Twin Blades is about zombies and the nun who hates them. She has to survive 31 days in a zombie-infested town, armed with a scythe and a small arsenal. As the days go on, the zombies get stronger — but so do her weapons.

Gameplay

Twin Blades was originally designed for the button-impaired iPhone, and much of the design carries over in the console version. You’re still limited to two buttons for attack, and they are dead simple. The right trigger shoots and the left trigger swings the scythe. Aside from changing what sidearm you’ve got equipped, and jumping slash, there isn’t much to do.

Zombies claw their way out of the dirt, then amble towards the nun. If they get close, they’ll grab her and gnaw until she shakes them off. Occasionally they lurch forward, swinging their hands or knives or cooking utensils. But overall, they’re pretty easy to avoid. You can jump over their swings or away from their grip, or you can just stay away. These aren’t fast zombies.

You have access to six guns, but you only really need one. The pistol and machine gun are a waste of time. The fire and holy weapons are more useful because they hit every zombie that’s in front of the nun and on the screen with an attack that stuns. The only gun you need is the most powerful, and the most expensive: The holy beam. Using any of the weapons diminishes your energy bar, which has to be filled by using the scythe. So my basic strategy was to use a short beam burst to weaken and stun the zombies in front of me and then finish them off with the scythe.

This strategy is super effective, but has one major failing. It is painfully boring. Holding left while alternating between the right and left triggers isn’t much fun. So I’d take risks, like seeing how long I could go by just using the scythe or trying to gather as many zombies on the screen as I could and killing them with one long beam strike (a lot). Eventually I’d get hit or grabbed and I’d play it safe until I found a health potion. With only two buttons and no combos, the gameplay doesn’t hold up for very long.

This is likely the fault of the Xbox. What worked on the iPhone’s tiny screen doesn’t translate to the bigger screens people hook up to their consoles. On the iPhone, you can only see three or four character widths to the right or left of the nun. On the Xbox, that distance is much larger. So while the art is given more space to breathe, it takes all of the danger out of the game.

When watching a video of the game on an iPhone, I didn’t see many zombies rising out of the ground. They mostly appear self-excavated on the side of the screen. On the Xbox, the opposite is true. They mostly appear as a hand reaching out from the ground, giving you plenty of time to react.

The end result is a game that isn’t much of a challenge, or much fun to play.

Story

There isn’t much here. It’s not clear why the nun keeps running through the same town every day. Nobody seems to live in the town, so I don’t think she’s protecting anyone. And if she’s supposed to be eliminating them, she’s doing a terrible job.

Style

Twin Blade’s gameplay flaws might be forgivable if the game threw a lot of new things at you. Because, as I said above, the art is gorgeous, and I’d play the game just to see what else was animated.

Sure, the game is a bit too heavily influenced by anime perhaps, especially in the sense that many anime emphasize style over substance, but the first thing anybody is going to say about the game is that it looks great. My only complaint in the visual department is that effects are temporary. When I burn a zombie and then cut it up, it would be nice if the zombie bits left behind are a little chared. But that’s a minor issue.

The zombies are pretty diverse. Some wear Hawaiian shirts, others wear pots and pans for defense, and others wield knives. But for all the variety among the zombies, there’s no difference in their attacks. Eventually skeletons show up, but they don’t behave any differently than the zombies.

Press Start and Bulkypix devoted just as much care to the backgrounds as they did to the characters on the screen. The problem here is that they only made three of them. Each day has you running through the same three stages with the same unchanging backgrounds. Again, this is something I’m going to blame on the difference between Xbox and iPhone displays. You see so little of the screen at any one time on the iPhone, that it’s harder to notice that the backgrounds are the same. What I noticed in the first few days might never even be discovered on the iPhone.

Everything Else

As it stands, you can play the 8-minute demo and see just about everything the game has to offer. Press Play are planning to release updates for the game. So far they’ve added additional zombies, but nothing that shakes up the gameplay. The developers are working on an another update:

The update will feature bosses, new environments, a story mode, a mini map to let players chose whichever level suits them best and several NPCs. As we stated previously said update will be free to all of you who have already purchased the game.

Which sounds great. Those things could add a lot that the Xbox version of the game is missing. But right now the game lacks anything to keep me coming back. If the game’s art interests you, and you have the choice of platforms, go with the iPhone.

[DIYgamer was provided with a copy of the game for review purposes. This in no way affected the outcome of the review.]

