As a gamer and avid movie fan, I’m a huge fan of zombies. I’m also not one of those people who believe that the zombie is being over saturated in today’s market. If anything, I don’t believe they are used enough! Despite that, however, even I can see when a zombie game/movie isn’t really deserving of zombies.

Protect Zoey from the Zombies is just such a game that, really, isn’t doing the zombie any favors by existing. I’m not necessarily calling it a bad game, as I don’t really believe it is. It’s certainly not a great game either, but there is some mild fun to be had here. Still though, by simply attempting to capitalize off the zombie “brand” I can see a game like this doing more harm than good.

But allow me to explain it a little bit and then you can decide for yourself. Protect Zoey from the Zombies is a fairly simple game (as most XBLIG titles are). There is a wave of zombies heading towards you, slowly, and you must use your weapons to kill them before they reach the end of the screen. You get exactly four chances before you’re dead and must restart.

The game features multiple weapons (not all of which I was able to test) although at the beginning of the game you simply start off with a pistol. From there, as you kill more zombies, you can purchase bigger and better guns to help stop the ever increasing horde of zombies coming at you. But trigger happy gamers be warned. Each gun comes with a finite amount of ammo and should you run out you’re shit out of luck. Additionally, better guns and ammo for those guns aren’t cheap. It can take quite a few waves of zombies to earn enough cash to move on to the next weapon, especially when you factor in all the extra ammo you’ll need to purchase.

As I mentioned above, Protect Zoey from the Zombies, really doesn’t do the zombie any favors. It’s graphics are kind of lackluster and it really fails to leave a memorable impression, despite not being a terrible game. Ultimately I just don’t believe zombie lovers are going to take to this game in a way that they took to PopCap’s famous Plants vs. Zombies which has a similar concept but with far more character.

Protect Zoey from the Zombies is available right now on the Xbox Live Indie Games channel for 80 MS points.

[This is not a review. This is a "first impressions piece based on less than an hour of gameplay.]

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