Rise Of The Zombie! Review

Based on the first Bollywood zombie film of the same name, Rise of the Zombie! is an action game that gives players the chance to control a zombie, rather than a human survivor. The potential for fun is there, but it's all too limited and slow burning to be truly worth recommending.

Offering a series of levels, each with a selection of waves, players must direct the zombie towards a horde of humans in order to slash them up and progress to the next stage. It's a neat idea, twisting the general idea of how we generally play zombie games. The zombie is given a pair of scissors to start out with, with the ability to upgrade to new weapons in time. It also has its own zombify attack, thereby turning a human into a zombie and killing them a fair bit quicker than slashing them. Unfortunately, though, there's no way to get the newly made zombie to provide back up.

Controls are pretty limited in that it's only possible to walk forward and initiate one of two attack moves. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't that it takes a long time to gain any weapon upgrades. They're earned through the acquisition of hearts (gained by zombifying humans) but they come through pretty slowly to the point that one would expect in-app purchases would appear to speed things up. Curiously, they don't.

Once some upgrades have been earned, things prove to be a little more interesting, but it's still ultimately very shallow. A lack of Game Center based achievements, with only in-game achievements available, doesn't help matters as such focus would be nice, or something like a series of missions which reward the player with bonuses.

As it stands though, there's just not enough to Rise of the Zombie!. It's possible to switch to different zombie avatars, and the general look of the game is interesting, but it's all too shallow and limited. A nice idea, alone, just isn't enough to make a game worth purchasing.