411 Retro Review: Zombie Revenge (DC)
Posted by Steve McHugh on 12.13.2006
Zombies that both manage to Bite and Suck at the same time.
Hello and welcome back to Retro Review. Because of crappy things that happened in the last few weeks I wasn't able to get the column done for two weeks ago. However for those of you who were really looking forward to Zombie revenge then you're in luck as that's what I'm looking at today.
But first it's my Musings
The past month has had all sorts of stuff happen on the gaming front. The Wii was launched too much fanfare as parties took place in the street and for a while there it looked like the Wii could be responsible for world peace. However once everyone realized that there was only one worthwhile game for the machine World Peace was put on hold. Actually Nintendo did very well, selling out in many places. The European launch also seems to have gone very well so congrats to Nintendo. Oh and for all those people who hurt themselves with the Wiimote. You are idiots. Please stop playing games before you hurt someone who can move their arms without causing serious injury.
The PS3 also launched and no one cared. Okay that's not far as Sony cared as did all those people who sold their machine on Ebay for 10 times the amount they paid for it. Riots took place, which is bizarre. See Sony you should have launched in the UK first we don't' do riots without a great deal of planning first. Unless there's football on then it's all bets off. I actually hope that Sony have some serious firepower, game wise, coming out very soon. They're going to need it.
To show I'm not biased Microsoft has had a fantastic month with Gears of War doing fantastic numbers. If you don't own this game go get it, best game this year hands down. Also on offer was FEAR and Viva Piñata both of which are excellent. However all eyes was on the Halo 3 trailer. And wow that was awesome. I am especially fond of the new shield thing he used. I know it was only a minute trailer but I love Halo and am really excited about the new game.
On the DS front I've been playing Final Fantasy 3 and it's very good. Certainly a beautiful game but be warned it is unforgiving and very hard. It's not something the average gamer wants to undertake because they'll get very frustrated very quickly.
Other gaming news is: Well not so much news as a bit of info I want to share. As of next year (about Feb) I will be doing some very special Retro Reviews as I go through and review every Final Fantasy game (the main ones anyway). I'm looking forward to it and despite it being a huge undertaking I'm hoping I have enough lead in time to get through at least 3 of the games before I start (It sounds easy but I have other things to do besides play Final Fantasy games).
In the world of comics Civil War 5 came out and it's very good. I am also really looking forward to World War Hulk and Spider-man Back in Black next year. 2007 is looking like a great year to be a comic book fan as well as a gaming fan.
Actually I have a question hopefully someone can answer in Birds of Prey 100 there's a scene when Oracle is sending flowers to a bunch of people and Power Girl throws them in the bin and says when hell freezes over. Can anyone let me know why she did this because I have no idea?
On the wrestling front it looks like after the nightmare that was the last ECW PPV that the WWE sacked Paul Heyman. Just once maybe Vince should take some responsibility for screwing up the whole brand from the very beginning and not letting it become what it should have been. However another interesting part is that RVD is apparently looking to go to TNA. This would be huge news and another coup for TNA as they might be able to use him in the right way. The only person who seems to be doing well in ECW is CM Punk and more power to him. Although if rumors of certain WWE people not liking him are true he may be stuck in the mid-card for years when he should be main-eventing much like Y2J was.
TNA however is becoming a mixed bag. The VKM stuff is awful and needs to stop and whilst Russo is at least making people interesting, including Sabin, which I never thought would happen, he needs to give people a motivation for why they're behaving like this. It's not difficult and maybe JJ should step in and sort something out. Or give Cornette the book, which would have been the sensible thing in the first place.
I could go into a bunch of other stuff but so much has happened in the past month that I'd be liable to spend pages on just that. However, Hogfather on Sky over Christmas looks fantastic and I can't wait. Yes I am a huge Terry Pratchett fan.
So we'll move on to the Review of Zombie Revenge on the Dreamcast. This is a pretty accurate port of the arcade game by the same name. To say it got mixed reviews upon its release in late 1999 is an understatement of epic proportions. The story is that a government agency was using the dead to create undead soldiers before someone messed with it and now a whole city is an undead playground. You play as Stick Breitling , Linda Rotta or Rikiya Busujima who are sent to find out who was responsible for causing the problem and stop them. The story isn't too bad although the characters are awful with each of them being the exact same as the others. But if you're after a reasonably creepy start you could so worse. So lets see how the game has festered...sorry fared over time.
