Age of Zombies Review

By Faiyaz Shaikh | Updated on 01-Aug-2023

01-Aug-2023

After releasing a string of successful puzzle games under the PSP minis label, Halfbrick studio has taken a little detour with Age of Zombies. The game’s protagonist is Barry Steakfries and he travels through time, blowing up Zombie brains with his boom-stick and his cheesy one-liners. A certain Professor Brains has devised means of travelling through time and like any self-respecting mad professor he has used his latest achievement to unleash zombie virus throughout the ages. The player will travel to different periods in the timeline to kill the dead, one again.

The developers claim to have sent to an advanced scouting party through time to accurately simulate a zombie outbreak in a particular period in history. The result is an old-school shoot ‘em up adventure viewed from a top-down perspective, which kicks off from the pre-historic period of cavemen and culminates in the futuristic age of cyborgs.

Each level of the game is set in a particular period and has a zombie infestation meter. The objective is to keep thinning the zombie herd till the meter hits rock bottom. To help unleash the zombie apocalypse is Barry’s arsenal of timeless weapons like shotguns, mini-guns, frame-throwers, grenades and landmines. These weapons become available as random pick-ups that regularly pop-up throughout a stage and each weapon is usable until it runs out of ammo. In absence of these WMD, Barry can use his side-arm pistol with infinite ammo. Al though rare, the game also has 1UP pick-ups that give you an extra life.

The primary challenge of the game is not to let the horde of enemies corner you. As long as you manage to be constantly moving, there is nothing else that can stop you from killing a few hundred zombies and racking up high-score combos. The types of zombies you encounter on each level are different and period specific. Some weird combinations are mummified zombies, ninja zombies and my personal favourite is what appears to be a ghost of a zombie. Killing the very last zombie on a level triggers a boss fight. Once again the game is based on old-school rules—the level bosses attack in fixed, repeating patterns. What adds to the challenge in this game is that you are also attacked by a steady a stream of zombies while fighting the boss.

The game also has a Survival Mode where the player has only one life to survive the endless and increasingly difficult waves of zombies to top the in-game Leaderboards. Levels in the Survival Mode get unlocked once you beat that level in the main story mode.The game is humorous, fun and exhilarating, but unfortunately it does not last as long. I took me just a little over an hour to beat the game’s main story mode. The Survival Mode should add another couple of hours to the game’s length. I guess this is appropriate as the game is supposed to be a ‘mini’. All things considered, Age of Zombies is another classic from the nutters at Halfbrick Studios.

Rating: 8.0/10

Details
Genre: Action, Shoot ‘em up
Studio: Halfbrick
Publishers: Halfbrick
*Platforms: Minis [PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable]
Price: USD 4.99

*Reviewed on PS3

Age of Zombies Review

Faiyaz Shaikh

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