Zombie Apocalypse

Game Info

Publisher: Konami

Developer: Nihilistic Software

Genre(s): Shooter

Players: 4

ESRB Rating: M (Mature)

Release Date: September 23, 2009

Summary

[Xbox Live Arcade] As the zombie infection spreads uncontrollably and the undead outnumber humans, a small band of heavily equipped gunslingers set out to destroy as many zombies as they can and try to save any of the remaining survivors in Zombie Apocalypse. Up to four players can try and stop the zombie apocalypse with an arsenal of deadly weapons, such as an assault rifle, flame thrower, or grenade launcher, and when ammo is low a chainsaw will be your last line of defense against becoming one of the undead. This action packed, arcade-style shooter will test your dual analog stick shooting skills and ability to survive 55 days of relentless zombie attacks. Multiplayer action: Spill zombie guts side-by-side with up to four players in online or local multiplayer. Devastating weapons: Burn, saw, and dismember the undead with ten devastating weapons. Fatal hazards: Butcher the walking dead using jet turbines, wood chippers, and other fatal hazards. Survival strategy: Survive over 50 stages of brutal carnage in seven brain-splattering locations. Bonus game modes: Re-live the apocalypse with seven challenging unlockable game modes. [Konami]

Cheat Codes & Hints: Cheat Code Central

Also On The Web: Official Website

What The Critics Said

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What Our Users Said

Vote Now! The average user rating for this game is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 20 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alex O gave it a4:
The game is boring and repetitive. Its not original. I get better quality games on my iPod. That said it is the first zombie killer for the xBox Live Arcade. So that warrants an above zero score.

Jamyz G gave it a9:
awesome game when playing with other people and alot of gore and funny moments like blasting knife wielding granny's into a planes engine and it's really hard difficulty when playing later levels but they should improve on making more levels and make the zombie seem more different from eachother and making a plot into it but aprt from that you got a real awesome game it's worth the 800 microsoft points

Caleb H gave it a7:
These days, it seems that us gamers just can’t get enough of zombies. With blockbuster titles such as Left 4 Dead, Resident Evil 5, and Dead Rising selling rapidly, we certainly have had our fill of decaying flesh and maggots. It seems like every month or so there’s a game released that deals with, in some shape or form, the undead. The month of September and the Summer of Arcade, has brought us just that with an arcade title hailing back to the glory days of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. Zombie Apocalypse comes to us from developer, Nihilistic Software, and publisher, Konami. If you’re looking for some gory, good, old-fashioned zombie destruction at a low price, you came to the right place. If you’re looking for something deeper in your zombie game such as story or depth, it’s best you pass this on this rotting corpse fest. Zombie Apocalypse is the zombie shoot’em up for the simple man. Easy controls with a top-down view, and an even easier objective: kill anything that moves. It is a tried and true method which has been done time and time again, but it’s a formula that always finds a way to work. It’s easy to say this game is a carbon copy of games before it such as Robotron 2084, Smash-TV, or even more recently, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1 (which, by the way, everyone should get), but that wouldn’t be giving this game any credit, which it deserves. Zombie Apocalypse offers hardcore gamers a chance to enjoy the now casual world of top-down shooters, but because of this amp in difficulty it could scare away its core audience (no pun intended). One could say that top-down games are only for those looking for a challenge. It could also be said that it has crossed over into the casual genre with its simplistic controls and addictive gameplay. In recent years, developers have picked up on the trend and it has started leaning more to the side of casual gaming leaving players in it for the difficult aspect behind with the old classics. This is not the case with Zombie Apocalypse. As you progress through the 50 stages of the story mode, it becomes more and more evident that skill is a necessity to excel in the game, or for that matter, beat it. The tools you are given to take down the badies is not that big of an arsenal, either. You start off with just a machine gun and chainsaw. The chainsaw is incredibly satisfying, dedicating a button just for an execution method. However, I would use it wisely considering it takes up a lot of time and, in this game, it’s easy to get surrounded. You can torch your enemies with a flamethrower and you can light em’ up with double oozies. The most pointless weapons are the sniper rifle and molitave cocktails. Each take way to long to fire and don’t do enough damage to stop the ever-increasing onslaught of zombies. Even worse, the game developers seem to think they are the best thing to use for total annihilation and near the end, it’s some of the only weapons you are given to fight with. For me, this is an annoyance, but for others, it could all be a part of the challenge. As for enemies, no other game before it has had such a maddening cast of little hellions. In the difficult levels, you will be surrounded by a horde of speed zombies that dodge your every attack, while a granny zombie tosses homing knives from afar that kill you in one hit, while sheriffs drifts ever closer with a spread shotgun followed by construction workers that take you down in one grab. Not only that, but several queen zombies will stumble around shooting bee’s from their stomachs, while kamikazes will come out of nowhere and blow up your whole team with a ridiculously large explosive range. All of which have their health doubled about half way through the game. You go down in one hit; always. I guess what I’m trying to say is that this game doesn’t play around. What really makes this game a blast to play isn’t the fact you can shoot up zombies by the hundreds, it’s that you can do it with friends. Cooperative gameplay is what makes Zombie Apocalypse shine. Nothing is more fun than getting a few friends on the couch and blowing up some undead. But that is to be expected with 4-player top- down shooters. Although the game is cooperative, which is by far the best part about the game, it keeps its competitive edge by scoring players based on their own performance, although it does keep a collective score for purposes of earning extra lives. While this may seem like a good idea, the scoring system in which it grades your destruction is, for the most part, flawed. The categories in which you are graded range from limbs removed to environmental kills, and nowhere is it explained the value of these traits. Multipliers are placed throughout the stage and bonus points are awarded for consecutive kills, but the way in which it keeps count is utterly confusing, and doesn’t help towards the experience. At the end of each round a winner is assigned based on who killed the most zombies, not by who had the most points, which would make the most sense considering all of the ‘extra points’ you can earn through not dying or avoiding getting grabbed. You would also thing that the person who killed the most zombies would have the most points, but that’s where you’re wrong! All in all, the scoring system, whether it be faulty or not, is still a pain to keep up with and should be ignored. At least you and your friends can get a good laugh whenever the worst player on the team wins the round. Graphically, the game is nothing special and pretty much meets that standard set, but if gore is your graphical forte, you are in for a bloody treat. Every enemy explodes in a glorious shower of blood that splatters across the floor, recreating a Jackson Pollock painting (if you can even call it that). The seven environments that span across 50 levels are your standard horror flick locals: Graveyard, carnival, junkyard, you know the drill. What makes each setting different are the environmental executions. In one level, you can shoot a zombie into a car compactor and in another you can shove one of them into a tree chipper. This adds variety to the game play and especially the level design. However, in the ladder levels these features are ignored because the struggle to survive takes precedence over killing a zombie with pizzazz. When all of these elements are put together, you get what you pay for; a mindless experience meant to be enjoyed with a couple of friends. Forget the flaws, forget the ludicrous difficulty range, and forget the unashamed copying of Left 4 Dead characters. At its core, Zombie Apocalypse is an infuriating, maddening, and wildly good time.

