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Anyone who has worked in an office setting or has even seen popular depictions of such places knows that the employees are often associated with drooling, brainless zombies due to the day in, day out tediousness that comes along with sitting in a small cubicle typing out reports and being forced to interact with other employees, who, more than likely, also feel as though their souls are being sucked into the mouth of a monstrous corporate machine.
Canadian programmer and musician bignic takes a literal interpretation of the office zombie metaphor in his pixilated, isometric shooter/beat 'em up Zombies. The story is rather simple: amidst the shuffling of papers and painfully dull presentations, employees begin to inexplicably transform into bloodthirsty zombies. You play as a blunt and hilarious employee known only as “Dude,” who watches as his cubicle mate, Norm, has his face eaten by one of the recently turned managers. After this display of gnarly violence, Dude wisely decides it’s in his best interest to escape from the office. What follows is twenty five levels of bludgeoning, shooting, and smashing as our protagonist attempts to navigate the maze of his employment to find an exit. Along the way, he’ll run into characters who reluctantly give him support and be forced to fight zombified superiors for survival.
A delightfully absurd brand of humor pervades the game. The first scene in the game is a zombie manager growling “synergy!” as poor, dimwitted Norm stands by, scratching his head in confusion, moments before he’s devoured by the same undead specimen. The supporting characters that Dude meets range from a thinly-veiled homage to Groundskeeper Willie to the zany, overcompensating Sergeant Westwood, a man with serious issues about being Canadian. And Dude is much like a corporate Guybrush Threepwood in that he bounces back and forth between being a character capable of pointing out the intellectual deficiencies of others and being, well, an idiot himself.
Tip: A cubicle is not the ideal location for a last stand.
The gameplay is just as straightforward as the story. Most levels have the player guiding Dude through an isometric zombie infested labyrinth of cubicles, offices, and storage rooms to the exit. You usually have two options: kill every zombie or run as fast as you can through each section and simply bash in the brains of any fool who gets in your way. Oh, and you can save your employees too if you’re that kind of guy. But I got the sense that the Dude’s character was that he didn’t care about any of those people, so I let them get eaten.
As per the unwritten law of action games involving guns, you earn more weapons as you progress through the game, starting out with nothing but your fistacuffs at first. Then a bat, then a pistol…you know the drill by now. As an action game, Zombies.’ mechanics are entertaining but nothing to write home about. However, the numerous subtle details are a sight to behold. Example: once you get some of the higher powered weaponry, like a shotgun, you can blow down the walls of cubicles and shoot the undead on the other side. Or for kicks you can toss Molotov cocktails over the aforementioned cubicles (and walls separating the storerooms from the cubicle area, apparently) and light your coworkers on fire.
However, because of techniques like this, Zombies.’s biggest “problem” is that it’s a little too easy. At least on normal difficulty. You can blow through almost every single stage on the first go if you just keep away from the horde of zombies. The boss stages aren’t really boss stages in the classic sense. Instead of completing a series of levels and then taking on a baddie who’s much more powerful than you are— forcing you to develop a series of tactics to bring them down—the bosses you fight in Zombies. can essentially be defeated by following the same strategy: strafe and shoot. Each boss stage is more like an intermission from the run and gun action normal levels more than anything else. This never really bothered me during my playthrough, though. Zombies. doesn’t seem to be a game concerned with challenging the player as much as it is throwing hordes of the undead at them to blast alongside a hefty portion of dark humor concerning the dreary world of office culture. Zombies. is a very funny game. A level involving man-eating sandwiches, in particular, deserves praise for its humor.
Addendum: Zombies. is a very funny game with a fantastic soundtrack. (What is it with these composers turning out to be savvy indie game developers, anyway? First Jasper Byrne, now this guy.) Each level has its own chiptune track that, appropriately enough, seems both retro and fresh at the same time. The variety of music helps keep the game from feeling repetitive. There were only a couple of sections where I felt like I was being pulled out of the game and that was because of bugs. The second boss, a manager who spews venomous buzzwords, failed to do any damage to me even though I was getting hit directly by his verbal stream. There were also a couple of sections where I became stuck between cubicles and had to restart the level.
Tip: Molotov cocktails are the answer to all of life's problems, especially the ones that crave flesh.
Zombies. looks and plays like the developers of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery decided to craft a darker spiritual successor to Lucasarts’ Zombies Ate My Neighbors. But it’s chiefly the work of one dude and, in this writer’s opinion, a good bit more fun than either of those titles. I wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone who likes guns, isometric games, zombies, or anybody who has ever dreamed of pulling a Milton Waddams.
You can also buy the game and directly from bignic himself.