[quote][i]This is the [b]27th[/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/kMWGVoohqAA]here[/url][/b].[/i][/quote]
[b]In summary, I can’t recommend Zombie Simulator[/b], it’s a good concept that’s weighed down by overly simplified gameplay and repetitive objectives. It lacks challenge, engagement, and fun - with no replayability, there’s little reason to pick it up.
[h2]Introduction[/h2]
In Zombie Simulator you start off as patient zero in a lab with the goal of [i]seizing the means of human production[/i]. Any human you come in contact with gets converted to Zombolicism and joins you on your unholy crusade to make the world a worse place. The controls are simple - WASD to move and spacebar to jump your way through the game’s offerings. The UI is extremely light - it’ll tell you your main objective, your secondary objective if applicable, and how many humans are left on the map. Some humans on the map are able to defend themselves, or have some sort of machination to help with that, and if you take enough damage you’ll die and have to restart the level. Once there’s ten or less humans, UI markers will show up to reveal their hiding spots.
Zombie Simulator features 12 levels, some with different wrappers but many with the same goal of infecting everyone. There are some levels that have objectives that are unique, and some levels have an alternative objective for the achievement hunters out there. All in all, I was able to 100% the game in the time you see on this review. As you go through the twelve levels, you may take up the appearance of a different character with the occasional different ability, all the while the controls will remain the same.
That’s about all the introduction this game needs since there’s not much else to introduce you to. Let’s move onto what I liked about Zombie Simulator.
[h2]The Good[/h2]
The thing I liked most about Zombie Simulator were the occasional unique levels. All-in-all, I think my favorite level was Level 6 with Level 3 being a close second. Level 6 is vastly different from the rest of the game and was enjoyable, albeit short. Level 3 has a standard objective, but the level itself is just ridiculous. You ride around on a truck that’s being led by a zombie shredding a guitar as some of your zombie companions handstand on the back of this speeding death machine. Somehow, through all of this, running into the humans on the map with your truck happens to convert them into zombies - not quite sure how, but that isn’t really important.
Unfortunately that was about the only notable takeaway from the game, so I’ll move onto what I liked a little less.
[h2]The Ungood[/h2]
First off, Zombie Simulator has in-app sound controls for music and the environment. However, when I try to use them I find that they only impact the menu. Jumping into level 1 continuously launches it at the same volume - even if I turn those sound sources off. This can be worked around by just using the volume mixer, but that seems like a pretty unfortunate thing to not work since the game starts off considerably loud in my opinion.
Secondly, a majority of the level design is incredibly shallow. As I said earlier, many of the levels - especially the later six become linear and mostly repetitive. There’s slight shifts about them - maybe the camera angle changes, or you play as a [i]zombie tornado[/i], but the levels themselves don’t offer much for engagement. Press WASD, sometimes hit spacebar, sometimes the environment has some special effects going on, go onto the next level. There’s this one level that’s [i]incredibly[/i] boring, all the humans are just trapped in camps with no escape so once you hop over the fence there’s no engagement except for their untimely, fated, conversion. The novelty of the core gameplay mechanic worse off pretty quickly.
Lastly, my bigger problem with the game is just the overall lack of challenge, engagement, or fun. When I look back at my time playing the game there was only one level that actually challenged me, and once I found out a somewhat exploitable strategy that level no longer became a problem. What I found was [spoiler]if you hold the spacebar, you jump continuously. Bullets don’t travel vertically so you can just jump over the bullets to survive bullet-heavy environments[/spoiler]. Once you beat the game, there’s nothing gained from it like a freeform mode to further the game’s value, and there’s no type of competition or scoring system implemented, so the game has no replayability unless you didn’t do those additional tasks.
Speaking of which, the game used additional tasks pretty consistently in the first half of the game, but I don’t remember seeing any in the last six missions of the game. This is an abandoned alternative that would have introduced a reasonable amount of challenge - anything like finishing a level without taking damage, or dunking directly on a human. The possibilities seem endless, and there was untapped potential on a great premise, but the execution seemed pretty shallow.
[h2]The End[/h2]
Well, that’s about all I have to say about the game. The game isn’t [i]bad[/i], I just don’t think it’s fun, and only a sliver of the hour I played was worth talking positively about. There’s people on here who seem to like it, but I just wish it was expanded on more. I liked the idea of having a rotten-flesh katamari ball of shambling corpses tearing down heavy weapons of war.
[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: https://youtu.be/kMWGVoohqAA[/i][/quote]
