Gunfinger Review

Another day, another zombie hoard terrorizing rural America. We've been down this road so many times that even six-year-olds are familiar with the world's number-one prescribed cure for zombie-ism: A bullet, preferably between the eyes.

Gunfinger by Pixel Toys is an arcade-style shooting game that pits players against zombies by the truckful. The dead have risen from their graves, and they have a hankering for that bit of grey matter between our ears that lets us recall funny bits from TV episodes we watched in the past. The solution to the problem, of course, is guns. Lots of guns.

Players stay on rails and move automatically through Gunfinger's levels. When zombies pop up - and oh boy, do they ever - a tap unloads the currently-equipped weapon's payload into their stinking flesh. There's a huge variety of guns to work with, as well as fun extras like hand grenades. Shooting strategy needs to be adjusted according to which gun features in a level. Each firearm has strengths and weaknesses, plus players need to find ways to work around that horrible, yawning gap of defenselessness that occurs when weapons are being reloaded. Hint: Zombies aren't polite about waiting patiently for their hunters to get back into action.

Gunfinger is a pretty typical on-rails zombie-shooting game. It's fun for a while, and the graphics are pretty impressive (watching zombie bits splatter everywhere never gets old, no matter how many times we've seen it since zombies lurched into pop culture's spotlight), but there isn't any grave dirt here that hasn't already been tread on.

Moreover, Gunfinger is a free-to-play game, which means the strength of the zombie hoards starts outclassing the player pretty quickly. Players are supposed to upgrade their weapons to keep up with their prey, but said upgrades are expensive and in-game currency is slow to trickle in. Purchasing hard currency is an option, and so is grinding previous levels - though the stamina system, which depletes every time a level kicks off, makes grinding a bit of a hassle. Also, prepare for a lot of pitches for in-app purchases. Limited deal! Hot offer! Act now!

Gunfinger is entertaining to poke at for a bit (and it has a wry sense of humor - don't forget to target rubber duckies for extra points), but overall it's a basic zombie shooter. That might be enough to bring in the most dedicated of zombie-killing fans, but the experience as a whole is as common as flowers in a cemetery.