Yet Another Zombie Defense HD Switch Review

The end of the world is nigh! Doom mongers have been saying that for far too long and other than Trump (easy target), Brexit and poor quality sandals, things are peachy. Well, depends on the person.

One thing the sages did say though was the world will be filled with zombies. We’re not there just yet, but any visit to your local supermarket will show some are on a fast track to braindead…ness. Anyhoo, here’s my Yet Another Zombie Defense HD Switch Review by Awesome Games Studio.

The Walking Dead depresses me, I haven’t read The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks and Evil Dead 2 is not my favourite horror film. Though it is a classic. While I’m not likely to be able to recite zombie facts, I do like my zombie games: Plants Vs Zombies, The Last of Us and Dead Rising. There’s something appealing about shooting fish in a barrel, in this case the undead. But as time progresses, these zombies get faster and stronger and are powerful in numbers. Initially, the zombies in Yet Another Zombie Defense HD are easy peasy, but they rapidly outnumber you and they begin necking the whey as they increase in size.

What’s it all about then? Stranded family with only the dog to keep them company? Stranded in the wastelands hunting for tinned food? Nope. You need to protect your lampost and yourself. A friend too, if they want to join in. But really, the game is centred around a lampost and you need to build an appropriate defence to fend off the waves until breakfast/lunch/dinner.

Yet Another Zombie Defense HD Switch Review

I’m a big fan of tower defence games, me. I wouldn’t say that I’ve played them all, but there are a few faves of recent year that I often come back to. In fear of listing one title after the next, I’ll just summarise that both Pixel Junk Monsters (the first one) and OTTTD are top of my list. Yet Another Zombie Defense HD isn’t a tower defence game as such, but it does share the principles of wave after wave of enemies, a handful of turrets you can strategically place around your beloved lampost and of course, the indispensable fences/barricades. It’s a tower defence game then.

You play a human male or female in the game, running around in third-person with one solid view of grey. Yet Another Zombie Defense HD isn’t the most colourful game other than the t-shirts your character wears, but it’s the gameplay that matters. This is a full-on arcade survival game and, spoiler, I like it.

Using the left analogue stick you control one of the four available characters and with the right stick plus the ZR button, you shoot. Easy. The kids on the street call this twin-stick shooter. Of the four characters, I don’t believe it makes any difference to whom you choose but you have the choice of a bloke, a lady, a SWAT dude and some four-eyed twerp. That’s the exact names, I just read it. On my notes. The controls are simple to use and work great for the style of play, though I do wish there was a dash button.

You Can’t Kill What’s Already Dead

Oh, but you can. At least until lunchtime. To stay focused, you set up appropriate defences such as barricades. These vary from wooden ones to electric ones that fry the undead upon touch. Interestingly, the barricades and weapons are unlocked from the start, however, you need to have enough money to buy them.

Weapons are the usual; pistol with infinite bullets, an SMG, shotgun, rocket launcher and laser. There are more but they don’t stand out as they’re pretty run of the mill, but still effective. My pick would be to get the chainsaw. Without a doubt, I’m a melee sort of guy, but when you’re inundated with hordes up close and they’re stopping you from picking up that ammo round that’s just dropped, you need another way out.

Aside from the items you buy, after each day (the game is played during three parts of the day), you can level up. This ranges from reload speed to health regeneration. I almost always go for health in a game, but with Yet Another Zombie Defense HD, the movement speed was much more appealing as you literally need to stay on your toes to run like hell when they break through your defence. Running out and luring the enemies is also a good way to protect your teammates and the turrets you build as they’re pretty weak.

A note on turrets: they’re easily my favourite item, but they are a standalone and you need a separate weapon to mount on them. If you’ve already bought some weapons for yourself, you can use those but usually, you only have enough to build the turret and then perhaps an SMG. If you survive the waves, it’s advisable to upgrade to something like a rocket launcher turret, but be mindful of protecting it as should the zombies breakthrough, they’ll destroy it and you can’t reclaim it.

There is only one very barren level and a couple of modes: Defense is the standard campaign, Endless a survival mode without the builds and Deathmatch for online play against other real human beans). I played Yet Another Zombie Defense HD as a single-player and I’ll be honest, I enjoyed it. However, the real fun is when you team up with a chum in the local player mode and have one defend and the other lure the waves away from your base.

I’m not one for online play but there’s an option to allow for people to join you during a game. That can be local multiplayer and you can select friends, but I left it open as I don’t have any friends. I was quite surprised that quite a few people entered my game and it was marvellous. You can’t communicate with them and only between waves can you see ‘ready’ under their name for when you want to move on. As the host, I was in control of progressing to the next wave so if they were in the middle of upgrading something, they’d be screwed. Not something I toy with, so I’d always give them enough time.

Before I bought this, I had read that a few people complained about graphical glitches. As someone who regularly reviews games, I don’t like to be influenced by others’ opinions. Like my school teachers used to say in my report cards ‘Great attitude, but easily lead’. I won’t lie and admit I did look out for flaws more than I usually would (I don’t care about framerate, as long as I can enjoy a game). For me, there wasn’t an issue. I did notice it got a bit choppy when there were three other online players in the match, but there wasn’t any significant lag or platform for me to throw my toys out of the pram and be a diva about it. It was perfectly fine.

The retail price of Yet Another Zombie Defense HD was cheap already, but I got it in a sale just in case it was a dud. It had all the signs of being one in the title and screenshots alone, but I can confidently say that it is not a dud and very much a fun game. It is a short-lived one though and you won’t be playing this for long periods. Equally, I don’t see many people played the single-player unless they opt for online invites. With Yet Another Zombie Defense HD, other than the bigger, badder enemies you encounter as you survive, there are no surprises – everything is available from the outset, only you need to earn the credits to buy them.