Zombies & Me Review

By Tom Bramwell Published 29 July, 2009

EA attacks the 59p App Store market.

Version tested: iPhone

The iTunes App Store may be big business, but big businesses haven't always been its biggest success stories. EA has pumped out a good few scaled-down versions of games like Need for Speed and Spore, but it is former EA man Neil Young whose ngmoco start-up is more widely celebrated, while the tiny likes of Firemint are winning plaudits for their technology, and particularly advances made with the new iPhone 3GS. Meanwhile, games like Mass Effect Galaxy get kicked in the face for trying (among other things).

But if there's one thing you can say about EA under silver-haired John Riccitiello (apart from "Did you say a billion dollar loss?") it's that it does things a bit differently, and so, in self-consciously hip fashion, the publisher has given birth to splinter studio 8lb Gorilla, whose job it is to pump out 59p iPhone games at the rate of one a month. The first is called Zombies & Me. Is it proof that EA's figured out this iPhone games lark?

'Zombies & Me' Screenshot 1

The game's music is organs-and-wailing fair, but you can switch to an iPod soundtrack instead, which is a nice touch.

It's a good enough concept, certainly. You're a little man running around defending grandma's house from a zombie invasion, the goal being to take as many of the undead with you as possible. You do this by luring them into the path of incoming army missiles, which land on targets that appear at random spots dotted around the play area. Each circular target lingers for three seconds - the countdown illustrated by the shrinking of the highlighted area within - and zombies are helpful enough to pause in the danger zone if you lead them directly across it. This is particularly handy because, while they may resemble balding septuagenarians covered in Saturday morning TV gunge, they actually hustle around quickly.

Control is simple: drag your finger across the screen and your little man follows. There's a pause button in the top-right. That's it. Survival is a matter of canny movement. Obviously you need to avoid being blown up by the missiles, and it's preferable not to be eaten by zombies, who can quickly overwhelm you as they swarm in greater volume. You can tap the screen rapidly or shake the iPhone to fight your way clear, but if this happens too often you're torn apart. But the main threat to your kill counter is grandma's well-being, indicated by a grandma bar at the foot of the screen, which gradually diminishes as the zombies assault her house.

You can arrest this decline by circling back to the house at regular intervals, whereupon any swarming zombies immediately divert their attention to you, and give chase. And so you circle the house, car, occasional tree or boulder, trying to coordinate your path-finding to drag as many zombies onto targets as possible. At some stage something gives, and it's Game Over, at which point you're shown a breakdown of your score - zombies killed, time played, and so on.

You're no doubt hoping, as I was, to discover that this score is then uploaded to some sort of online clearinghouse for zombie slaughter - for integration with social networks, at the very least. But integration there is none. Perhaps some other levels, then? Nope, nothing. The above is entirely it. It's hard to imagine that a few different level layouts, or traps, or other extras would have added a great deal of development time to the deliberately short cycle, but there you go. The only way the game reaches beyond the borders of grandma's plot is to access an online coverflow shopfront for EA's other iPhone games.

'Zombies & Me' Screenshot 2

There are tap and hold control alternatives, and your vision isn't terribly obscured by your finger's constant presence.

As for what's here, it's diverting enough for 10 minutes, but those hoping for a kind of Geometry Wars 2 Pacifism or King pretender will be disappointed, as the finger-dragging control system, swarming AI and split health systems don't come across that way. You dodge for a bit, and then come unstuck, but there's little in the way of nuance, or variation in pace, and in the absence of anything else to aim for there's nothing to draw you back in once you come unstuck.

In other words, no, 8lb Gorilla's first game doesn't suggest EA has learned its way around the App Store yet. 59p is a tiny amount of money to spend on a game, but expectations are higher than this, thanks to games like DrawRace from RedLynx, which aims for the same one-more-go segment but also includes multiple stages and national and global online leaderboards. The bigger shame though is that there's a good bit of potential in Zombies & Me, and the 8lb Gorilla concept. If it's to work in the long term, however, EA will need to pay more attention to what successful App Store companies are doing - ngmoco's Plus+ system and customer loyalty built through quality freebies - rather than obsessing over the 59p price.

4 / 10

Read the Eurogamer.net scoring policy
Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (30) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • JohnnyWashnGo #1 3 years ago

    If the iPhone becomes a widely accepted gaming device, which is pretty far away given most people buy it for the phone and not the games, then this situation will become much more prevalent. Companies creating poor games, quickly, for profit is nothing new. The Wii, DS and PS2 are recent examples of this.

