Zombie Driver Review

There have been a lot of zombie games out recently spanning all different kind of genres. From Left 4 Dead's four-player co-op gameplay to Call of Duty's zombie mini game, it's fair to say that they are the popular choice of enemy for the moment.With so many games out there featuring our brain hungry cannibalistic friends it can be hard to create something that's original and stands out. I think Zombie Driver has managed it though.

Zombie Driver has you playing taxi to several unluckily stranded people out in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. That's all there is for story really, no idea how they got into the city, no idea how to get them out of the city, your general aim is to collect the people that can help you get out of the city whilst making sure you mow down as many of the blood thirsty pests as you can in the process whilst sticking to a time limit. Controls couldn't be easier with W,S,A,D to move and the left click to fire weapons/use boost depending on what you've got equipped at the time.

It's an incredibly simple game but this doesn't stop it from being immensely good fun. There's something rather satisfying about ramming your way into a large crowd of zombies with a bright yellow taxi and watching them explode into many different bloody messy pieces and then driving off smearing their freshly spilled blood into the road with your tyres! The fun doesn't stop there - over the course of the game you are given bigger, more imposing cars to aid you in your death spree. By fulfilling the objectives of the story mode i.e. - pick up 4 sailors and bring them back to base you earn money.

Any normal cabbie would head down to their local garage, buy a sandwich, a pack of sweets and a newspaper with their earnings whereas you, however, get to go shopping for more exciting essentials. Machine guns and flame throwers and many more objects of doom to be precise. You are also able to upgrade your cars speed with turbo boost, reinforce the cars defence against attacks and make it more lethal when you hit large groups of zombies. Larger rewards await you the further into the game and the more missions you do.

Upgrading really is useful - throughout the story you encounter different types of zombie. There's zombie dogs which are quick on their feet, Left 4 Dead Boomer style zombies that put a fair size dent in your car when you hit them and they blow up, strong zombies that take a couple of times running them over and reversing on them to truly finish the job and your normal common garden variety of zombie which are relatively weak but come out you in their dozens. All of these have their own strengths and weaknesses so upgrading your car accordingly is essential. You can kill most things with a standard car but you'll be looking for health power-ups a lot more often which is something you don't really have time for especially on the timed missions.

The game is played from a top down perspective. Think along the lines of the old school Grand Theft Auto titles and that's how it looks only updated. It looks very nice and the top down view is very helpful in making the game easier and faster paced to play. You can see exactly what is lying ahead of you and makes everything a lot more fluid. Graphically, it's simple but good, nothing ground breaking here but they do the job well.

That's it really for the story mode, it can be a bit repetitive sometimes but most of the time you're having too much fun knocking down as many foes as possible to even realise.

Along with the story game there is Slaughter mode. This is a game of survivability; you have to kill zombies as they come at you in waves. Every wave that you kill increases your score. In-between each wave you can replenish your health and pick up power-up weapons and boosts. Things soon get manic with literally hundreds of zombies coming at you. The aim of the game is to last as long as possible and out do any friends you have that play. This mode comes with scoreboards so gloating at your friends when you overtake them is very satisfying! Interestingly it also has a news feed straight to Facebook and Twitter if you're particularly proud of your score and want to tell everybody.

This may not sound like a huge amount for your money right? Would you still say that if you knew the price at the moment on Steam is £6.99/$9.99/€8.99? It's fantastic value for money as there's a whole lot of fun to be had with this game, and it has a strangely addictive quality to it. If you're looking for something fun and easy to fill a spare half hour with, or you just have a thing against zombies and want to kill as many as possible, then this is most definitely a game for you.