Review: Burn Zombie Burn!

A game containing zombies, chainsaws and lots and lots of bullets? Sounds like a winner.
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Article written by nofi in PS3 Reviews, on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 at 8:00.

Everybody loves killing zombies. Whether it’s in the first person like Left 4 Dead, third person a la Resident Evil, or top down as with Burn Zombie Burn! there’s something about their mass pack mentality that ensures a massive smile whenever your baseball bat meets their heads. Perhaps it’s because we don’t see these poor, brainless drones as humans or whether it’s just a simple survival instinct kicking in because we’re often surrounded by dozens of them at once.

It’s this mass horde attitude that plays off so well with Burn Zombie Burn! as your character, Bruce, is constantly outnumbered by more of the undead than we’ve ever seen in a videogame. Not only that but the basic AI employed by these zombies is actually more scary than if they actually had anything other than a lemming-like “follow follow”, especially when the screen is filled with a hundred of the little buggers. It might seen like an oxymoron, but the dumber zombies are the better the game. We’ll tell you why.

Burn Zombie Burn! isn’t just about dispatching these sad but aggressive beings with clips full of bullets: it’s cunningly technical and whilst yes you’ll manage to get through the game bluffing it, for the high scores and the in the zone feeling that you’re playing it the way it’s meant to be played you’ll need deft dexterity and the ability to quickly think on your feet. It’s all about the combos and the clever, titular Burn! mechanic.

Simply put, dead zombies drop pickups. These pickups can be significantly more powerful if said zombies were burnt alive instead of just shot, sliced or beaten – Bruce can switch between whatever main weapon he has (be that a shotgun, a baseball bat or a submachine gun, for example) and his trusty stick of burning wood. Touch a zombie with your torch out, so to speak, and they’ll instantly ignite, and any neighbouring undead will also begin to burn, like a particular nasty virus.

Once alight the pickings become richer, leading to TNT and other massively destructive items that can hugely influence your eventual score. Burning zombies, however, are faster and more deadlier and thus the game instinctively requires you to manage the danger levels against the possible rewards. Other mechanics come into play, such as specific weapon combos requiring you to not swap out your gun should you run out of ammo, and these all run in parallel with each other transferring an otherwise basic set of game rules into something much more complex.

This doesn’t ever get in the way of the action, though, which is relentless. Throughout the game’s modes (which we covered in our interview) the zombies come thick and fast and although Burn Zombie Burn! isn’t a twin stick shooter in the strictest sense of the word, with the lock-on button pressed and held in you can almost play it like one if you so desire. DoubleSix wanted you to look at this game as more of an old school 16-bit style shooter though, with the character firing forwards at all times, so work through the tutorial slowly and take in everything the game has to offer and the controls will become second nature quickly enough. Just don’t go and play Stardust straight after.

Visually it’s actually quite nice. The environments are spooky and play up to the obvious clichés, as do the characters and even the weapons, but they’re solid and smooth enough to impress in HD and despite the game engine managing to throw around 120 zombies at once at 1080p the frame rate holds up perfectly. The sound is also exactly as you’d expect, cheesy but good humoured music complimented by a raft of moans and groans peppered with the crack from your machine gun is all we could have wished for. The game also offers a split screen multiplayer which is great fun.

So, another quality PSN title just perfect for those afternoons when all you want to do is take our your anger on a pack of hungry zombies. Burn Zombie Burn! is well produced, smartly priced, great fun and a nice addition to anyone’s XMB. The various score challenges will keep you coming back for more, there’s a decent smattering of Trophies and you can feel good about yourself because you’ve supported yet another PS3 exclusive game. Good on you.

8/10

Comments

Please note that all comments are the opinion of the individual author and not TheSixthAxis.

  1. Pixl1983 | 21/04/2009 09:14
    Member
    439 TSA Points | Member since: Forever

    I was contemplating picking this up. I decided to get Rag Doll Kung Fu with my self imposed PSN allowance instead. Maybe if they stop churning out good games I’ll pick it up in the future.


  2. hannes_truce | 21/04/2009 09:15
    Member
    2808 TSA Points | Member since: Sep 2008

    totally agree with the review, brilliant game, wicked fun. well worth the money :-D


  3. cc_star | 21/04/2009 09:37
    Team TSA: Writer
    5868 TSA Points | Member since: Forever

    Talking of 16 bit games, it reminds me of Smash TV, I loved that so may need to pick this up


  4. 3shirts | 21/04/2009 09:53
    Member
    1789 TSA Points | Member since: Aug 2008

    “Touch a zombie with your torch out” Made me giggle :)

    I wasn’t sure about this but maybe after that review I’ll grab it, how much is it?


    • hannes_truce | 21/04/2009 10:34
      Member
      2808 TSA Points | Member since: Sep 2008

      six pounds something. worth every penny :-)


  5. Tuffcub | 21/04/2009 09:55
    Team TSA: Writer
    3446 TSA Points | Member since: Dec 2008

    Bought it, played it for half an hour.. wont ever again. Terribly dull.


  6. ADPolicenaut | 21/04/2009 10:05
    Member
    79 TSA Points | Member since: Nov 2008

    Burn Zombie Burn is fantastic, it reminds me of games on the Amiga. What brought a smile to my face was seeing that the saving game icon was in fact a floppy disk, that was marvellous to see. I like doublesix, I think they’ve got an old school Team17-esque quality to them and would love to see what else they can come up with, it’s a worthwhile collaboration with Sony.


  7. xvLIAMvx | 21/04/2009 11:04
    Member
    481 TSA Points | Member since: Dec 2008

    I got this as I’m a sucker for zombie games. Really enjoying it. Just a shame there’s no online co-op! Still, plenty more Zombie games on their way with co-op.

    PSN really is giving us some great stuff recently.


  8. crestfaller | 21/04/2009 14:06
    Member
    53 TSA Points | Member since: Apr 2009

    @Tuffcub: I’m kind of with you on this one.

    If it had online multiplayer I’d be more interested in picking it up again, but I got bored sitting there alone annihilating zombies.

    That’s not to say the game is bad – just not my style. I prefer online zombie bashing.


  9. Rob92 | 21/04/2009 16:09
    Member
    1230 TSA Points | Member since: Dec 2008

    I enjoyed it but it takes too long to get too a medal. I only get bronze and well thats difficult enough as it is.

    They should reduce the difficulty to maximise the fun :P


  10. funkyellowmonkey(ps3 id) | 21/04/2009 17:15
    Member
    285 TSA Points | Member since: Forever

    Yep, Smash TV with a load of zombie zest! :p :)


  11. Mr-Flame-Head | 21/04/2009 18:14
    Member
    231 TSA Points | Member since: Mar 2009

    i bought burn zombie burn when it first came out, and recently whilst browsing tinterweb came across the trailer for zombie apocalypse (from konami) which is very similar game except its not a light hearted aproach to zombies so im also now looking forward to that one now.


  12. yogh_wayne | 21/04/2009 21:27
    Member
    2718 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2008

    Hmm… a fun game with zombies, flamethrowers and lot’s of bullets… Well, that means it’s not available in Germany of course. What a surprise. Maybe the censored German version will be released sometime, in which you can have a tea party with the zombies and offer them sugar cubes until they become diabetic.


  13. Lorcan | 21/04/2009 21:47
    Team TSA: Writer
    1132 TSA Points | Member since: Oct 2008

    I would agree with this!
    Im not that far with Single player though because I just spend all my time doing co-op with anyone that’s over!



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