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In general this is too simplistic, and a bit too janky, to justify keeping any shooting fan’s attention for very long
As someone who has been a twin-stick shooting fan since the first time I put a quarter in Robotron: 2084, there has been quite a lot to love in the Switch eShop. Whether it has been in the form of more classically arcade-style shooters, or the more modern and challenging roguelikes, there are some great examples of how to do the subgenre right out there. Unfortunately, that also makes it all the more disappointing when titles hit the scene that come up quite short of the high bar set by others, and Zombies Overloaded falls into that category.Working as a very simplistic arcade-style zombie shooter, in theory there’s plenty of room to make things fun. Blood, body parts, and carnage are typically a solid base to work from, and at least within the confines of the game’s art style those are represented. You’ll need to move quickly, and sometimes strategically, around the pretty confined space you have to work in, with a warp from either side to the other then acting as a short-term escape route to give you some breathing room. Weapon pick-ups will arm you with a small variety of choices, with some like the alien laser being more effective than others, but you’ll need to keep in mind that outside of your base pistol they’ll always be pretty short-lived.Identifying the issues, to some degree there’s a question of where to start. While I’m not normally someone who gets distracted by a game’s looks, the combination of the static cut-out art and the very jittery movement of everything on the screen is hard not to be underwhelmed by. The fact that it consistently feels like the hitboxes of your character, the zombies, and in particular the bosses feel like they extend out from the edges of the artwork also make for frustrations as it’s easy to take on damage very quickly even when it feels like you’re avoiding being touched. Even with a pretty weak Pacifism mode and a few upgrades there simply isn’t much to explore or enjoy here even in the short term, let alone something making it worth returning to later. Even as someone who appreciates high scores, leaderboards, and the desire to keep pushing to do better, Zombies Overloaded simply lacks any real incentive to stick with it, and there are far better choices out there on the eShop to grab your money and spend your time with.
Justin Nation, Score:Bad [4.8]