Zombies! Run

Hi I'm Andy and I run two blogs; an iOS game review blog, Donarex's iOS Game Reviews Corner and a blog about my literary adventures, Donarex's NaNoWriMo Adventure and I'm your new Saturday!


Below is an example of one of my game reviews and also the kind of thing I will be posting on Saturdays.

Zombies! Run

Developers: Six To Start

iTunes Rating: 4.5 Stars (8 ratings as of 09 July 2012)

Game Center?: No

Version Details: 1.3 (released 20 June 2012)

Age Rating: 12+

Price:  £5.49

Zombies! Run is a game unlike anything I have reviewed before. It’s strictly speaking not even a game, more of a narrative running tool. The “aim” of the game is to follow the story of Abel Township and its population as you, playing the role of ‘Runner 5’, work to gain the trust of various people and help out with the workings of the Township after your helicopter crashes down at the start of Mission 1 when you’re struck by a rocket from an rocket launcher. All of this whilst you actually run (or walk) in real life.

Gameplay

The gameplay is a bit limited but honestly I love it. The story is what makes this game above others, the narrative is well written and you find yourself connecting with the characters in this post zombie apocalyptic world. The game is split into Missions, each taking about 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on the length you choose in the options and also the lengths of the songs in your playlist. Each mission is split into chunks of narrative, delivered in the form of radio transmissions, with songs played in between. If you choose 30 minutes you get a radio transmission after every song, 1 hour you get a radio transmission every other song.

When songs are playing between the radio transmissions you gain items which you use once the mission is over. You place the items into various areas of the township (hospital, communications, housing etc.) and these level up as you put more resources into the areas. Some missions are unlocked as you progress naturally through the story, however others can only be unlocked by levelling an area of the township up to a certain level. If you don’t wish to play through old story levels but haven’t levelled up enough to unlock new missions there also supply missions in which you just run and gain items.

The game makes use of pretty much every aspect of the iOS devices and uses them very well. The only problem is because it uses a lot of technology and you also have to keep your device unlocked if you’re playing the game, it does drain battery life quite a bit. You can choose to make use of the accelerometer or the GPS and you can track steps or distance respectively. If you’re running you can turn on Zombie Chases, which is exactly what it sounds like. You hear zombies running after you and you have to pick up the pace to outrun them.

Addictivity - 9/10

The game is quite interesting but honestly if you’re into running or don’t really have time to walk for 30-40 minutes then you won’t find this game any fun at all. I use it whenever I have to go for a long walk and get a mission or two done every week or so but I don’t find myself wanting to go and play it if I don’t have something to do.

Controls - 9/10

The controls are all menu based and are pretty much self explanatory. The controls and options that are a bit more complex have explanations to go with them and everything falls into place quite easily.

Menus - 10/10

The menus are nicely designed and flow well, once you’re all set all you have to do is walk/ run and you don’t even touch the device again until you’re finished with the mission and want to start another or you finish the run. When you finish the narrative part of the story and the missions is over, you get a message through your headphones informing you of the completion and that the game is entering “radio mode”. Radio mode just plays your playlist through and lets you gain items as you run. The main menu is simple and consists of 4 options: missions, supplies, codex and options.

Missions lets you choose a mission it also lets you choose whether you want the music to play, what playlist you want to use, whether you want to use GPS or accelerometer tracking and also if you want zombie chases on or not.

Supplies lets you allocate supplies and is done by simply dragging the supplies from an area at the bottom into the area you want the item to go on the map.

Codex lets you read up more into the background of the story, characters and places mentioned in the game you also have to collect some special mission items during the game and these can be found here. Reading the codex isn’t necessary but it’s nice to have the option to read more into the background and journey deeper from the surface of the story.

Sound - 10/10

As the story and the game progress entirely through sound, this is a very important aspect of the game. I have to say, this has been very well put together. The story is interesting and although you learn some things and really want to know what is going on, that’s not always the case as life goes on and new supplies are needed every day. There also some unexpected plot twists that really move the direction of the story into exciting and compelling areas.

Graphics - 9/10

The graphics aren’t really that important but they’re beautiful anyway. I’ve taken a point away here because they had a nice “slide to run” feature on the home screen which they “had to take out” in a recent update.

Difficulty - 5/10

I had to give this game a low score for difficulty because honestly, IT IS SO SIMPLE! It’s a bit too simple really... there is no real challenge to the game at all, but as I mentioned in the opening paragraph: it’s not really a game. This is more of a story that you listen to whilst running and although it’s interesting and the concept is good, there is no margin for failure, at all. I don’t think it is even possible to fail a mission unless you’re actually running and you can’t escape a zombie chase.

I guess the fact that you have to actually run in the real world and it depends on your athletic ability whether you can do this well or not they can’t actually make it so that you have to run a certain speed or you lose. Instead the zombie chases are done by percentages, run a certain percentage faster than your current pace for a few minutes and you escape. The one bad thing I would have to say about this game is that there is no challenge factor to it at all, which isn’t that bad because it’s not that sort of game.

Learning Curve - 7/10

The game is easy to pick up and just play. If you can walk, you can play this game. Want more of a challenge, run instead. The game is great and doesn’t really pose much of a change in its low difficulty at all over the course of the game. The missions don’t really get much longer as you progress through the game and there’s no real way to make the game harder as it progresses.

Average Score - 8.4/10

Overall Score - 9/10

Although Zombies! Run got low scores for Difficulty and Learning Curve, it's still an amazing game. The price tag is a bit steep and to be honesty the only reason I got this was because it was on sale for £3.99 instead of its usual £5.49. I think if Six To Start were to release a lite version of the game then more people would be willing to give it a go after they'd seen how it was for themselves. The only reason for the game getting low scores for Difficulty and Learning Curve was because it's not that kind of game, it's not really a game at all; more of a fitness tool with game aspects.