Zombies have
been hitting the entertainment rounds over the past several
years. From movies to games and all points in between it seems.
It can be next to impossible to put a twist on it that can keep
it interesting anymore. Trapped Dead puts a nice mix of tactical
strategy and interesting presentation into a game that not only
the zombies are looking for brains, but also the player needs
brains to think out what best to do to make it through Trapped
Dead.
One of the
things that you get the feel from the game is that the
developers must love zombies. It is hard to explain, you just
get the feel a fan of zombie films put their stamp on this game.
It has that 70’s or 80’s action adventure vibe to it, in a cool
horror setting.
The presentation seems to have gotten influences from comic
books, as the cut scenes are ala motion comic and are very
entertaining. It is a design choice that is spectacular in its
simplicity.
It is a classic horror story start with two characters running
out of gas, finding their way to a gas station, and into a world
gone horribly wrong. The ghoulish creatures here are the classic
flesh craving shamblers. Moving ever forward a tireless dead
thing with a ravenous hunger for the living. That being said,
one or two of them may not pose a threat, though get them in
larger groups and the problem becomes shear numbers.
Now there are a
couple of special zombies that I will not ruin the surprises for
you, they are interesting. All zombies have claw and bite
attacks that can cause the player to bleed. Now it is bad enough
that with the blood loss, the player can bleed out after a
while, but the blood draws the fiendish ghastly grotesques.
Running and making more noise seems to also draw them.
Therefore, this gives the player more tactical things to thing
about.
In the game, there are couple different classes of weapons if
you really want to get technical about it. There are the close
and personal weapons for bashing them, firearms, and then longer
range or weapons that you can throw.
Then, then my friends there are the traps…hence the name of the
game Trapped Dead. Pretty cool heh? Through out the game there
are sections that you can lure zombies into an environmental
trap of some sort and take them out in amusingly cool ways. This
is introduced earlier on when the main character finds a zombie
in the garage of a gas station; the beastie is in the grease pit
under raised car. Well of course, hit the controls to lower the
vehicle and crush them. What fun!
Through out the
adventure our main character your introduced to finds other
survivors and they then band together in a rather misfit squad
to try to make it out of this night mare. Interesting concept,
wonderful game, but there are times that you just wish for a bit
more. The game feels linier for the most part. That is not
necessarily a bad thing mind you since it rather simulates a
main goal that must be carried out to get through the macabre
happenings. However, there is no real reason to look around
anywhere for exploring, just getting from point A to point B is
the goal and get there alive, survival at its basest form. The
slow methodical gate the game takes may put some off, it can get
into a repetitive rut to be sure. However, it stays true to the
source inspirational material. What the game is honoring it does
an excellent job.
One thing that
was rather maddening for me was that occasionally there would be
delays in clicking a control for the character to do something,
often times in battle, so imagine my utmost frustration when I
am clicking to bat a zombie’s brain in and the character just
stands there to die as the zombie gets it’s a attack on. Not
sure really, if it is just me playing badly or I may see a patch
in order for the game.
A bit more horror suspense somehow would go along way here. The
game does exactly what it sets out to do, being a fun quirky
veneration of the Zombie horror genre. Some movies are fun pop
corn flicks of pure entertainment; you just are not going
looking for Ben Hur. There are some games in the same vain. They
are just pure fun entertainment. You remember fun entertainment.
Right? Trapped Dead come off to me like a big concept game,
which plays like a casual game. Trapped Dead is well worth it
for the retro zombie fans out there.
Get your Zombie fill here….
http://www.meridian4.com/games/trappeddead
Have fun, play games….
Survive a classic style zombie tale!
Edwin Millheim
United States Editor Impulse Gamer