We’re big fans of exclusive PS3 games here at TSA, so when we recently got the chance to speak with Double Six about their brand new PSN title Burn Zombie Burn!, well, we just couldn’t refuse. Burn Zombie Burn is an old-school shooter with a (probably decaying, rotten) tongue firmly rooted in its cheek. With a distinct visual style and stacks of comedy value, Burn Zombie Burn! could shake up the recently quite stagnant PSN when it launches this Thursday. And yes, that’s a confirmed 26th of March release across Europe, the same day as the US version.

Ollie Barder is the Game Designer on the Burn Zombie Burn! project, and we started by asking him what the inspiration was for the game. “Visually, it was mixture of the zombie film pantheon, though injected with a good sense of humour,” he says, “but functionally the game has quite a few inspirations. We’ve had the game compared to Zombies Ate My Neighbours a lot and whilst it may appear at first glance to be thematically linked, the game is quite different. Fundamentally, Burn Zombie Burn! is an infinite play score chasing arena based shooter. So it’s closer to something like Geometry Wars or Bangai-O in terms of how it plays.”

If this has you panicking that Burn! is just another twin-stick shooter, of which the PSN plays host to plenty already, don’t worry. Ollie confirms that “the left analogue stick moves Bruce but unlike games like Smash TV, the direction Bruce faces is the direction he fires. The reasoning behind this was down to the inclusion of various melee weapons in the game, as well as the usage of fire.” You’ll still get the tight aiming you desire though, because there are two firing modifiers: “a lock-on that attaches itself to the nearest zombie (via L1) and a fixed strafe (via L2). With these aiming toggles the player gets all the precision they’ll ever need.” Bruce? “He likes to use his boomstick on the undead and thinks that chainsaws are pretty groovy.”

And further proof that the guys know what they’re doing, if you needed it, is that DoubleSix also worked on the DS version of Geometry Wars recently. “Geometry Wars: Galaxies was a very different game but the team learned a lot of valuable lessons from it,” says Ollie, “and that helped on how best to approach Burn Zombie Burn!”

The zombies in Burn Zombie Burn emit a certain comical charm, rather than the dry horror-style of Left 4 Dead and other recent zombie games, so why did DoubleSix opt for this route? “Well, everyone here at DoubleSix is very cheerful,” we’re told, “and has a good sense of humour. So the comical bent of the game comes from that really. We like to have a laugh I suppose.” And those zombies number up to 120 at a time, it can get pretty crowded. In terms of visual effects, the team are naturally impressed at what they’ve come up with. “We have a quite a nice shader for the fire effect in game as well, and Burn Zombie Burn! also outputs in 1080p, so it looks rather lovely really.”

Burn Zombie Burn! will ship with 6 levels and 3 modes: Survive the Zombies, Beat the Clock and Protect Daisy, which all offer naturally different game mechanics and plenty of replayability. “It’s an infinite play shooter, so you’re pretty much sorted,” says Ollie. “That said, we also have 10 distinct challenges on top of the three main game modes, as well as splitscreen two player multiplayer. So there’s enough content to keep the most hardened shooter player busy.” Coupled with the 10 weapons, plus the TNT, we couldn’t agree more. But what’s Ollie’s favourite method of zombie destruction? “The chainsaw,” he replies, “as it’s very potent but requires skill to wield properly as it’s quite precise. Like a turbo charged scalpel.”

Burn Zombie Burn! is out this Thursday, and we’ll have the full review very soon.