    That being said, you get what you pay for and if you pay pennies, expect the game to be dire.

  • UncleLou #2 3 years ago

    If the iPhone becomes a widely accepted gaming device, which is pretty far away given most people buy it for the phone and not the games,

    Far away? I'd argue it already is. It doesn't really matter if people bought it as a phone mainly (or as a music player, when it comes to the Touch), as long as they also buy games. Which they seem to do in droves.

    That being said, you get what you pay for and if you pay pennies, expect the game to be dire.

    Well, not really. Some of the best games on the Appstore cost pennies.

  • dominalien #3 3 years ago

    If they are given 1 month to make each game, it may happen that they will come up with good concepts, but be unable to develop them enough for the game to be well fleshed out.
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 08:35

  • siro #4 3 years ago

    Hmm, many downloadable games available on "real" consoles get a roundup once in a blue moon, while a 59p ipod game gets a two-pager? Doesn't make much sense, as the numbers of games on consoles are (still) very much limited, while the app store has an abundance of titles every day. Roundups would be much more appreciated for those.
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 08:41

  • SEVQA #5 3 years ago

    When is Eurogamer going to review the Iphone light saber or the sonic grenade for dogs, I also herd the spirit level is quite fun.

  • Eraser #6 3 years ago

    It's a first. Better, more interesting title may come with experience. And it's 59p. Geometry wars costs you 800 (or is that 1200?) MS Points.

  • mingster #7 3 years ago

    im sorry but why waste time reviewing a 59p 4/10 game?

    You could have for instance reviewed "Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman" from the PSN store for PSP instead.
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 08:59

  • UncleLou #8 3 years ago

    But what if that's a 4/10 too? Nobody knows before it's been reviewed. :)

  • mingster #9 3 years ago

    are good point lou.. hadn't thought of that.
    (It isn't though more like your average 7)
    The Japanese sequel is even better and a high 8.

  • robg #10 3 years ago

    @MrED209

    Quite possibly, but the experience of making it has nothing to do with the odd EG choice of reviewing it.

  • TheBoyChris #11 3 years ago

    1 game a month doesn't necessarily mean a 1 month dev cycle - but the first few games are going to have short dev cycles... I imagine they'll start getting more features and content into games once they get into their flow :)

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #12 3 years ago

    The iPhone has become my primary gaming platform for the fact that it's always on me, is quick to load, doesn't involve cartridges and I can download new titles pretty much anywhere.

    Like any platform there's bags of dross out there but if you read reviews on sites such as this, Touch Arcade, Slide To Play, IGN Wireless and use youtube etc then you can sift through that and find many real gems. I've got at 2 pages of games and all are engaging, fun and well designed.

  • UncleLou #13 3 years ago

    @MrED209

    Quite possibly, but the experience of making it has nothing to do with the odd EG choice of reviewing it.

    I don't get how this is "odd". It's not like there's release after release on more relevant platforms at the moment. If anything, EG should review more stuff like this, not less.

    Personally speaking, iPhone reviews are of a lot more relevance to me than, say, DS ones these days, anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 11:19

  • Kikizosan #14 3 years ago

    I wouldn't mind seeing Plants vs Zombies or FunOrb's Zombie Dawn on the App Store - you can never have too many zombie-based games. :)

  • rhubarbandcustard #15 3 years ago

    Bought this, played this, enjoyed this.

    4 out of 10. Tom Bramwell - you are an ass.

    For 59p, this is a brilliant little game that is offers perfectly fine arcade action.

  • riz23 #16 3 years ago

    Yes, we want more iPhone reviews. And when a major player like EA makes a bold step like 8lb Gorilla it merits looking at their first offering. Carry on EG!

  • GamesConnoisseur #17 3 years ago

    I got iPhone for a month now, of course it is primarily a phone and web browsing device, an excellent one in my opinion at that and yet I do play more and more games on iPhone. Yes lots of dross but like others said you only need to sensibly use reviewers such as drumroll..... EG... to sift out dross and gems.

    Already quite a few of good to great games, I even got into mini mmo lark when I never got taken to it on 'proper' gaming machines. Dont be quick to dismiss it as the viable platform for games at a very reasonable price point. iPhone market is growing and encompass all type of genres and types, references, self help, business utility and so on. If the game market there drives the prices down elsewhere and encourage more small devs to get into the gaming business how it is bad for us?

