Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys
Score: 74% ESRB: Everyone 10+ Publisher: Ignition Entertainment USA Developer: Inlight Entertainment Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 Genre: Action/ Adventure
Graphics & Sound: Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys is a new game with an interesting concept for gameplay. Instead of having one character to work through places, you have three different ones, each with their own skills. You'll have to learn how to master all the zombies to save the world from the Brain Thingys. Teenage Zombies is as comical as the name sounds. All the cut scenes are done in comic book style, complete with a narrator who sounds like he's straight out of the original Batman series. The sounds are quite amusing as well. I especially like the zombie talking as you assemble him. As entertaining and bright as the narration is, the graphics are quite the opposite. The characters are very simple in appearance. They did at least make all the zombies look different. Lori "Lefty" Lopez is the most zombie-like in that she does the normal zombie shuffle to move. Zack "Half-Pipe" Boyd is also zombie-like, since he is missing the lower half of his body. Luckily he can use his skate board to move around. Finnigan "Fins" Magee has a very interesting look. He has tentacles on his back. There is very little in the way of color in the game. It's mostly dull browns and greys. The levels too are quite dull in appearance. I know they're supposed to be different locations, but for the most part, you just feel like you're wandering around the same tunnels and hallways over and over again. There's really not much graphically that distinguishes one area from another.
Gameplay: I would say that the gameplay is where Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys is the most lacking. When you start a new game, you'll get a really cute comic about how the world ended up in the position that the zombies have to save them. After that, you start playing with your zombies. Basically, you move them around through the levels trying to get from the start to the finish, killing enemies on the way. Since the paths tend to be blocked or are missing pieces, you have to use the talents of each zombie to get by. Lefty can extend her arms to reach high ledges. Half-Pipe can easily duck under and skate through small tunnels, and Fins can use his tentacles to climb various ways. Your enemies consist of rats and flying brains at the beginning. Later on, you do get a break from rats and move up to crocodiles and humans, but the brains are always there. Each zombie has three specific powerups meant only for them. Lefty picks up the rivet gun, which looks like a huge syringe. It basically works like a gun. She also picks up an umbrella that can be used to float and a vacuum that can suck up things and spit them back out. Fins eats vomit. Well it's really supposed to be garbage, but it looks just like vomit. He can then vomit it back up to dissolve any obstacle in his way, or burn them, or if he eats the soap, he spits up bubbles. Half-Pipe picks up a wheel. To me is was the most useful powerup at times, since it just lets him roll over anything without getting hurt. If you switch zombies, you will lose your powerup. He also gets a spray can to make him go really fast and a hover disc to turn his skateboard into a hover board. When you read this, it sounds like an exciting game. Really though, it just moves too slowly and the characters are too dull to really hold your attention for long. There are a few amusing things, like the body parts. You collect body parts as you wander around. If your health is low, you can assemble the parts to raise you back to full health. As you're assembling them, the zombie that you're assembling heckles you. But it's just not funny enough to make the rest of the main game better. There are also mini-games that you get to play at the end of the chapters, some of which were enjoyable.
Difficulty: Teenage Zombies is not a very hard game to play. Especially at the beginning, it's quite easy to figure out where to go. Most of the time it's very obvious which zombie's skills you need to use to get there. The enemies don't really pose much of a problem. Even if you get hit by them, when you eat the brains it will refuel your health and cancel out the hit. As you go further in the game, it does get progressively harder. It's still not very difficult, but it might take you a few minutes to figure out what to do and which zombie to do it with. There are two difficulty levels, and you can change back and forth between them in the middle of your game. They don't change the difficulty of the route through the level, though. Really, all it does is add some more enemies for you, which means more brains to eat. You can't save your game in the middle of the level, even if you've just passed a lot of enemies and don't want to have to go through it again if you happen to kill your zombie. The game will autosave at the end of each chapter. Yes, you can actually kill the already dead zombie. If you die, you just start the level over. You can die as much as you want without any punishment other than starting over.
Game Mechanics: Game mechanics are very easy to use. The touch screen is used to swap between the zombies and to play the mini-games. The character switching is flawless. No matter where you leave the last zombie sitting, the one you touch will swap to the exact same place without ever falling off a ledge or down a hole or off the screen. This is really good because sometimes you have to get these zombies in the exact right place and then switch to a different one without falling. The switch is also instant, so if you're looking to finish the level as quick as possible, you won't lose any time in the switch. To switch zombies, you can either touch the one you want to switch to or use the (L) and (R) buttons to cycle through them. Pressing left and right on the D-pad will move you forward and backward. Pressing up with raise the camera so you can possibly see more of what is above you. Pressing down lets you pan the camera down. It will also pick up any brains on the ground for your zombies to snack on and it will pick up any powerups. You can only hold on to one powerup at a time. The (Y) button will launch your powerup and the (A) button will let your zombie use their special skill. In the case of Lefty, pressing (A) again will make her reach even higher. The (B) causes your zombie to attack their enemies. You'll have to get used to what distance you need to be from the enemies with the different zombies. Each one has their own attack style, which means they all have a different range. Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys is a really good concept. The comic book style cut scenes are very well done. Unfortunately, the game itself just isn't very much fun to play. I would recommend renting it before buying to see if it entertains you more than it did me.
-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl
Battle of the Bands World Heroes Anthology