By Alec Meer on October 20th, 2009 at 8:08 pm.
I had a bit of a lost weekend with Team Sigma’s pint-sized genocide Zombie Shooter earlier this year, leading some to wonder why the hell I was talking about that when the sequel was on its way. Well, I’m mad, stupid, tardy and obstinate. What of it? More importantly, Zombie Shooter 2 has now arrived, as prophesied by The Ancient Men Of RPS Comments Threads. But whatever could it be about?
It’s about shooting zombies, stupid. It’s picked simultaneously the best and worst time it could possibly come out – in the midst of global zombie fever, but also at a time when a quaint little 2D game will fight to stand out from all those shiny 3D thingies. Still, I suspect these things are designed for long-tail success – picking up idle bucks from Steam over a period of years.
Though it’s not on Steam yet – you’ll need to buy direct from Team Sigma. There’s a free demo, which you can unlock into the full shebang if you so wish. I did not particularly so wish, alas.
Clearly it’s more of the same, though there’s a more expanded inventory/stats system, and a section where you grab a mega-gun on the top of a car being driven by an illiterate NPC. Despite these additions, I couldn’t raise much enthusiasm for having ostenstibly the same experience again, though I am curious as to whether/how Team Sigma can top their previous mega-deathtolls later in the game.
Perhaps it’s because it’s not what I’m looking for at the moment (what am I looking for? Well, it’d need to be at least 80 foot tall with laserbeams for eyes), or perhaps it’s because its ambition and its engine aren’t entirely matched. The characters just seem a bit silly and superimposed to mine eye. The awful, awful writing was the real deal-breaker for me, but then I’m a nasty little fusspot about such things – and hey, this ain’t exactly a game anyone’s playing for the words, right? I won’t be at all surprised if I find myself cheerily causing a new zombie apocalypse in a few months when I’ve run out of other gun frenzies to while away the deskbound hours.
Protip:
It’s $9.98 as today’s Game du Jour.
http://www.gamedujour.com/
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This game fails.It’s just a reskin of Alien Shooter 2,which wasn’t that good either.
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You what? AS2 was great. More of the same with new enemy types and guns and stuff may not be a great step forward, but it’s hard to complain about.
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“which wasn’t that good either”
You’re not that good either.
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Not good either? Alien Shooter 2 may not have been AAA material, but until Borderlands was announced, it was the first thing I thought about when the words “Diablo with guns” was mentioned.
And watching a Let’s Play of it, with its secret stashes and quirky story, was enough to guarantee a sale.
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80 foot tall?
imperial system? really?
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24.384 metres
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It’s another Sigma Team game. If you like them, it’s more of the same with better graphics (1280×800, finally!) and a general slight evolution over the last one. There’s a few creative weapons and secrets, but it’s 99% ‘mow down this horde, get slightly improved weapons/character, mow down slightly tougher horde’, rinse, repeat. The depth of the RPG system’s choice is “Would you rather do a bit more damage, or carry more ammo, or improve a bit faster?” but you could probably plow through the whole game without spending a single point on your stats.
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Forgot one important thing: when you’re creating your character, try the Hypnotize trait, especially if you’re replaying (it adds a new stat category). Nothing more funny than seeing a horde of enemies turning on each other in waves because you’ve, I dunno, blinded them with your crazy eyes or something.
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Try this on for size:
http://wherecouldtom.be/games/crush.php
I don’t know if it’s 80-foot tall — it’s in the range, at least — but it does have laser beam for eyes.
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Try this on for size:
Crush from Tom Sennett.
I don’t know if it’s 80-foot tall — it’s in the range, at least — but it does have laser beam for eyes.
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Sorry about the crosspost.
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I’m totally going to grab this once it comes out on Steam. The first one was… bloody excellent.
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I heard on the Sigma forums that they even reused models and weapons, even landscapes, dissapointing…I was hoping for more after how long it took them to do ZS2..
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They do that for every game in the shooter series. You can guess the order they were made just by playing them and finding the differences.
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Shooting. Zombies. Can’t get better than that!
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It really is a special kind of nitpicking to turn your nose up at a mindless zombie splatterfest because the trananslation isn’t good. It’s by a small Russian team – what do you expect? Zombie Shakespeare?
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Zombie Hamlet off to uncharted lands.
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Macbeth Rearisen.
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By the end of the year, somebody/RPS/we need to make a list of all zombie games released in 2009, with charts and all ! Because, seriously, it’s getting hilarious :p
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I am a zombie. Hath not a zombie eyes, slowly digesting? Hath not a zombie blood-soaked hands, rotting organs, dimensions, hunger, proclivity towards malls, and a taste for brains? Fed with the same food (at different points on the food chain), hurt by the same headshots, subject to the same chainsaws, killed by the same means, warmed and cooled by burning Molotovs and the icy hand of Death, as the living are? If you prick us, do we not groan? If you tickle us, do we not bite off your hand? If you poison us, do we not shrug it off? And if you wrong us, shall we not eat your organs like kids tearing into a pinata? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a zombie wrong a man, what is his humility? Unrelenting hunger. If the living wrong the dead, what should his sufferance be by Romero’s example? Why, repetition, followed by death in the third act.
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Does it have a save system? I have Alien Shooter 2 Reloaded and I seem to remember it not saving your progress mid-mission. Which is annoying, because I’m not made of time and it kind of breaks the whole “I’ve got 10 minutes to kill and I want to shoot a bunch of stuff” itch that I thought the game would scratch.
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are undead?
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Have zombies jumped the shark yet, or did they just jump in and eat the damned thing
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2010 will be the year of Zombie Sharks!
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And with Interstellar Marines, so it begins.
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Zombi 2 has a zombie fighting a shark, and since the zombie was not defeated we can assume the shark ultimately ended up among the swimming dead. And that was in 1979.
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There’s also a pre-load for Killing Floor free “weekend”* today incidentally…hah!
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I was going to create a forum thread about it. It’s getting a huge free expansion. A new player class, a new experience level for all classes, a new enemy type (a shooty cyborg zombie), 7 new guns and 3 new maps. Oh, and a total-conversion mod with multiple playmodes of its own.
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Yeah, the Killing Floor update is looking really good, has me more interested in the game again. If nothing else it’ll give me more to do games-wise until Borderlands unlocks, but I’m hoping for more. The new perk line looks pretty fun.
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After playing Nation Red this just seem so well shit. Poor graphics, terrible controls it’s very meh Nation Red is superior in just about every single way including developer support.
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I was actually wondering myself why I’d buy this when I already own Nation Red.
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…what does literacy have to do with driving ability?
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I enjoyed AS 2 but I saw that ZS 2 is really exactly the same with Zombies, so I didn’t care.
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If you like them, it’s more of the same with better graphics (1280×800, finally!) and a general slight evolution over the last one. There’s a few creative weapons and secrets, but it’s 99% ‘mow down this horde, get slightly improved weapons/character, mow down slightly tougher horde’, rinse, repeat.
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I’ll stick with Nation Red on Steam, loads more fun and loads better visuals. Devs are constantly adding user requests as well.
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How are controls? I ended up not enjoying Alien Shooter and Zombie Shooter since they really felt like they would benefit from dual analog control. Being forced to use the keyboard for movement was always a bit crampy.
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