So, what about the gameplay. It’s repetitive and un-imaginative. You have to collect “Thermal Energy” to stop yourself from freezing to death. This “Thermal Energy” is obtained from killing enemies, there’s no explanation as to why the enemies drop these glowing orange blobs, they just do. That was my first beef with this game. It’s really very easy to kill everything, far too easy in fact and you actually end up with an excess of “Thermal Energy” meaning you can dither about for as long as you like before moving on. I thought this was supposed to be “Extreme Condition(s)” not “Average Conditions”. You can only carry two guns but you only ever need one, the machine gun, because there’s so much ammo either lying about or on the disappearing corpses of your enemies that running out never becomes a problem.

Upon starting up the demo I immediately checked out the controls, only to find that they were displayed as Xbox 360 controls. Hello CAPCOM, I’m playing this demo on a PC, console controls are useless to me. The least they could have done was change the controls screen so that it actually showed keyboard controls rather than things like “Right Trigger = Fire”. MY KEYBOARD HAS NO “Right Trigger”!!! It was then that I threw caution to the wind and set about picking one of two levels.

My first impression was “Oh dear” as I moved the character around in a clunky and boring fashion. The animations aren’t brilliant, neither is the AI and the environments felt dull with their un-inspired graphics. In fact, the whole demo was just 375MB of dreary mediocrity. Thankfully STEAM has the option to “Remove all local content.” Which I quickly did upon finishing the demo. Well, when I say “finishing” I actually mean getting so frustrated at the stupidity of the game overall I gave up.

The worst part is that it could have been good. Great even. If only CAPCOM hadn’t made stupid decisions and employed simpletons to design and make the game. Here’s what I think they should have done. Instead of “Thermal Energy” being dropped from enemies, they should have put things like burning barrels in certain places so that you had to stay near them to warm up before you could move on. The enemies should have been harder rather than the push-overs that most of them are. There really needed to be more imagination in the design stages. Then again, this is CAPCOM and they’re aren’t known for their brilliant imagination (see; Resident Evil, Devil May Cry, Street Fighter).

PC Gamer threw an 81/100 at this game, I’m not sure how they came to that conclusion but after all, they are the “Frat Boys” of the PC gaming demographic so a proper review wasn’t really to be expected. My advice, don’t buy this game unless you’re looking to be bored or annoyed out of your skull. It’s weak attempts at being good are over-shadowed by the fact it’s a total let down. Spend your money on something better. Like Gears of War.

3/10 = Pitiful.

P.M.

Since launch its got itself quite a dedicated little following in the 4 months it has been online. However this only numbers in the hundreds, but the forums are active and the chat is always alive. The game attempts to draw people to continue to play the game by providing you with energy, this tops up by a small amount every hour. However this top up feels like a minuscule amount, plus your energy bar can only hold 10 hours worth of energy. This obviously means to make the most of the game you have to play 3 times a day and at the same time, this is the most you can play the game, otherwise you will be wasting your own time.

The gameplay revolves around traditional mmog aspects of fighting monsters to level up and collect items. There is also the ability to collect and train monsters, however this ability can sometimes feel like an afterthought. The game doesn’t add anything new to the genre but does the traditional aspects of the genre well.

While the game acts and runs seriously, the graphics delayed my introduction to the game. And further into playing the game the gameplay issues caused me to give up logging into the game. However for anyone unsure, its still possible to get in early and stand a chance at being a top player.

I gave the game a 5 out of ten.

Now this is a great game, but it has its issues. Firstly there are too many zombies in the easier modes, while this is good for getting points, it means that the zombies quickly overrun you. Secondly, while the base items are availiable in the non defence games, the number of zombies is soon too many to build a base that can stand up to the zombies.

The graphics are very refined and give the game its comic style. However the sound is a little bland, and repetitive. But the guns all sound like they should, and make firing the rocket launcher fun. Gun upgrades can be unlocked by getting a higher bonus multiplier which you add to by killing zombies. Being the 5th in the series its surprising still to see continued innovation from the creator. Overall this is a great game, if being a little short and repetitive.

I give this a beefy 8 out of ten.

The game can be found here.