A lazy Sunday well spent
The majority of the gameplay consists of earning the highest score possible while facing an endless swarm of zombies. What makes the game unique in its approach to this is implied within its title. In addition to shooting zombies on site, players also have the option of setting them on fire with a torch (infinate and initially equipped) or flamethrower (upgrade) which acts as a score multipler. All points earn for killing zombies is multiplied by the number of zombies that are currently set ablazed. The catch is that, consequencely the burning zombies will eventually burn to a crisp and/or the more burning zombies someone kills they earn more points than they're usually worth however the score multipler decreases. This is kind of balanced out by simply targeting non-burning zombies while possibly hundreds are on fire...regardless, this strategy is limited since the burning zombies chase you all over the screen and set each other on fire upon contact. There is a good variety of zombie types as well: Normal, Dancing, Crazy, Exploding, Armored, Giant (that ground pounds and blows fire out of its @ss), and most annoying of all Charging and Radioactive. Exploding zombies can either be your best friend or worst enemy depending on how fast you are. Remember that thing that I just said about burning zombies being worth more points? Well, so are Exploding zombies. Hypathetically, lets say you have 80 burning zombies chasing you and an exploding zombie in you all's path. If you're fast enough, you can kill the exploding zombie (ideally from a long range gunshot) along with at least half of those burning zombies...earning you a massive amount of points. That's not even mentioning if you chain the explosion with another exploding zombie or your own explosive. However, if you're not fast enough to do so, the zombies will still explode upon contact with the exploding zombie but you won't be rewarded any points.
Charging zombies take the appearance of undead football players and have the annoying ability to seemly attack you out of nowhere and are relentless if their pursuit. Just one charging zombie can charge at you from one end of the level to the other and simply swerving doesn't help much. It usually takes the use of an automatic weapon or hiding behind an inanimate object to stop them. That's just the stress of dealing with one...now imagine a screen full of these guys...even worse burning! Then we have the good ole' radioactive zombie. These guys are dangerous for several reasons: You cannot set them on fire, they do twice the damage as other zombies, they have twice the defense, will harm you in most cases if melee attacked, and make all other zombies it comes into contact will radioactive as well. Fortunately, the only inherited attribute other zombies get from these guys if contact is made is extra attack power. However...imagine a bunch of radioactive charging zombies? Yeah, its not a pretty sight. The majority of the game's challenge stems from how these zombie types fit into different level layouts. For example, charging zombies can be at their worst in the more open environments where a bunch of fast moving crazy and dancing zombies can be a hazard if too many are on fire in a closed in space.
BZB gives players a pretty large arsenal of guns, explosives, and melee weapons to meet most challenges. In addition, speed and explosive upgrades can be collected periodically from kill hordes of burning zombies as health, more explosives, and ammo can be from non-burning zombies. Though you start out with a mere revolver, more weapons periodically spawn in the level usually the longer the player survives or to meet the demand of killing whatever zombie type dominates the current wave that has spawned. Personally, my favorite weapon was the lawnmower! It may sound weird to most but Peter Jackson/Dead Alive fans will definately appreaciate the reference. There are several different game modes, all with high scores and rewards: Free Play, Timed, Protect Daisy, and Survival. Free Play...play until you die, Timed...achieve the high score within a certain time limit (time upgrades given from buring zombies), Protect Daisy...protect your girlfriend and car until you or her die, and Survival...see how long you can survive with zombies moving and spawning twice the rate they usually do. Then you have Challenge mode which takes these other modes and throws some zanny spin to it. They're not much harder than the regular gameplay though. The reward system for all of these modes in the game is your basic "bronze, sliver, and gold" type. However, while bronze medals just unlock that game mode for the next level, Silver and Gold medal collecting lead to extra game content. This includes different viewing types, game art, and characters. An in-game training mode does an excellent job of making the learning curve for all of this really shallow.
Visually, BZB passes but I've seen better even when the art direction was meant to be as simple as it is in this game. Sound wise, the game did a great job at mixing the kind of gross side effects you would expect to here when killing a bunch of undead and old school arcade like chimes. The music sounded something straight out of a B-Movie which is what I think the developers where going for.
My Breakdown:
What's Good:
- Offers a variety of game modes
- The challenges were pretty fun
- Varying zombie types and level layouts require strategy to overcome
- A good amound of gun and melee weapon types to zombie hunt with
- The sound effects and music do a good job at bringing out the game's personality
What's Not-So-Good:
- Charging and Radioactive zombies can get really annoying at times
- The visuals could have been better
- No backstory is ever given
- The rewards for silver and gold medals aren't worth the work needed to get them
What's Bad:
- The game can get really repeatitive at times
- No online co-op or competition
In all, BZB is a great budget title to just kill some time (and zombies) and have fun with. As long as too much isn't expected from it, it can be enjoyed by most.