of the review. I did mention earlier the developer seems like an honest person who took some of my criticisms in the video and turned them into fixes, so it’s hard to dislike them, even if the game is lacking some depth. They’re clearly making a game they themselves love, the sad thing is that right now, it’s just a bit hard for others to love the game in turn.
[quote][i]If you’re into curator groups, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38757311/]we have one of those[/url]. Did you like this written review? Watch the video review which does have some different coverage not talked about here:[/i][/quote]
https://youtu.be/LxC-h5Gyzq8
