I, Zombie

 
Developer: Awesome Games Studio Sp. zo.o.
Released: Dec 2014
Hours Played: 2.1
Similar To: Dynamite Jack / Instant Dungeon / Robbery Bob: Man of Steal
Rating: 5/5 Parsnips

GAMEPLAY

I, Zombie is a top-down stealth game that won't stay on your hard-disc for very long but, at a rock-bottom price of £1.59, provides enough fine entertainment to make it excellent value. You take control of a zombie and move him around on a top-down map consisting of paths and alleyways. Placed on the map are humans who are either citizens or guards equipped with guns who will shoot at you on sight - Hotline Miami style! Some move around on a set course or just stand there motionless, while indestructible turrets get introduced at later levels. You are charged with the task of infecting the humans by making contact with them for a few seconds and thus turning them into a zombie just like you. Once infected, you can then mind control them by getting them to follow you or to attack.

BALANCE & PACE

The strategy is to creep around avoiding areas where guards outnumber you and working out their patterns of movement while exploiting their weaknesses. Guards will detect you within an aggro radius and immediately start firing at you so you'll need to get used to their line of sight and how far a safe distance is. The idea is to infect the soft targets first before moving on to the clusters of guards and overwhelming them with your newly infected recruits. Ordering when and where your army follows you, when to stop them and when to attack is of paramount importance. The game plays like a puzzle with an arcade-like feel and is divided into 20 levels plus a further ten that were added as part of a free download. 
 

PRESENTATION & DESIGN 

I, Zombie is a breeze to explore and complete. You hit Start, get taken to a level-select screen of 20 unlockable levels and dive in. The Xbox controller is recommended as you can move around nicely with the left-stick while ordering commands with the blue (follow), red (stop) and green (attack) buttons. The levels themselves are one-screen locations with not a great deal of variety in settings or the crates and buildings within. Each character has a health bar above their heads so it's easy to detect how infected an enemy is or how quickly your own health is being depleted by gunfire. A pleasantly plodding soundtrack helps move things along.

PROGRESS SYSTEM

The game is level-based and gives up to three stars based on how efficient the level is cleared. You get one star for completing a level, two for "saving" a certain amount of zombies and three stars for "saving" a higher amount. Your best time is also stored and recorded but you only know what this is when you've actually completed a level - it is not shown on any chart or displayed anywhere else besides the stats page on completion. There is also a leaderboard but one that throws you out of the game to load up the Steam overlay which I've always found to be a bit lame. Once you've completed all levels, you may then go for the ten extra levels which have kindly been added by the developer at no extra charge.

CONCLUSION

I, Zombie is a casual and extremely user-friendly game that is easy to load up and enjoy. If you mess up, restarts are instant with the press of a button - no annoying load screens here. You can charge through the vanilla version in one sitting or in less than a couple of hours. Acing each level with a three-star performance, of course, will need further strategising and planning but this adds to its replayability value. It is a game with a definite unique feel and one of those where you just feel it deserves more recognition and praise. It is very well-designed overall with decent levels. Only the fact that the best-times are hidden from view is the only very minor gripe.