If you look through the stack of games on my shelf, it’s easy to see what attracts me to video games. Everything stacked in my collection is either a psychedelic Japanese smattering of cute, vibrant images or an over the top gore fest. These two loves are what first drew me to independent developer Twin Drill’s first release, Zombie Grinder. Zombie Grinder combines old school arcade graphics with new game play modes offered in today’s zombie annihilation favorites, like Harvest Moon for SNES if the town was infested with undead. Classified by Twin Drills as the “pre-alpha” release, Zombie Grinder has just become available on the Desura network for free, giving no reason not to give it a shot.
Zombie Grinder plops you and your friends into the zombie infested city ofWhitwood (most of the areas are within the cityscape but there are a few choices for the more outdoorsy zombie killer). Your team has a number of options when deciding how to handle this pesky zombie problem. This game boasts a co-op campaigne, horde mode, player versus player and capture-the-flag opportunities with the possibility of more in the final release. From the “hub” map, you can gather up your team and enter one of cities other landscapes. Once you get out into zombie town, it can quickly turn into a real shoot em’ up. With your 12 round pistol (or baseball bat, also an effective zombie killing weapon) in hand, you can easily start blasting away at the undead causing them to empty their life force in the form of 1s and 5s (and it is oh so satisfying to see those numbers pop out of their heads).
The graphics are definitely smile-worthy at the least. The ascetic of Zombie Grinder is modeled after classic RPGs, complete with cute little characters and their over-sized heads. The top down 16-bit world is easy to navigate and its simple design shows potential for custom map creation. The color scheme and character design combine cute and creepy flawlessly, giving you a happy feeling while laying waste to your enemies. The zombies themselves are distinctly rotting in comparison to the humans but still look like they could be made into a cuddly stuffed toy. When the zombies do get the best of you and your life has been greatly diminished, red and grey enter the color scheme to alert you of your status. This adds a nice element of panic in an otherwise pretty cheery world.
Though this game definitely shows promise, I am not completely confident that Zombie Grinder will be able to deliver in the end result. My enthusiasm for this game was quickly squashed by a number of bugs and technical problems I had to deal with while trying to test it. I expected there to be a few issues since Zombie Grinder is not a complete product as of yet but there are a larger number of things Twin Drills needs to work on then I was ready for. Of course their were the usual bugs, like an enemy being in front of my character and then suddenly reappearing behind him but some of the network problems were so bad, it prevented me from experiencing the game. Just as I would start to have fun gunning down a horde with my teammates, the network would cut out and end the game. There are also non-network problems like dialog that would scroll and prevent my character from moving while the zombies could still attack, causing me to loose 85% of my life before the game had even begun. Problems like this are a real disappointment since they have greatly hindered my ability to play Zombie Grinder for an extended amount of time.
Despite the detrimental technical issues it currently faces, I still have hope for Zombie Grinder. If Twin Drills can fix these problems in its next release, this game has potential to be a popular pick up game for hard core and casual gamers alike. However, at this point it is only potential. The main problem is, no one can experience the fun of Zombie Grinder if they can’t play for more than two minutes at a time.