Pro Zombie Soccer

It’s been a couple of years since we last donned a pair of virtual football boots and blasted a ball into a confused zombie’s face, but little has changed since Pro Zombie Soccer first scored an iOS hit back in 2010.

This is a solid Android port of the kick-'em-up gem that recaptures the original’s zany storyline, gameplay, and rock hard difficulty.

It only trips over its laces in the graphics department, with the low-res visuals lacking the HD shine bigger handsets demand.

One of the game’s main strengths is the story it bolts on to the simple gameplay.

Hungover wannabe football star Jax gets kicked off his team and is inconsolable until a bite from the squad’s top - and also zombie virus-infected - striker gives him amazing super-powered skills.

Knowing he’s doomed to brain-munching fate, Jax decides to go down fighting, doing his bit to avert the zombie apocalypse by booting his ball at all the undead heads he can.

It’s a fun narrative that weaves its way through each stage, providing a hook for the action and some darkly comic laughs along the way.

Meanwhile, on the ‘pitch’ (a series of grimy city locales), your goal is to help Jax target the hordes of enemies heading his way.

You tap and hold the ball icon until you’ve placed the shot and then let fly, hopefully scoring a deadly headshot - or at least knocking off a few limbs to slow them down.

Dead hard

The straightforward, fuss free controls suit the casual zombie slaughter well, and the game’s a doddle for the first few stages. Then, the hordes get bigger and more aggressive (with some semi-bosses sporting body armour and protective headgear), meaning it’s easy to quickly became overwhelmed and devoured.

Fortunately, there are some quite devastating power-ups that can be deployed to scythe down waves of opponents (satellite-fired lasers are a death-dealing highlight) and even the odds.

Pro Zombie Soccer's difficulty does a still spike a little too high after the midway point, mind, and a lot of the casual, slapstick spirit is lost when you get munched on for missing a single shot in a heated moment.

It was a complaint we had about the iOS original and, when combined with the low-res visuals and lack of bonus content, it suggests that this Android version is a perfunctory port that’s well worth a blood soaked kickabout but perhaps not the full 90 minutes.