Zombies on a Plane Review by BijouxDemon of We Touch Games
Genre:Action/Indie
Developer: Shangri-La Game Studios Ltd , Publisher: Shangri-La Game Studios Ltd
Release Date: March 25, 2016
Zombie games on steam are a huge market, so it’s hard to find one game out of the bunch that really stands on its own. Sadly, Zombies on a Plane is not one of those games. With an unpolished finish, shoddy graphics, audio that is glitchy, and temperamental controls, this game is a bunch of frustration and no satisfaction. What little enjoyment I managed to get out of the game was destroyed by the copious amount of negatives it has, removing all of my interest in continuing to play. Let’s delve a little deeper into this slipshod game.
Basic gameplay should feel whole and complete, with supported controls and an engine that will do the same. Even pushing this game on its lowest settings, the controls were hard to use and I found myself pinched into tight corners swarmed by mobs. This game is supposedly controller supported as well, but I found that it would not work with mine. I’ve tried testing it with other games and the conclusion I’ve come to is it’s just the game not wanting to read the controller. Keyboard controls aren’t any better. Along with controls that don’t seem fully adapted and finished, the rest of the settings suffer terribly as well. I’m someone who prefers playing my games in windowed mode and as soon as I enter a match for any game mode, I immediately go into fullscreen mode again and it carries on afterwards. Along with the technical aspects of bad graphics and flimsy controls, the audio is hard to deal with. With audio loops from other segments and game modes, and certain sound effects still going when nothing is happening in relation to said sound effect, i’ve had to play the game with barely any volume because it was distracting more than anything.
The game features two main game modes to choose from: FPS shoot-em up, and flying the plane. The Flight Mode consisted of 3 sub modes: Flight of Survival (which is labeled as being easy), Flight of 10 Waves (this one being labeled as hard), and Free Flight (which is exactly as it sounds). Free Flight seemed the easier of the bunch, and I felt like I had more control flying around and shaking zombies off rather than having to deal with them inside the plane. But in that sense, the controls still felt sluggish when trying to do certain turns. I swapped the controls on the settings for the keyboard to make things a bit easier, but yet again, the game reset them back as soon as I was back into the actual gameplay which is frustrating to say the least. The plus side is there is a selection of flyable aircrafts; from Jumbo Jets, Private Jets, and Helicopters.
The Survival Mode also has 3 sub modes: Survive the Horde (waves of mobs), Defend the Outside (same gameplay but on the top of the aircraft), and Defend the Cockpit (pretty self explanatory). I found each mode to have no significant differences except that Survive the Horde mode didn’t have me repairing certain parts of the plane. All in all, pretty dry cut zombie shooting in all 3 modes. Starting off, you get 3 characters to choose from, one that can be unlocked by getting a higher score, and another that you get through DLC. Although each character has different perks to them, such as bonus health or gun damage, it felt that it didn’t matter, and that choosing the characters was more a preference. The shooting suffers horribly when it came to aim. Whether I was zoomed into a shot or I was shooting from the hip, I found that more bullets were wasted and the zombies don’t have as good of a hitbox as one would expect when it comes to a horde wave styled shooter. The guns I unlocked in the game through the hordes of zombies would swap randomly even though I never hit any of the keys to swap them in the first place.
As a whole, Zombies on a Plane is unfinished and unpolished. If it was an early access game, I could see it as something with some definite potential to be a mindless shooting game just for fun. But as it stands now, it is definitely not worth the asking price of $19.99. If they can put the potential about it to the level of the trailer they have on the store page, it may be something to look into later on. Definitely save your money for another game that has better support towards its gameplay and settings.
Pros:
- Varied game modes
- Flight mode is pretty okay
- Multiple characters to choose from
- Multiple aircrafts to choose from
Cons:
- Terrible recognition of controls
- Shoddy graphics
- Controls aren’t balanced
- Bad/repeating audio
BijouxDemon gives Zombies on a Plane a Drastik Measure 3.3 out of 10 (33)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/297450/
