Zombie Army Trilogy Review

Zombies……. They make the perfect enemy do they not? There is no sense of morality when mowing down hoards of the undead because let’s face it, their already dead… right?

Well in the Zombie Army trilogy we get to do exactly that but in World War II style! Don’t get me wrong, Zombies absolutely petrify me, I think it’s the senseless non-negotiable evil and the fact that eventually they WILL get you!

In the last 10 years there seems to be a fascination with Nazi Zombies, not too sure why, maybe people just wanted to combine two great evils perhaps. This is what Rebellion – the games developers – caught onto, originally this was a side gimmick for Rebellion’s other hit title 3^rd person tactical shooter Sniper Elite but they proved hugely popular and some may say more so than the Sniper Elite games themselves. So why not package the two original showings along with a new previously unreleased episode? I found it to be enjoyable but was too aware of its B rank status as a game.

Here’s a little about the plot, Berlin 1945, Adolf Hitler’s private bunker in his meant to be final hours however this is where alternative history kicks in, instead of committing suicide he unleashes project Z – sorry no points for guessing what the Z stands for. It’s now your job to somehow put an end to this supernatural apocalypse, up for the task?

As you start you’re given a choice of 8 different characters to play, 4 of each gender with various nationalities, I opted to play a disgruntled Wehrmacht captain. I was then presented with a screen to choose a load out, a primary rifle, a secondary sub-machine gun or shotgun and then pistol plus a host of explosives to choose from, all the weapons had various stats and attributes.

You then enter the realm, a zombie ravaged Berlin, the first thing I noticed was the dark gruesome environment, body parts on spikes, the corpses lying on the floor and the dark empty sky, 10/10 of creating a frightful setting! Although I’m not sure who put the bodies on spikes, did the Zombies do it? People? Surely they’d have better things to do at that moment in time than impaling Zombies!

I was a bit miffed that I was not given any instructions as to what button does what, I found myself throwing a grenade for no reason other than seeing what that button did, after a couple of minutes of playing about I finally familiarised myself and went ahead. Finally a zombie to kill, they sound gross, yellow eyes, stereotypical zombie sprite really, so I aimed down my scope and took a shot. This is the bit I was impressed with, a zoomed out, slow motion following of the fired bullet to then show an x-ray view kill cam – nice touch! A welcomed port from sister title Sniper Elite, even better when it’s penetrating the skull of a Mr Zombie.

The game itself isn’t too difficult, you’ve got the choice of 4 difficultly settings if you want to turn up the action but generally the gameplay is of a simple aspect, very linear, as its takes you area to area clearing out the zombies, quite arcade-y to be honest not too with much depth to it at all. Checkpoints automatically save your progress but I found the overall missions too long, laborious and repetitive, gunning down waves of enemies just with increased difficulty (machine gun wielding zombies!) and number just isn’t for me, or perhaps even for you.

What I did notice, and was impressed by were the historical accuracies to the game, other than the obvious, I noticed abandoned military tanks that would’ve been present in 1945 – German Tiger I Tank and a Russian IS-2 Heavy and were spot on replica’s. The weaponry also used was spot on for the era; you could tell the developers took time to create historical accuracies despite the tongue in cheek aspect to the game.

The sound effects are great, especially with a headset, I recommend you sit in a dark room just for that extra fear factor, the backing music was just enough to add to the suspense element. Again the noises the zombies make were gross, but the sound effect I liked the most was when looking down the gun scope, a paranormal chatter would occur and it does initially put you off your gun game but it’s a great addition, as were the gun effects themselves – again, very accurate.

The main attraction to the game in my opinion is the multiplayer Horde mode, playing with friends, up to 4 players in fact, is the way forward. Each of the enemy waves get bigger and bigger every time you survive and you’ll soon find yourself digging in with your comrades, trying to make ammo last, thinking tactical and setting formations in multi-tiered buildings; It’s good fun, as long as your mates pick up a copy too.

It’s a very novel and gimmicky game, eventually that novelty will wear off despite the presence of imploding zombie heads, the lack of depth, linear gameplay and repetitiveness stop this from being a great game and you could tell this was a side gimmick for another title but does have great multiplayer aspects.

REVIEW CODE: A complimentary Sony Playstation 4 code was provided to Brash Games for this review. Please send all review code enquiries to editor@brashgames.co.uk.