Emerson Guitar gave it a9:
Simple fun of point and shoot combined with co-op play and frantic zombie dodging goodness.

Zambee K gave it an8:
Fantastic SmashTV type gameplay with 4-player live or co-op for $10. Simple, but fun twin-stick shooting with lots of gore, chainsaws and ZAMBEES!!

LAFA VITA gave it a5:
I gave ZOmbie Apocalipse the medium vote, which here is 5. The idea is great, arcade games are great, the whole concept of a 3d third view shooter about zombies is great. MInd that it is not a full size behind th eshoulders view, you see th ewhole game form above, its kinda old isometric view of the old 16 - bit consoles game, only with very defined anf pleasant graphics. But after the whole idea and graphic rendering th egame does not deliver the gaming fun it should have been becosu eof the exellent premises. The problems are several: 1 - The game is missing a decent online multiplayer, it would be perfect with ten players, insetad of four, which makes the musltiplayer boring as hell. 2 - The characters must have been designed cool people, divided in five cool males and five cool females, all with a winning attitutes. After all if you have to defeat hordes of zombies you must look like any hero must look, cool and awesome goodloking. Instead we have four characters complete losers, it is impossible to identify with them as heroes who would save the day. The verdict is mainly 5 becosue it must be divided in two parts, 5 for overall game idea and design, and game easy and paerfect arcade controls. 0 is for the multiplayer let down and losers as characters.

Bandicoot12 Studios gave it a7:
While the game is fairly simplistic and repetitive, it manages to mix up the basic dual-stick arena shooter formula by gradually adding in new enemy types and weapons. 75 percent of the characters is sheer plagiarism (bald black guy, brunette white female, veteran) and the "zombie bait" item is an obvious copy of World at War's own "monkey bomb," from its function to the cheerful dialogue it spouts before detonating. However, with a sharp gore engine, a satisfying zombie aesthetic and visual design, and 4 player local or online co-op make for a fun, frantic romp for any zombie fan.

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