Graphics
Graphically it's a mixed bag, on the one side the characters are all reasonably animated and look okay during gameplay. For it's age there is some nice lighting effects and seeing damage done on the zombies is pretty impressive. The boss' in particular look fantastic and are all very imposing to look at. The backgrounds are bland and boring for the most part but they serve the game reasonably well. However the cutscenes are awful, each of the characters looks like something out of Money for nothing. I know there were done nearly 8 years ago but they haven't aged well at all.
7/10 Looks nice and the boss' are fantastic. Backgrounds are drab though.
Shame the game plays a lot worse then it looks.
Gameplay
Oh dear. Well where do I start? As I said this was originally an arcade game and it's almost a direct port which means a few problems. First of all, playing in the arcade means you constantly putting money in to keep playing so to make sure of that you make the arcade game hard. That's fine but then on the conversion they should told the difficulty down a little from what this is. It's not just hard in a I died but it's my fault I need to get better' sense but in a What the f***ing h**l is going on with this f***ing son-of-a-b**ch f**ing game.' Death is not just easy it's unfair. Firstly there's the quick deaths when facing bosses. The boss character should be a challenge but it's one thing to be tough and another to be able to kill you in one hit when you were wining anyway. That's not good gameplay mechanics that's a cheap death you use in arcades to get people to put more money in the machine and it has no place on a console. But there's more. The snails pace at which your characters move, which is made even worse by the woeful collision detection. When you're facing an enemy and trying to hit them more often then not you'll miss despite the fact that you're almost touching them. It's not just frustrating it's joypad throwingly frustrating, which is all made even worse by the limited moves on offer. Plenty of other games have more then a handful of moves so why couldn't this. It might have made things more interesting. Actually it probably wouldn't have because it seems to take forever for the character to do something you just asked it to. So in that time you've wanted to punch it's very likely something will have punched you first.
Then there's yet another really big problem. Whenever you pick up a gun you might think that picking up the same type of gun results in more ammo. Nope it just means dropping the gun you've got which strikes me as a very odd way of doing things. Even more odd is that fact that every time you go to a new area you loose your guns. So as you get to harder and harder parts of the game you'll find yourself weaponless and very shortly after that dead. And being dead is something you'll se a lot off. However because there's no infinite continues you'll managed to get to a certain point and then that's it game over back to the beginning. That was fine in Streets of Rage where you would happily go back as it was fun and you felt like you were improving but in this game it's just arduous and irritating.
There's a VMU mini game you can play that will get you various bonus' like infinite continues but its so boring and frustrating you won't bother. In fact that's pretty much the whole game. Frustrating. It should have been a fantastic playable experience but it's just awful.
2/10 A total mess with bugs and control problems all over the place. No game should be released like this.
I know it's a 2 player game but why would you want to subject your friend to this?
Sound
The music is okay and does the job well but the voice acting is dreadful. Could no one on the Dreamcast make a game with decent voice acting? This will make you reach for the mute button pretty quickly.
4/10 The music is fine but the voice acting is horrible. It's worse then House of the Dead 2
Lasting Appeal.
Well if you manage to get around the dreadful controls then this game will last you a few hours by yourself. There's a 2 player-mode, which is also terrible but at least there's someone else sharing your misery so in that sense it's more fun to play with a friend. There's also the VMU game (such as raising your own zombie), which could last you a while if you ever bother to actually play it.
4/10 If you can stomach it then you'll play for a while. Few mini games and extras too.
Fun Factor.
Having a friend join you and just rip the game apart is a lot of fun but that's about it. It's a frustrating, soul-destroying experience that should have stayed in the arcade. Or at least should have had massive amounts of work done on it before it was ready for home release.
1/10 (Single Player) 3/10 (With a friend) This is one of the least fun games I have ever played with the multitude of problems turning this into a chore. 2 player is a laugh so long as you warn your friend first.
By this point in the game you will have given up the will to live.
Should I buy it?
Well let me think. I've got to say no, unless you're a sadist in which case go right ahead. This is a dreadful game and it's made even worse because it goes for about $20 on Ebay. Avoid and go spend your money on something better.
3/10 One of the worst games I have ever played on the Dreamcast.
Well now that I never have to play that game again I can look forward to life again. If you have anything you'd like to say about the review or the game then let me know. In the meantime you can join me in two weeks when I'll be doing a look back at the Playstation and going over exactly how it became into being and hopefully why it managed to obliterate all competition.
But before then you should go read my fellow 411 staff members:
