Gaming Target - Dreamcast: Zombie Revenge

Written by Thomas Wilde on September 05, 2001

Full Review: Revenge is a dish? I mean a brain, best served cold

Sega does like the undead. As a matter of fact, it likes the undead more than it likes you, as every time the undead show up in a Sega game, it's in a devilishly hard arcade game that is just addictive enough to suck all the quarters out of your pocket. Case in point: Zombie Revenge.

Zombie Revenge is a 3D beat-'em-up, in the same vein as Fighting Force but far, far better. As one of three agents of the "AMS" (you can choose from the fast girl, the strong guy, or the balanced guy, as usual; the only variable here is that the strong guy is the Japanese Shaft and, as such, rules the freakin' Earth), you'll fight countless monsters with your fists, feet, gun, and whatever else happens to be lying around, in an attempt to find out what's caused the living dead to overrun an American city, how to stop it, and what the hell "AMS" stands for.

Zombie Revenge, in the arcades, was a cheap bastard of a quarter-muncher that only gave you one health bar and one life per credit. You'll be ecstatic to know that nothing's changed in the home version. Each credit still only represents one life, and you still take incredible amounts of damage from even minor attacks. Yes, you can hang back and shoot at zombies at a distance, but unless you wait for a target lock, you'll do minor damage to a single zombie, in a game where zombies almost always come at you in groups of three or four.

Granted, ZR has a steep learning curve. As opposed to other beat-'em-ups, which really only required you to build up your thumb muscles until you could hit the basic attack button with blinding speed, ZR has combo attacks, holds, throws, charge attacks, and blocking thrown in. You need a little bit of time and thought to get accommodated to the controls, especially since the hit detection and targeting aren't really all that great. Once you do, though, you'll send zombie parts flying with ease, right up until one of the game's devilishly hard bosses rips into you. (Well, okay. "Devilishly hard" is a misnomer, really; they're tricky at best.)