 OK, grab your shotgun,
practice your sweep kicks and don
’t forget to refuel your
drill because a hoard of undead soldiers (UDS) are coming your way. Zombie Revenge is the
latest "kill your neighbor because he’s a zombie" release from Sega. Its gore and
ooze dripping undead are straight from House of the Dead with a Dynamite Cop-style
interface. ZR is a flawless port from the arcade version, with several additional perks to
keep the home player’s attention.
 Here
’s the scenario: The government is at it
again with their "invincible soldier" strategy. They have placed a secret team of research scientists in the
bowels of the earth to develop an army of the undead. The special team, appropriately
named GOD, is eventually successful, if you can call it that. The undead disease is
released and quickly turns the population into killer zombies. The zombies are terrorizing
the area and pose a threat to the human race, so it is your job to stop them. Fortunately,
the zombies are not as invincible as the government may have wanted and can be easily
taken out by a few bullets or a couple of stiff kicks to the head.
 You have the choice of playing one of three characters, Stick,
Linda and Rikiya. Stick is a fairly rounded out character with a jump-kick special move.
His parents are his link with GOD and the UDS project. Both were scientists working for
GOD, but were seperated from him when he was very young. Linda is the standard
"supermodel lookalike with a Mr. T. attitude"
found in many games these days. She is slower than Stick, but it is hardly noticible.
Linda’s special move is the popular WWF "Jumping
Pounce." Rikiya is a Japanese funkmaster with crazy hair,
plus he has the power to shoot fire at his enemies.
 The arcade mode for Zombie Revenge is a very slick port -- if you weren’t
sitting on your comfy couch, you wouldn
’t know the
difference. The thing is, the arcade version was made for the arcade where you are pumping
quarters in faster than a zombie can say "Arrrgh." Thus the gameplay at home goes quickly. To counter this, Sega has added a
good number of extras. First of all, there is the Original mode, which is a DC exclusive,
but is only a one player game. You can, however, use this mode to play a character that
you have been raising with the "Zombie Raising Game" for your VMU. To raise a zombie, you need to care for it in a Tamagochi-like
fashon. There are two Mini-Games that you can play to entertain and train your zombie.
Zombie Doubt is a game pattern choosing memory game that gives you the 3 or more symbols
and then gives The Zombie that you raise with your VMU can also be used in the Fighting
mode of the game. Fighting mode pits you player-against-player (or CPU) in a one-on-one
combat scenario.
 Control for the game is fair. You can move your characters around
and aim decently. The response time would be the the one thing that I
’d want to improve on; sometimes I would get myself caught between a bunch of
zombies and couldn’t shoot fast enough to get myself out,
no matter how hard I tried. The different characters are supposed to have different
abilities, but I found that they were for the most part really similar.
 The cinematics between the different areas were great. They didn
’t do much to improve the plot, but they were beautifuly rendered. There are
also other parts in the game that really showed off the graphics power of the dreamcast.
Shadows and lightcasting showed up well and were very realistic, and zombies spewed blood
and guts with some nice splatter. The soundtrack was pretty much run of the mill, nothing
that really made me feel creepy, but it kept the game going.
 Overall, Zombie Revenge was a really fun game. The it took me about 15 or 20
minutes to get used to the controls, so the learning curve is pretty shallow. I was able
to keep myself entertained for quite a while with the different game modes and I
especially liked the VMU games – they are a fun thing to do when you
’re waiting for the bus or watching a late-night infomercial. If you liked the
arcade Zombie Revenge or the Dreamcast Dynamite Cop, you’re
sure to enjoy the home version of Zombie Revenge. I know that after I’m done writing this review I’m going Zombie
Fishing!
--Tim Johnson |
