Released in 2009, Zombie Apocalypse offered a fun, undead-slaughtering romp that suffered a bit from late-game monotony and an overall lack of variety. This sequel addresses those shortcomings, while revealing a few new flaws beneath its rotting flesh.
Never Die Alone retains its precursor’s arcadey, co-op–focused core, encouraging four friends to unleash their dual-stick skills on the foot-dragging hordes. This time, though, the heroes have class-based abilities. Using a shotgun-toting priest, rifle-wielding brainy babe, pistol-packing British rapper, and SMG-spraying gamer geek, players can slay with more strategy in mind and gore-soaked style to spare.
Besides having different guns, characters carry unique grenade and melee weapons, and each possesses a special power. When you’re not cracking undead skulls with the holy man’s walker, hypnotizing them with the Brit’s boom-box, or dropping them with the hottie’s auto-turret, painting the ground with buckets of blood never gets old. Intuitive controls also make it easy to switch weapons and characters (you can cycle through A.I.-controlled avatars). Toss in upgradable, RPG-like stats, and addictive leveling comes into play, too.
Sadly, infuriating difficulty spikes — exacerbated by unskippable cutscenes and a lack of mid-chapter checkpoints — occasionally lead to frantic, fun-sucking button-mashing, as do moments of what-the-hell’s-happening chaos. Lessened by the presence of co-op pals, these issues aren’t deal-breakers, but they’ll still make you fear the “restart chapter” screen more than the end of days.
Publisher: Konami • Developer: Backbone Entertainment • ESRB: Mature • Multiplayer: 4-player co-op (locally or over Xbox Live) • Achievements: No cakewalk • Cost: 800 Microsoft Points ($10)
+ Strategic, creative, gory combat.
+ Unique, upgradable classes.
– No mid-mission checkpoints; difficulty spikes.
? Dead Island also stars a zombie-hating rapper. Is a new trend emerging here?
