Zombies Ate My Neighbors

"Hate Stuck-Up Cheerleaders? Let the Zombies Eat Them!"

One day, Zeke and Julie were coming home from school. It was a bad day, as their teacher just gave them an F- on their tests. But their day was about to get worse, for Dr. Tongue was about. He was one of many mad scientists bent on world domination, but as luck would have it, he started with their neighborhood first. Zeke and Julie's neighbors were in a state of shock, and could only stand there in fear, so it was up to Zeke and Julie to rescue them. Will the teacher give them a better grade if they save her life? Will the cheerleader snob go out with Zeke if he rescues her? Will the trampoline girl finally quit annoying everyone in the neighborhood? Those questions and more won't be answered in this game.

You see, there is no real story to Zombies Ate My Neighbors. About all that's obvious is that you're supposed to defeat Dr. Tongue, who's wreaking havoc on the world with B-horror flick monsters. That's right--they're not serious-looking monsters, but the kind of stuff you'd expect to see in B-movies. Typical B-movie zombies, evil dolls coming to life, jelly blobs--they're all here! And they're bad--they're out to kill you in this game with a top-view! But that's not all...

Each level has ten victims. Your victims consist of cheerleaders, tourist couples, babies, explorers, swimming pool guys, barbeque guys, trampoline girls, teachers, soldiers, and dogs--though each level may have multiple of a certain kind of victim, and none of another kind (i.e. level 1 does not have any explorers). Simply, you touch the victim to save him or her. But there's a problem--the monsters can touch the victims too, and given a choice, most of them will go after the victims before going after you. If they touch a victim, the victim dies. Once all the victims are saved by you, or killed by a monster, an exit door opens, taking you to the next level.

So it doesn't really matter if a monster kills a victim, right? You pass the level anyway, right? Unfortunately for you, it's not so simple. If a victim dies in a level, you start the next level with one less victim. For example, if you save nine victims in level 1, and a zombie kills one victim, you start level 2 with only nine victims. So if you are not careful, you can eventually be down to only a single victim in the level--and that's a very bad situation to be in. You see, you are required to save at least one victim in each level--if the monsters kill every victim in a level, it's an automatic game over. Now, while it's unlikely that monsters will kill all ten victims in a level if you have that many, but if you only have a single victim in a level, there's a lot of pressure on you to ensure that one victim gets out alive!

Aside from worrying about not letting the monsters kill the victims, you have to worry about your own health too. You start with 3 lives, and a health bar that allows you 10 hits. So get hit by a monster 30 times, and it's game over. Of course, there are ways to earn extra lives, and health kits to refill your health meter, so try hard to find these.

Thankfully, you have weapons to slay these monsters. A Squirtgun, bazooka, soda cans, silverware, and popsicles are just a few of the many weapons you have against your foes... of course, some weapons work better against some monsters, and other weapons against other monsters. You have special items to help out too: Pandora's box works as a screen-cleaner, wiping most, if not all, of the weaker enemies on-screen, and hurting stronger enemies too. Speed shoes help you get to some victims quickly, who may be in severe danger. Ghost potions let you walk on water, and monster potions let you really take it out on stronger monsters.

The graphics in the game aren't spectacular, but they're not bad either. Just get used to them, though, since many of them repeat in later levels. But they are easy on the eyes, which is especially necessary for a top-view game such as this. The monsters aren't particularly scary-looking, but more B-movie silly-like. The victims are humorous as well, for most of them seem unaware they're in any danger. The swimming pool guy has a special death animation when he dies, that's just too cool for words, and the tourists have a neat special animation as well, for when they die in a certain fashion....

The music in the game isn't great, but again, it's not bad either. The music does fit the game extremely well, though--it's cheesy scary music, perfectly fitting for a cheesy scary game, and honestly, it's better for the music to fit the game than for the music to sound like Beethoven.

The control is good, with one minor complaint. When switching weapons, it's easy to accidentally pass up the one you meant to use. This problem could have easily been fixed by allowing you to switch weapons while the game is paused--you shouldn't have to worry about passing up the weapon you wanted to use with monsters in hot pursuit! Other than that, there're no problems, though. If you want to use a weapon, you'll use it. If you want to walk left, you'll walk left. You can walk, and shoot weapons, diagonally as well with ease.

Almost, but not quite, perfect, you won't care though. It's extremely fun to play through, and 2 players can play simultaneously as well! You simply cannot go wrong with this game. It's simply great, and I assure you will probably like, if not love, this game!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/16/03, Updated 04/16/03