Ultimate Zombie Defense Review

If there’s one thing that I love, it’s fighting through hordes of zombies in an abandoned city. However, while it’s a fun situation (at least in a game), not every title manages to pull it off. This is the question we find ourselves facing with Terror Dog Studios' Xbox port of Ultimate Zombie Defense.

Ultimate Zombie Defense doesn’t really have much of a plot that’s worth mentioning, and to be honest, there isn’t really a need for one. All you really need to know is that there are zombies you need to fight. In truth, like many multiplayer games, the real story here is the situations you get into with your friends. It’s not ideal, as modern undead media tends to focus more on the human condition, but it is what it is. 

When it comes to gameplay, it’s a bit more mixed than you might expect. You take control of a single operator running around the large map, shooting enemies. Each zombie you kill in a wave gives you some cash, which you can then use to buy and upgrade weapons. The actual gunplay is a bit of a mixed bag; you move your character in a 360-degree rotation, with a laser pointer indicating where your gun is looking. 

The problem is that, when this method is usually used, the laser pointer vanishes behind a target, making it clear that you can hit it. This means you then know the bullet will connect, but that isn’t the case in Ultimate Zombie Defense. On top of that, the actual rotation is really slow, meaning that every fight takes just that little bit more thought than it really needs to. 

Thankfully, shooting at zombies yourself isn’t really the best means of protecting yourself; instead, you’ll want to build defences (hence the name) that help you to fight off the hordes. The defences are bought with the same money you’d spend on weapons, ranging from barricades, mines, and more. It’s an interesting system, plus the actual building uses a grid-based design, so it’s easy to get things in the right place. However, it can take a while to save up the money to really buy anything interesting. 

This leads to my biggest issue with the game: there’s a lot of waiting around. Let me paint you a picture: you complete your first round (there are around 12 in total), earning about $300. Most of the buildable features and weapons cost more than that, so you run out pretty quickly. Here’s the thing: there are two minutes before the round starts, so all you can do is wait. 

Now, I hear you say, can’t you just choose to end the wait period early? Why yes… in concept. The issue is that the game says that you need to press the X button to start the next round immediately, but the X button is also used to open the store to buy new buildings. So, rather than being able to actually get right into the gameplay, you have to wait. This becomes less of a problem as you get further in, but even then, it’s still just mind-numbing and a little dull. 

There’s an argument that this could be limited by having friends around, and honestly, I would say this is the best way to actually play Ultimate Zombie Defense. As I said, you get a series of rounds in each game, and usually, you can manage while alone, but the minute one of the boss rounds starts, it just becomes irritating. As such, having more guns to hand would certainly be a major help.

Visually, Ultimate Zombie Defense isn’t awful; it’s not exactly a 10/10, but I’ve also seen worse. The environments are all well put together, and the different enemy types are all easy to tell apart, even at a distance. It does what it needs to do, but I never really felt present in the experience, like I was very conscious that I was looking at a game. 

Overall, Ultimate Zombie Defense is a title that’s basically fine, plus there’s a lot of content here for the price. I would argue that, if you’re with friends, it could even be great. However, I hold that a game should at least be playable when you’re alone, and Ultimate Zombie Defense just doesn’t have that feeling. It’s not impossible, but it’s not really fun either, and the design just drags down the whole experience for me.