Considering how completely cliché they are I find myself presented with hordes of the undead proudly wearing the swashsticker more often than I’d expect. There are three human-like things you’re allowed to kill in video games with as much violence as you wish. Zombies are probably number one but Nazis are arguably just as good. So Nazi zombies will do the trick just fine. Sure they’re pretty unoriginal at this point and they’ve been done countless times before but for a tongue-in-cheek take on Sniper Elite they might just do the trick.
Selecting a character to get out and slaughter countless foes with is a rather arbitrary decision and doesn’t even determine which weapons you will use. It’s just a case of picking the name you like the most or the picture that pleases the eye more. In a co-op romp like this a slightly deeper character system would definitely be desirable. Unfortunately there are no abilities or stats for you to consider or upgrade.
As you might expect there isn’t much in the way of a plot either which would only get in the way of the all important zombie killing. In fact I wouldn’t have noticed its absence had there been some sense that my character was unique. There is no sense of ownership over your character that allows for those little emergent stories between you and your team. I’m not expecting the complexities of a full RPG or entire rosters of abilities but some basic, upgradable stats would have helped things along a lot. Or a solid loot system.
Strangely the mission design far from promotes the drop in gameplay such nameless characters would provide. Missions are long and are no meagre undertaking. Without any explanations or even the vaguest hint of logic, plot or setting you have an objective. Get to this point killing as you go. Then, more often than not, you will hold an area for basically no reason at all – but then who needs a reason to kill Nazi Zombies? Once you’ve killed the hordes you can move onto the next objective.
Each mission has plenty of these objectives to complete but they become slightly tedious before the mission ends. You can definitely complete missions under an hour but it’s odd to have such long missions on a game crying out for short, simple drop in gameplay. Even given the arguably overlong objectives killing the masses with snipers, SMGs, pistols, grenades and other weapons is fun until some of the more ‘advanced’ zombies appear. Those that run at you and explode are always fun. They are a particular treat in Zombie Army Trilogy because they can run faster than you. Oh happy days.
So the first time these things run at you and you have no clue what’s going on, and die, you find out how terrible the checkpoints are. Gaming conventions have gone back a decade for ZAT and rather than checkpoints just before a difficult area they’re just after. So if you should fail you get to replay 10 minutes of easy stuff first before you get another chance at the actual challenge. There’s nothing worse than being slightly annoyed from dying and then realising you have to repeat gameplay.
The second enemy that had me jumping for joy is a giant trench coat wearing MG42 wielding monstrosity. Zombies that shoot back are never fun and those that posses hulk-like strength and toughness whilst wielding light machine guns are no fun at all. Repeated sniper rounds through the head, several grenades and constant damage from a Thompson machine gun might not be enough to stop one of these super zombies. And because of the slouching checkpoint system get ready to replay some ‘get to point n’ gameplay.
Zombie Army Trilogy does a great job of not cluttering up proceedings with plot or complicated characters to make room for more zombie killing. Especially given the co-operative gameplay that could have been a good thing. But it’s unusual to disregard these things when there’s nothing else to fall back on. With no looting, upgrading or even basic customization all that’s left is the culling of zombies. Sadly a poor checkpoint system makes death a tedious affair of unnecessarily repeating objectives before retrying the challenging section. Bland objectives don’t help and are repeated constantly throughout. Assumedly another casualty designed to make room for the core gameplay.
Luckily shooting and killing zombies is fun and Sniper Elite’s slow motion head shots rightfully take centre stage. Watching the bullet work its way through skulls is just as fun as ever. The secondary weapons are good fun too and all the more important in ZAT given the horde’s tendency to surround your character. It’s a shame not to have the tactical elements of Sniper Elite and sniper shots have much less impact but blowing heads off zombies is good simple fun.
ZAT has loads of content and provides a decent co-op zombie killing experience. It desperately needs playing with at least one friend, not only for survivability but because things get boring on your own. Unfortunately objectives quickly become dull and the gameplay alone isn’t enough to make up for lack of characters, story, objectives, upgrades, loot and customization. Despite the good fun unfortunately ZAT is too shallow to be fun for more than a few hours. ZAT offers some gory sniper goodness but nothing that blows the mind.
