Zombies are infecting all levels of video games these days from AAA productions like Left 4 Dead 2 all the way down to the iPhone. Zombie Dash, a top-down vertical scroller, has as the name suggests, zombies in it as well.

These are not the zombies of L4D, these are the mostly shambling about types that simple follow a specific route set out for them. Your task is to avoid them for as many days as possible, this is where one of the major flaws of what is otherwise a great game comes into play. Simply put, it’s far too easy. My character has now survived over a month in the game without even being close to death.

Each day you have to trek a certain distance, find a key (and cash) from various chests and escape to the next day (level). To do that you use an on-screen trackball which is far from accurate to say the least. In fact, if you actually did manage to kill yourself in this game (aside from simply falling asleep or walking away while playing) it would be due to this control scheme. There is no other way to play it. While the trackball is generally OK, it will be the cause of your submission to the zombies.

In the game you’re given several tools to help you on your quest for survival including hamburgers to increase your speed, injections to heal yourself, zombie spray (to reduce your ’attraction’ radius) and of course magic to fend off the zombies. Zombies aren’t your only concern there are also vampire bats, floor spikes and snake traps. But everything is easily avoided. So easy in fact that like I said you would have to walk away from the game or fall asleep to get killed. The most challenging part of the game is trying to maintain control of the trackball interface.

That’s not to say that the game isn’t entertaining because it is, but it needs some work. There needs to be increasing difficulty and more enemies to dodge each day. There needs to be some end to the game as well I think or you could probably continue on indefinitely. You might even just kill yourself solely to get your score on the high score list (like I just did)

From a graphics and sound standpoint the game is cool. It’s also a great idea and just needs some tweaking to make it even cooler. Some other modes of play would be nice as well. But overall, it’s fun running from the zombies until you give up on life and become one.

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