So here’s the score: you are a
member of the Blood family, your father was the sole voice of opposition of the
king when the power of the throne was clearly in the hands of the Queen.
Speaking out against the King cost him his life as well as the lives of both his
sons (Romulus and Remus) and the King’s own daughter who was to be wed to one of
the sons. Since vengeance is the order of the day, each of these three
characters (you pick) is brought back from the very depths and begin the very
bloody and crazy act of revenge against the king and his be-witching queen.
So the idea is actually very solid,
as an anti-hero type, you maraud the countryside and eviscerate your way through
many of the king’s men, turning them into your own zombie horde who will
promptly fight on your side and basically do your bidding within the confines of
the game. Hacking and slashing is different depending on which character you
select, Romulus is a huge hulking brute with large powerful attacks, Remus is
the smaller quicker of the two with double swords and Sylvia, the king’s
daughter would just as soon set your head on fire than speak with you, and she
carries a really large scythe.
"Never fails, I bring the beer and
everyone wants one."
Now the game sadly, is pretty
remedial with its wash, rinse, repeat formula. You start off in an area, knights
attack you, you kill some and transform others into your horde. You continue
along until you come to a larger beastie, that can be brought to the dark side
as well, shows up and you have to deal with it. There are some strategic
elements, but only just. Zombies can be controlled as a horde and told to tear
into oncoming forces, destroy objects in the way and otherwise commanded to
cause all sorts of destruction. This, combined with the big powerful attack and
the quick attack can reduce many enemies to many allies quickly. In fact, once
an enemy has been made one of your undead, you can pick it up and throw it for
an even greater attack. This is the only way to beat some enemies down.
The actual controls of the game are
too clunky for their own good. Too many times when you want to pick up an enemy
you end up grabbing one of your own zombies. Plus, the darn things flock to you
like you are the mother bird. You can use the D-pad to reconfigure the camera
since the game is viewed via third person. And boy, will you use that a lot
since things do get hairy pretty much throughout the game. I wondered if things
could have been sharpened up a bit, but I will admit there doesn’t seem to be
any lag or slowdown even when there are tons of things going on.
I really got a charge out of the
voice acting, it fits nicely with the medieval tone of the game and the clearly
dark arts that are present on both sides. The characters are uniquely voiced and
the narrator would do well to have a cough drop. The things said in the game are
fairly robust and, in fact, vulgar. I don’t mind this sort of thing since I have
spent plenty of time working in a public school, but in some instances it almost
seemed over-the-top. Yeah, I get it, the game is really playing for that crowd,
but sometimes too much is just that – too much. I didn’t really gel with the
heavy metal-themed musical score, but somebody out there seems to think that
bloody gore covered zombies and knights somehow translate to Dokken.
"The Angels never saw C.C. Sabathia’s new
pitch coming."
Now unfortunately the game’s visual
flair is lacking outside of the cut scenes. They look pretty well developed and
actually help get you jazzed about playing. Again, the problems appear though
when actual gameplay is seen. Areas are pretty much blasé and don’t offer to
much in visual excitement. The monsters are Ok, and the undead army at your
command is passable. But the whole game appears to be missing a heavy dose of
atmosphere and for a game where the main characters are from the "Blood" clan, I
was hoping for more gore. There’s blood, but the promise of arms flying as
bodies are put through the walking blenders that the main characters are was
lacking. I know it sounds goofy, but it was almost disappointing to me. Now,
this is only my opinion, and you should know that I am a total zombie freak and
appreciate really crazy action, so you could very well look at what happens in
this game and think that I am off my rocker, but hey, it is what it is.
The game does actually offer up some
interesting tidbits. For one, there are some unique uses for our zombie friends
and to pass some of the not-too-difficult puzzles will have you stopping up
holes and making bridges out of them. There is the leveling-up system and the
ranking system, and they work in tandem as each section is both timed and
scrutinized. Getting a better rank means making your character tougher and
increasing your arsenal of attacks. There are a few things to get excited about
with this title, but I just didn’t get enough to make it a real doozy.
The multiplayer mode features a
survival mode and a game where you play against another gamer in a
zombie-tossing contest. It doesn’t really add much to the title and as far as
multiplayer games goes, it isn’t a must-have. In fact, there is a survival mode
that I found to be somewhat boring.
Gameplay: 6.7
Not as smooth as it needed to be. You can do all sorts of things with those
zombies, but getting them to actually do your bidding can be frustrating.
Graphics: 6.1
The cut scenes are great, but you don’t play a cut scene. The same character
models come at you and your own army must shop at the Gap since they all wear a
dark blue.
Sound: 6.9
I really dug the voice work, and they even had some spirited things to say, but
that music, that heavy metal was both overdone and sometimes obnoxious.
Difficulty: Medium
There are three modes of difficulty and
you can even go back and replay scenarios to try and improve your score.
Concept: 7.5
I liked the idea, the whole anti-hero, controlling zombie thing is actually
pretty cool. But they didn’t shake things up enough and when things get
interesting, the game is already 80% over and far too long to have held most
players’ attention.
Multiplayer: 6.0
Some fun is found in the zombie-throwing mode and even a little in the survival
mode, but it really doesn’t so much for the game.
Overall: 6.3
Uh, there really isn’t anything like this on the PSP, and there is some fun to
be had, but only a select few will embrace the gore and clumsy, over-the-top
action; of course, they’ll have to forgive the game’s lack of flair.
