ZombieSmash – defend your home by flinging the undead
by Paul Wilks
May 25, 2012 2:29 PM –
Install
ZombieSmash is Zynga’s own embracing of the undead, a castle-defense style flinging/smashing game where you defend against the oncoming hordes of zombies. Simple to play and with a wide range of bonuses, weapons and features; ZombieSmash is a polished and well-developed game which will attract zombie and defense fans alike.
Price: $0.99
Tested on: HTC One X
Content Rating: Medium Maturity
Pros & Cons:
Pros
- Nice graphics!
- Easy to play!
- Lots of weapons, etc!
Cons
- Extremely repetitive.
- Wholly unoriginal.
Features:
ZombieSmash is another attempt by Zynga to capitalise on the popularity of an already existing game genre. Like the way they created Dream Heights, which was a copy of Tiny Tower. Also you have Scramble with Friends, which is essentially an ad-riddled Boggle clone, and Words with Friends is just mobile Scrabble. With ZombieSmash, Zynga takes the gameplay of castle defense games (where you flick oncoming baddies away from your castle to defend them) and gives it a zombie theme.
To their credit, they have done an extremely good job of it; giving the game superb graphics, nice sound and a variety of weapons to deploy against the zombies. Things start relatively gently with only a few zombies to toss away, but things soon build up and you’ll need to rely on a range of great bonus weapons to help you; rocks, bombs, mines, freezing and lots more. There are different zombie types as well, and some are quicker and much harder to kill than others. Perhaps one highlight of the game is the fantastic rag-doll physics of zombies being thrown, bouncing and being pulled apart. Pretty gory (in a cartoon way), but very well done none-the-less.
There are different places to defend and lots of levels to complete. What you ultimately get with ZombieSmash is a very polished but incredibly repetitive gaming experience. The graphics and the slo-motion endings are great, the sound is exemplary as is the range of levels, weapons and zombies but there’s little getting away from the fact that most of the time you’ll be flicking zombie after zombie away with your fingers or thumbs until the point you just can’t be bothered any more.
If you’re really into zombies this might just be a great addition to your app drawer. Additionally, if the castle-defense style game is among your favourite genres, ZombieSmash brings some awesome graphics to the table and worth a look. However, expect repetitive gameplay because, even with the additional weapons, it’s still quite a monotonous experience. It left me with sore thumbs and a wish that Zynga might, one day, do something original for a change.
Here’s Zynga’s trailer for the game, although it’s really just them decorating Google’s Android figure. Zero game footage.
Watch on Mobile
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ZombieSmash – Splash page
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ZombieSmash – Tutorials occur during early levels
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ZombieSmash – Typical gameplay view
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ZombieSmash – Slo-mo ending
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ZombieSmash – Slo-mo 2
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ZombieSmash – It does’nt end well for him
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ZombieSmash – Goal
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ZombieSmash – Cartoon gore at its finest
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ZombieSmash – End of level
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ZombieSmash – Difficulty select
Fun Factor:
It’s lots of fun for a few levels. The fast-paced action and various weapons are lots of fun, as are the slo-motion endings which you can take in-game snaps of and share with friends. However you’d have to be pretty determined to find the repetitive gameplay fun beyond this. The graphics and weapons do try and counteract this slightly, but they only succeed for so long.
Addictive:
Now I know some people find this kind of things massively addictive, always exploring ways to improve their scores. Personally, however, I found it quite boring after a while and not something I wanted to pursue. Perhaps, as a reviewer, I have higher expectations of games that I will continue to play post-review, but ZombieSmash probably isn’t going to be one of them.
Graphics:
The graphics are great; cartoony but detailed and colourful. You also get some cool slo-mo footage when the last zombie is killed so it’s very good. Everything is remarkably smooth and fluid, even when you have lots and lots of zombies coming at you. You really should expect this from Zynga, regardless of what people make of their games, they really ‘do’ graphics well.
Accelerometer, Vibration & Sound:
The sound is acutely eerie and it suits the game perfectly. Lots of groaning noises and thumps compliment the gameplay well.