Minigame Review #8: Zombies

A prototype game, Zombies is a team survival game were four players work together to fight the seemingly endless (or endless if you put the game to infinity mode) waves of zombies that just keep on coming.

Zombies has been in the prototype lobby for a while, and has two maps: Bad Blood, a haunted mansion (my personal favorite) and the original map: Dead End, a dark alleyway. the goal is to survive until the end, which is something under an eighth of zombie players ever do. Even on the easiest level (normal, the easiest of normal, hard and nightmare), this game is very difficult, unlike many modern video games.

In the game, you have a gun (represented by a wooden hoe). The number next to the gun in your hot bar is the amount of ammunition in your cartridge, and your total amount of ammunition is displayed on your exp bar. The zombies come in through barricades in the wall that they break down. If you shoot any zombie enough it dies, but some have more health than others. When you shoot a zombie, kill a zombie, get a critical hit, or fix a barricade (which you can easily do by sneaking next to it) you earn gold. You can use gold to open new sections of the map, or buy weapons and armor that you can find around the map.

In both maps there's a power switch you can find late into the game. It costs one thousand gold to activate, and when you do, you can purchase perks: but beware! When the power switch is activate a boss zombie arrives in the game. And the boss is difficult to beat when the other zombies are distracting you from killing it.

If a player dies, they will lie on the ground for thirty seconds, before perishing. In this time they can be saved if another team member sneaks on top of them. If time runs out, the dead player becomes a spectator, and will return to life at the start of the next wave (if that ever comes).

As the waves go on, they progress in difficulty, there are more zombies to attack you, harder types of zombies, the zombies have more lives, and the waves sometimes come with bosses.

Tips and Tricks:

Expand!

Don't spend all the money you earn on yourself, make sure you use it to open doors into new areas. And believe me, it will be necessary. The starting base of the map (the courtyard in Bad Blood and the alleyway in Dead End)  is always very limited, and battling a tonne of zombies in it would result in a guaranteed death. 

Everyone Take One

At the beginning of the game (especially in Bad Blood) everyone running around frantically never works for long. The easiest way to win is to be organized, and at the beginning of the game the way to do that is to have each player take one barricade and stick with it. There are four barricades, and four people. Do the math, it fits perfectly.

Not So Violent
If you are not sure Zombies is for you because of the vileness of the undead, do not worry. Zombies is not realistic in the slightest; it features blocky Zombies with flat faces following you as you shoot little white pellets at them from a wooden hoe (or a stone one, if you can afford the upgrade).

Stick Together
This rule is not mandatory, but I recommend that you follow it. Sticking together helps in Zombies, since four players rapidly firing at the hordes have enough firepower to survive most waves. The only problems are A: if you all get overwhelmed by zombies, you're dead meat, B: If you choose a bad place, like the crypt, you will definitely be killed, and C: most of the time you are playing with random people, so it can be difficult to work out a plan. I recommend the Balcony as a location if you plan to follow this tip.

Dual Shoot
After getting two guns, you are a lot safer - not just because the second gun is definitely better than the starter gun, but also because you are not so defenseless when reloading. When reloading your current gun, shoot the mob with the other twice or three times, depending on the reload time and the weight of the other gun, then go back to your other gun, now fully loaded. You can do this with your sword before you get a second gun as well.

Loopy
Make a circuit in the map before activating power, so when the boss mob spawns you can just keep backing up and shooting. This way, unless you back up into a wall, or worse, a zombie, you are practically invincible as long as you have the right strategy.

Guns > Knife
The melee weapon in Zombies (the knife) is terrible! Not only does it do very minimal damage, but the hit timer (or reload time) is insanely low, and you have to wait a whole second before you hit again- and that's a lot of time in a video game. Only use the knife if you are combo-ing zombies, like shoot shoot knife shoot shoot. Unfortunately, not many players can do this. 

All About the Maps!

There are only two maps in Zombies, but one cannot write a mini game review without writing about the maps. So, here they are:

Dead End

The first map in Zombies, Dead End is a toughie, featuring TNT Zombies that do not appear in the Bad Blood map. This map branches out more than Bad Blood (which basically has a strict route to take), but is harder and more confined than Bad Blood. Whatever route you take, make sure to activate power early in the game, but near the end of a wave, so when the boss monster spawns you don't have a tonne of other zombies to deal with.

Bad Blood

With a very different launching poster than the first one (this one surrounded by a sea of bright red, almost definitely blood), Bad Blood is a great map, which, do not worry, contains no blood. It contains many bosses that run each section, such as Steve and Adam (the zombies in the library) and the cave spiders (in the crypts). 

Poor MegaMeow50, dead on the ground. Fortunately, when you die in Zombies, you can be revive until thirty seconds pass. After that point, your gone until that zombie wave is done.

Unlocking doors can be expensive, but it is very important if you want to stay alive. The door to the mansion (the first one you can open) is shown in this picture.

The courtyard is pretty small in zombies. As I have said countless times, expanding is important!


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