Worth a buy if you are into zombie horde genre
THOUGH Valve have seemingly made it explicitly clear that there will sadly not be a Left 4 Dead 3 in the near future, fans of somewhat tawdry cooperative zombie massacre simulators should rejoice, as Zombie Army 4: Dead War will fill that gap in much the same way that League of Ireland satisfies your football cravings when the Premier League isn’t on.
Though familiar in many ways, Zombie Army 4 does manage to somewhat distance itself from the myriad Left 4 Dead clones in a few enjoyable and surprising ways. To the developers’ credit, much of what appears tacky at first often ends up feeling like a very deliberate manouvere by the various people involved in working on the game.
Firstly, the story is absurd bordering insane. Occult forces, undead Nazi armies and a finale so surprising that it nearly justifies the cost of the game alone all combine to deliver a roughly 9-hour experience that is perhaps a little cheap in presentation but nearly flawless in execution.
Pacing-wise, the campaign is expertly put together, with the forward momentum carrying us neatly through to the finale. Rarely did sections feel like they dragged on too long. In some ways Zombie Army 4 feels like a crossover between the Left 4 Dead games and the Sniper Elite series, with the game taking more than a few cues from the latter.
Much like Sniper Elite, Zombie Army 4 is gorey to the point of disgust. Slow-motion kills are frequent and liberal in their gore, while some of the bosses are almost Lovecraftian in their horror.
Zombie Army 4’s uprgade system does a great job of feeling rewarding - but only up to a point. Character progression lets you travel across the skill trees, though this can be somewhat disappointing in multiplayer cooperative play, as there aren’t enough options to allow you and your friends to diversify classes to the point where each member of the party has a separate, distinct role.
Zombie Army 4: Dead War has a distinctive sense of familiarity about it, but it packs enough tricks of its own that it stands out from the crowd as a surprisingly brilliant game, if not simultaneously utterly ridiculous. Well worth a buy if you are into the classic Zombie horde games.