Atom Zombie Smasher Review (PC)

Blendo Games is an extremely small indie studio run by one man, Brendon Chung. Surprisingly, Blendo Games has already released a great game, Flotilla, which was well received by players and critics alike. I have to say that Brendon Chung did it again. Atom Zombie Smasher’s name pretty much conveys the entire tone and personality you’ll find when you play this game. AZS is an entirely light-hearted game disguised as the “Official Training Software of Nuevos Aires Orbital Command”. It’s a “High-Fidelity Tactical Simulation Programme featuring Super Video Graphic Arrays and Music by The Volcanics and Benny Hammond”. Plus, the music really is quite good.

Atom Zombie Smasher doesn’t accurately describe what sort of game it is though, so I’ll reveal what it is right here: it’s a tower defense game, with a twist. You have to defend a rescue helicopter from a marching hoard of zombies, zombies that walk the streets going in random directions, attempting to eat and infect all the citizens in the city you are trying to evacuate. To counter the zombie you place certain strategic mercenaries, which are your weapons and main points of defense.

Unlike most tower defense games, once you rescue all the people in the city, the point is neutralized and is no longer infected, but the key to winning is to eradicate all the zombies, before nightfall. In fact, you have to beat a stage, which can either be rescuing a certain number of people, or killing all zombies, before nightfall, which is usually a minute long. If you fail to rescue people before nightfall a massive amount of zombies spawn, making the game that much harder; if you fail to kill them all you lose automatically. Add to that conditions that affect gameplay after every level, such as slower zombie movement, or less time until nightfall, and AZS can be a challenging game sometimes.

Atom Zombie Smasher evaluates your progress based on the zones under your control and which zones are under the control of the zombies. Every turn, you and the zombies gain points for the zones you control. The points are stored up and after a certain number of points you, or the zombies, unlock new features and abilities to help you. Once you collect a certain number of points you unlock a feature that allows you to upgrade your available weapons. Combine that with the fact that your mercenaries also level up and you’ll notice that AZS has a very good amount of depth to it.