    Sure the danger is if the hardcore market is at the expense but I dont believe that as there are market for everyone and a stepping stone for budding gamers and devs to get to the real deal.

    iPhone equal best purchase I made for a long while, sure not just worthwhile if ONLY as a gaming machine! Thats daft!

  • orakio #18 3 years ago

    Due to a law that says cell phones can't be sold with a SIMlock in place, us poor fellows in Belgium rarely buy the iPhone. 450 euros for a 3g (cheapest version) is a bit much for a handheld device.

  • Henrik_se #19 3 years ago

    @orakio: That's what it actually costs elsewhere as well, it's just hidden in the subscription fees...

  • Pac-man-ate-my-wife #20 3 years ago

    @ Henrik_se

    Because all other smartphones are given out free in Corn Flake packets, aren't they?

  • Artemus #21 3 years ago

    Space Invaders Infinity Gene review please!

  • stephen #22 3 years ago

    orakio, why not just get a much cheaper ipod touch then? It'll play all the iPhone games and you can even do the online bits with wifi on it.

  • Emth #23 3 years ago

    One of the best things about the iPhone is the peer review system. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see the rubbish that fills the game charts these days do so well if there were loads of negative reviews about them at the point of sale.

    Thankfully the app store provides such reviews, and while you often see ridiculous fart or iInsertIdioticAppHere do well on the app store, you rarely see bad games do well - at least not consistently. I feel safe I can look at the itunes top 10 games and be interested in at least 50% of them, where as the wider video game charts are often full of games most eurogamer readers have never even heard of and certainly wouldn't consider buying.

    While this sadly doesn't always mean the best games will always rise to the top, it does mean that often the worst ones will sink down the charts pretty quickly.

  • poopmonster #24 3 years ago

    Good review and very astute closing comments.

    App Store gamers know the score; there's lots of choice if you dig for it, and some of it is excellent.

    59p/99c is good for indys for a reason: They can live off lots of cheap sales.
    Edited by 1 at 29/07/09 @ 16:29

  • smelly #25 3 years ago

    YAY!! .. Erm.,.. ANOTHER... erm... zombie game.

    erm.. yay!

  • Alkeno #26 3 years ago

    I appreciate EA's effort to dedicate a small studio to the App Store, but it should be very small and have a minimum overhead in order to have any kind of profit in the 59p range.

    I don't like this kind of studio (relatively small, belonging to a big name) stepping into the cheap game arena, it has the potential to be bad for everyone:
    - Small indie developers will perish as they won't be able to compete agains this kind of EA assault. Take this game, Zombie & Me, it is already known by the community! It is a bad 4/10 game... still it is already in everyone's RSS feeds and on Eurogamer's main page! Only very lucky guys (such as Jonathan Blow from Braid) will make the cut in such a competitive scenario.
    - Most of these small spin-off companies will be shut down as they are not likely to be profitable. They have to play Apple 1/3 for each sale, they have to pay taxes... how many games do they need to sell? Consistently over 50.000 units a month surely... So after they have crashed the indie developers, they will shut down leaving the market collapsed with monthly 4/10 games.

    Anyone has another take? Would be glad to hear from it!

  • mingster #27 3 years ago

    I still don't see the point of reviewing a 59p game.
    Its cheaper than a can of coke same price as a bar of chocolate.
    If they brought out a new chocolate or drink would you need to read a review of it first before you decided to buy one?
    Course you wouldn't.
    Thats the same with this price range of games .. impulse buy .. no regrets .. if you don't like it so what it doesnt matter.
    Its not like butting down £30-£45 on a new game then you need to make an informed decision..
    for 58p i'm sorry but if you worry about that then i can't see how you afforded an iphone at all.

  • UncleLou #28 3 years ago

    Hm. Have you ever been to the appstore? If you were to try every game that costs 59p on there, you'll end up being a very poor man. I really don't get why it troubles you that these games get reviewed. At all.

  • mingster #29 3 years ago

    Then just tell us about the good 59p games that are worth getting then.

  • mingster #30 3 years ago

    No i still agree that shit full price games should be reviewed so you know whether to save your money or not.
    I also like Ellie's reviews of rubbish games i find them amusing.
    I think it just freaked me out this review as it was 4/10 on the 2nd page and i skipped to the end without reading expecting a high score.
    Then read the review thinking wtf its 59p why did you just review this.
    The only reason it got a review is because its from a high profile Dev Studio.