Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! Review

Yes, Zombie Wonderland 2, much as its name suggests, is another in a long, long, long line of zombie-themed games quickly piling up in the iOS App Store. However, even though the genre itself is starting to seem as persistent and unyielding as its signature undead denizens, it would be wrong to dismiss a game simply because its theme is pulled from a supposedly tired corner of pop-culture. Either way, it's easy to see why zombies and zombie games are so popular: Zombies are just really fun, and there's no way around it.

Zombie Wonderland 2 will be very familiar to anyone who played the first Zombie Wonderland. Players direct Chuck and his trusty shotgun, Betsy, in defense of a small town against nightly zombie attacks. The game's story unfolds level by level as Chuck defends different buildings all over the small town of Niceville. Each building has three levels that must be cleared to move on to the next building. The story progresses from level to level as well, and Chuck has semi-interesting conversations with other townspeople. The plot is interesting, but not essential and players that just want to get to the action may find it annoying to have to go through conversations after every level.

The game plays like a cross between a tower defense game and real time strategy game. Chuck, inside the building, moves to the spots on the screen where the player taps. The players can then direct him to board up windows, shoot zombies, or place traps and turrets. Chuck will have to employ his tools differently to defend against the more than 20 unique zombie types, but by using all of Chucks traps, special bullets, and turrets, players can help him survive the night and protect the buildings from attack. Thankfully, these one finger gameplay works nicely and saves players from having to use cumbersome controls.

The goal is to keep zombies out of the buildings, if possible. However, sometimes they will break through Chuck's barriers and find a way in. Being forced to dispatch zombies indoors makes such a mess though, and players will have to take extra time to clean up any messes made that way. Points will be deducted for the amount of messes left. This is an interesting addition to the tower defense gameplay, and it is something players must consider. As with the rest of Chuck's tools, players can upgrade his mop to a vacuum and so on to clean messes faster.

Even though cleaning up messes may not sound very fun, it sure is fun to get zombie guts all over the place. Zombie Wonderland 2 isn't the next revolutionary, groundbreaking zombie slaying title but it does what it does well and with simple controls, too. There are a lot of zombies out there. Time to thin their ranks a bit, and enjoy doing it.