Zombie Revenge

"Streets of Rage, Resident Evil and some strange link to House of the Dead = Average Hybrid Action Game"

Another trip to the video store for a sneak peek at new releases, and I come across this title, Zombie Revenge. Looked interesting enough so I rented it...turns out that it plays like Streets of Rage complete with guns, knives and baseball bats to help you combat the masses. If there was any game out there that remotely resembles a Resident Evil fighting game and then this one would pretty much be as close as you’re going to get! Three characters with various moves and attacks scramble through the city on a quest to stop a madman who has risen the dead and plans to take over the world. While the story sound like just about every other action game out there on the market, the overall dark quality of the game, as well as the amount of fighting that you do more than makes up for the apparent mistakes that are easily seen and heard throughout! This game is a tie into the House of the Dead series, a nice added bonus on the zombie shooter. It incorporates all the makings of a good story, adding the mysterious bad guy, the backgrounds on the characters, and the general mayhem of the game. Very nicely done.

The gameplay is difficult, even on the easiest setting. I can guarantee, unless you're beyond skilled, you won't make it all the way through the game on your first run, and maybe not even your second run. It does offer extras, including the VMU games, which is nice, and it opens up a new playing field with the vs. mode. Good additions with the modes is what gives this an average score though, from vs. bosses, (House of the Dead 2) and the training and vs. modes, you'll play this quite a few times before getting bored with it! Most of what the game play revolves around is just beating down on the dead as they appear and collecting items along the way. With the amount of fighting style moves, you’ll find that Zombie Revenge has all the qualities of Resident Evil and Streets of Rage with the side scrolling fighting and the very idea of zombies and monsters coming out of the woodwork to attack you. Once you've got the extras that the game has to offer, it's all over. You won't play it much, except with friends, and if you're looking to just get back to old school SoR action, the street brawling, then you'll replay this a couple of times to fill in the gap!

The control interface is where it starts to go down hill. Aiming at a different enemy targets with the gun, takes practice, and your targets move out of the way, so if you charge up for a shot, you're wasting bullets. The close in grab moves are difficult to pull off, making a jagged combo system that chops up. If your target is too far off, you waste more bullets, not even hitting them. Although it runs off the SoR game engine, it leaves much to be desired. Grabbing your intended target takes a little more than just practice with several different combinations that are possible. This may seem easy enough, but you have to turn and keep up on them to keep them down and out of the fight! A couple of the character moves are done in such a way, that you really have to have a better understanding of how the characters move and just what you can do with them.

They're good. They flow nicely, and the backgrounds are incredible. I only found some problems with the close in shots where the story kicks into play. The faces look semi-real, but they lip-sync worse than Milli Vanilli does, and they're polygon fleshed out. A complete and total bummer when you break it down to what kind of game it is and what is supposed to represent. The exploding zombies are nice, and add some realism, watching the parts fall, and the blood splatter the ground, but, like with most action games, the enemies disappear, blinking out of existence. Not great ways to show off the power of the Dreamcast by having the enemies merely blink out. The bosses on the other hand rock, and you'll see what I mean in the fourth act of the game, very nice!

Tinny fighting game sounds has never really made an impact on me before and they won’t do it now. And the voice-overs are horrible. You want to get involved with the story, but after listening to it for a while, you'll just skip through it. The music repeats for most of the game, until you get into the later stages, and, if you've played House of the Dead, it's all the same stuff. The gunshots don't differ, between the various guns you collect, and the sound of the pipe swinging makes the gunshots sound cheap! It really isn’t an audio intensive game and with some points of the story when there are speaking parts, you’ll find that it is strangely similar to the first Resident Evil and about as corny as listening to Barry talk over and over again.

The graphics and story make this a 7. The cheap sound, intense, and too difficult, gameplay along with jittery control drop it down from an easy 10. Fans of the Streets of Rage series will definitely enjoy this, and those who liked House of the Dead, but wanted more, this is your game, a good game to pick up. Renting it all depends on if you like it, I suggest renting it first, you can finish it, and get the secrets within a five-day rental, guaranteed. Buy it if you want a higher-tech Streets of Rage with quite a few references to the different horror game genres that are already out there on the market, you won't be disappointed. Side scrolling action fans rejoice, there is a new player in town, but veterans of both referred genres look at this one with a weary eye, it’ll save you some cash!

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/00, Updated 11/20/01