In Twin Blades, you control a nun with a penchant for zombie gore. To rid the town of zombies, you must survive all 31 days and kill as many zombies as possible; all in manga-style artwork. If you love killing zombies and you think this may be one of your future purchases, check out our iPhone review. The best part of the news is that Press Start Studio promises DLC sometime in the first quarter of 2010. According to the developer, the DLC will be free to those who have already purchased the game but the retail price of the title will be raised.

Twin Blades is now available on the XBOX Live Indie Games channel in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. It universally costs 240 Microsoft Points ($3 in the US). Here’s a taste of what the game looks like on the 360.

[Source: GamesPress]

Bulkypix and Press Start Studio have teamed up to deliver a ruthless zombie-killing experience on the iPhone/iPod Touch with art design resembling the manga/anime style. So the question is, does the game fare up against others that revolve around the familiar zombie-thrashing experience? Well, the answer is kind of complicated so let’s get to it right away.

Gameplay

In Twin Blades, you take control of a nun hell-bent on ridding the town of zombies. At your disposal you have a trusty scythe to knock some heads off the zombies, several guns, and a number of upgrades to help you through the campaign. The game lasts 31 days and after you complete each day you will access the purchase and upgrade screen. Here, you can buy yourself a machine gun or flame thrower; if you own them, then you can upgrade them to become stronger tools in your battle against the undead.

There are a variety of zombies. Some have pots and pans or helmets on their head which will nullify the effects of your weapons, meaning the scythe will be your best bet. Some will grab you and you will have to shake your device, while others will simply hurt you as they get close. Naturally, the game gets tougher as you progress through the days. It’s fun and once you start you will seldom put it down because of the addictive nature of killing zombies.

But the truth is that Twin Blades‘ gameplay is by no means revolutionary. There is nothing fresh nor overtly exciting about it. It rests on the same sidescrolling concepts that the hit Zombieville USA spawned. The manga element is nice, but this is more of a stylistic characteristic rather than one that affects gameplay. In other words, if you’ve played any other sidescrollers on the iPhone/iPod Touch that are of the same vain, then your familiarity will stifle some of the excitement over this title. On the other hand, the game does give you the ability to jump and provides a little more of a distinction with the quickness of the main character. All in all, if you enjoy sidescrolling games then this is right up your alley but you should still be prepared for repetition.

Style

The game is certainly beautiful. The manga/anime style artwork is nothing short of fantastic as the environments and characters (although the zombies look the same for the most part) are very well-detailed and presented. The colors are vibrant and there is no question that style is the best thing about Twin Blades.

Story

I must have missed the story because it seemed like there was none. It was honestly a little mind-numbing to go through each day just killing zombies and upgrading. Perhaps if Press Start had integrated a full-fledged story into the title, it may have been more engaging. Sadly, no such story exists.

Everything Else

The music is fine and it’s always nice to have integration with leaderboards, achievements, and a community, in this case OpenFeint. For $0.99, there’s almost enough in the title but the fact that it’s missing an extensive story and some fresher gameplay elements make Twin Blades suffer. I hope Press Start Studio will take these criticisms and work them out.

It should be noted, I played through the recently updated version which brought some major changes to the title. These changes did slightly improve the title.

[The reviewer obtained a free copy of the game for review purposes.]

With 6 weapons–from machine guns to nukes–to choose from, you’re guaranteed your favorite method of exterminating the 7 types of undead. Track your challenges and high scores locally as you progress through the game. The XBLIG version seems to make certain improvements on the original iPhone title. You can judge for yourself when you view the trailer right here:

Expect the release by Christmas 2009.

[Source: GamesPress]

Here is an overview of the game features:

The game features:
• 6 range weapons ranging from machine gun to explosive nukes.
• Upgradable skills for your character which can be bought and trained.
• Dozens of death animations related to your artillery.
• Different kind of zombies behaviors, shake your device to get rid of grabbers!
• 5 cool musics which will immerse you into the epic slaughter.
• A progressive difficulty which will challenge your dexterity for hours!
• Show the whole world what you’ve achieved and improve your Gamerscore online with Open Feint.

Players will go through–a familiar enemy–herds of zombies and violently slash them up! The game promises a variety of ranged weapons in addition to your powerful scythe. This is looking like a fantastic little Christmas gift (for yourself, of course…otherwise that’s pretty dickish of you to buy an app for Christmas for someone else). Check out this video after the break, it will only reaffirm what I have told you. What a damn great time to own an iPhone/iPod Touch!