I, Zombie

Another one from my Halloween sale splurge, I, Zombie is the next Xbox One game selected at random for playing. It was during playing this that I started questioning whether I would actually put the time in to finishing Outlast which I must get done soon. I am starting to run out of easy games too but reducing the amount of unplayed games in my collection is going well this month.

I, Zombie is a strategy puzzle game where you have to control a zombie and turn all of the other people in the level into zombies. This is done by walking into them but made complicated by some of them having guns and the ability to see you from a set range. Which is quite far. There are also turrets on some of the later levels which can kill you, adding to the zombie dangers you face.

Most levels award stars for completion based on how many zombies survive when you complete the level. This is main aspect of the game. You control your zombie by using the analogue stick and you can give instructions to your other zombies by using button commands. They can either stand still, follow you or attack enemies. All zombies you have made will follow the commands all at once – you cannot give commands to individual zombies. This removes a large amount of complexity from the puzzles but will also have you screaming bloody murder when the zombies commit mass suicide when you accidentally press the wrong button.

I didn’t play the game for very long but musically, it’s incredibly annoying even without a prolonged play time. I actually had to mute it at one point. It’s plinky-plunky and repetitive – not easy on the ears.

The levels themselves are well done although I kept getting caught on edges which usually led to my death. That’s probably more my bad than the games though. It’s a Steam port but for some reason the levels are slightly different on the Xbox version. They aren’t greatly different though.

Achievements – 1,000 Points – 12 Achievements

Achievements wise you basically have to get three stars in every level to get 10 of them, including the miscellaneous ones for dying and turning guys into zombies. Technically you could go through the whole game without dying or losing a zombie but this is so unlikely that it’s not worth considering those two achievements as ‘extra work.’

There are 30 levels in the game with a total of 90 stars to collect. Once you’ve done this there are two speed run achievements, one for doing the first 20 levels in under 15 minutes and another for doing the last ten in under 8 minutes.

This is where the Steam differences come in to play, I used a video to try and speed up some of my level times but some of the levels were different and I couldn’t copy exactly what the other guy was doing. One of the later levels, the guy goes up a narrow path between a wall and a house but this path is not present on the Xbox version. It’s not a big a deal as you can still get decent enough times through trial and error and while they may seem daunting, they aren’t actually that hard.

Downloadable Content – N/A

I, Zombie offers a few hours of frustrating puzzling fun that’s easy enough to get to the end but offers additional challenge via speed runs and maximum stars. It’s pretty good value too and a good game to add to the achievement hunter’s collection.