Review: Zombies Ala Mode

Zombies seem to be everywhere these days, from games like Dead Rising 2 to Dead Nation, to Plants vs Zombies and more. The iPhone has its fair share of zombie games, and the latest, Zombies Ala Mode is much more PVZ than Left 4 Dead. Utilizing cute, cartoony graphics and simple gameplay, Crawlspace games is hoping to coax iOS users into picking up their latest treat.

In the game, you play as a young zombie, hoping to earn some money by working as an ice cream vendor assistant. I know that sounds terribly dull, but the reality of the game is you must tilt your device to guide your zombie across the screen in order to collect scoops of ice cream that will rain down on you from above. These scoops are being tossed out by your surly boss. You must collect the right flavors and amounts to serve the customers that will appear on each side of the screen as a hand and an order. To deliver your order, you simply guide your zombie to the side of the screen and tap. Seems simple, but the difficulty quickly ramps up with more flavors, the ability to stack more scoops on your cone, and various hazards threatening to hit you on the head and cost you to loose your current stack. Depending on how many customers you serve and how quickly, you will earn money and tips; loose customers and money will be deducted from your pay. If you finish the level with negative money (meaning you lost a lot of customers), you will fail and have to try again.

Occasionally, you will get a level that offers a different type of gameplay, such as avoiding obstacles for the entire duration of the level in order to save an order for a special customer, or shooting bugs. These seek to keep things from getting stale, but in general, I think I could probably have done without them. In between levels you have the option to shop in the store, where you can purchase upgrades that will increase your tips as well as headgear to protect you from debris. The more expensive the headgear, the more hits you can take before you will loose your scoops. I think it’s a cute idea, but personally I found that the tip upgrades didn’t seem to work, and everything is incredibly expensive. You may only make $0.50 per level, and items cost $5, $10, $30, etc. This might not sound bad, but I found it particularly frustrating, especially in later levels when the difficulty really ramps up, as the reward for the effort seemed to be too low of a ratio.

The game can be very, very difficult. So much so to the point that it almost feels impossible to beat some of the later levels. Why? Because in the late levels you have enormous, fast-moving debris, and the controls aren’t tight enough to really work around them, so you will find yourself constantly getting hit (even when you think you’re safe), making it very, very difficult not to fail. I’m all for a challenge, but when the cards seem stacked against you, that isn’t fun. I also had a lot of problems with the touch sensitivity of the game in general. Even in the menu screens, I found I often had to press really, really hard to get it to register my touch; in the game this is even worse, because it means you can loose customers because the game doesn’t register you tapped to give them their order. While the game allows you to adjust the tilt sensitivity, it doesn’t for touch, and I think this is unfortunate. The game also crashed several times on me, including the first time I loaded it up. Granted, I have an iPhone 3G (running iOS 4.2), so it’s possible it could be the older generation hardware or the latest iOS causing the problem. Still, I felt it important to point out. The game does save automatically after every level, so your chance of loosing progress (unless you’re mid-level), are low.

If you can measure up to the challenge, the game is pretty packed. The main game mode has 50 levels (although it’s disappointing you can’t go back and re-play any level you want at any time), plus two more game modes that unlock once you finish the career: survival and bug attack. The game also supports OpenFeint for leaderboards and achievements, if you don’t mind signing up for that service. I didn’t, as my general policy is the less stuff I have to sign up for the better, but it’s still nice for those who want it.

When everything is working right, Zombies is a great little game. I would have loved to have given it rave reviews, as I really loved the concept. Unfortunately, the game is marred by several flaws the really hurt it: severe touch screen sensitivity issues, oppressive difficulty, and steep prices for upgrades. However, if you can overlook these flaws, or are willing to wait for updates that may fix many of these errors, you will enjoy yourself and find plenty to keep yourself occupied.

Note: As of this writing, the game is on sale for $0.99 - for that price, it is worth a try if the game has peaked your interest.

Doin’ It RIGHT: - Really great artwork. - Fun gameplay concept. - Plenty of gameplay.	Doin’ It RONG: - Touch screen sensitivity is poor - Oppressively difficult. - Upgrades are too expensive. - $2.99 is a bit steep.
FINAL SCORE: 6 / 10