Game Reviews

Zombie Wonderland

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Zombie Wonderland

Take Minigore’s 3D look, sound, and guns. Add Mrs Mopp’s commitment to domestic hygiene. Sprinkle the undead liberally. Finish with Diner Dash’s time management.

Bake in the oven for three hours and serve as Zombie Wonderland.

Much like the England football team, Chilingo’s tower defence and zombie mashing title offers less than the sum of its collective parts.

The residents of Niceville are under invasion from hordes of flesh-eating corpses and local zombie cleaner Chuck is their last, and frankly only, line of defence.

Armed with his trusty shotgun, Betsy, some wooden planks, and a mop, Chuck spends evenings protecting four local premises from Greenies (speedy), Flamies (combustible), Grannies (destructive), and Meanies (ultra-destructive).

Home alone

Shooting a zombie is as straightforward as tapping it. Chuck will then automatically scamper across the attractively drawn room for the best position from which to fire. And fire. And then fire again.

Prioritising which zombie Chuck eviscerates is essential since they shuffle across the board at various speeds and degrees of menace. To defend against the roaming army, you can board up the windows and set a machine gun on the sill. But there's a catch: time is precious when fending off brain-hungry moaners from all corners and DIY eats into valuable zombie slaying.

Should any of the brain munchers breach your wooden defences and step inside Joe’s Bar or Jake’s Garage, the game isn’t necessarily up. Provided you wipe the Greenie out before your health meter deteriorates completely, your only concern is the state of the floor.

Taken to the cleaners

At 6am the zombie rooster crows, sending the undead scuttling back to their graveyards and Chuck into domestic goddess mode. Any unsavoury guts left spilt on the carpet are subtracted from your score, which can be uploaded to the Crystal network.

Complete all five evening sessions at a location and your favourite zombie cleaner is rewarded with a bigger gun and a more powerful Hoover. Neither the limited range of weaponry nor paucity of levels (20 in total) provides much in the way of longevity or replay value.

And since there aren’t any Bluetooth or local wi-fi multiplayer options, the frenetic and repetitive tap-hammer, tap-hammer nature of the single-player Story means that Zombie Wonderland becomes tiresome all too quickly in spite of the difficulty being ramped up considerably in the fourth and final location.

Zombie Wonderland

Zombie Wonderland has all the ingredients for a novel take on the zombie shooter, but repetitive gameplay and restricted movement mean the recipe isn't quite right
Score
Richard Brown
Richard Brown
With a degree in German up his sleeve Richard squares up to the following three questions every morning: FIFA or Pro Evo? XBox 360 or PS3? McNulty or Bunk?