Dead Ahead: Zombie Warfare is a port of a mobile game to the big console, which always instills confidence.

Gameplay consists of attacking a barricade whilst also defending your bus full of people. you do this by sending out different classes to deal with a surprisingly large roster of zombies. You’ve got your basic undead, dogs, zombies with guns, a witch, even bandits with full armor that reflect bullets called “Lubbers”, but then turn into zombies upon death, and a few more.

There’s not much in the way of strategy in Zombie Warfare. You may need to send out different units to counter a special zombie but that’s about it. You collect resources at the end of every mission which can be used to level up your bus and units to make missions easier. There’s not much depth or choice and most importantly, it’s just plain boring.

Variety is also lacking. You are doing pretty much the same thing in every single mission with no real thinking. Whilst locations look varied they all feel the same thanks to how the levels are actually set up; bus on one side, zombies on the other.

AI is stupid. Understandable for the zombies but for the people trying to survive, running straight through fire isn’t the best of ideas. I’ve seen my survivors run through zombies that were attacking the bus as well.

It’s pretty obvious from the get go that this is a port of a mobile game; the progression has you completing missions to get “stars” and the UI is clearly designed for a touch screen. It has even asked me to rate the “app” several times which is something I’d never expect to see on a console title. Not to mention the amount of items to purchase in the game marketplace.

The sound design isn’t good either. Nothing about the sound is particularly interesting, and can even get annoying when collecting pick ups. The soundtrack is extremely repetitive and you will probably turn it off after just a few missions.

The visuals are the most interesting thing about this game, though that’s not saying much. On top of the horrible UI, the in-game visuals lack creativity. The graphics aren’t bad, they just aren’t good either.

Each mission of Dead Ahead: Zombie Warfare is split into multiple sections. Each stage has at least a dozen missions, so there is plenty to do, but if you care to continue is another question. There’s very little to no fun to be had, but I guess it’s a good game for some easy achievements which is nice for achievement hunters.

Dead Ahead: Zombie Warfare might be more fun on an Android or IOS device, but on console? It’s simply boring to play. It’s a hard pass on the console version.

Graphics: 4.0 Whilst the pixel style isn’t bad, the presentation is just simply horrible.	Gameplay: 3.0 Gameplay is near non-existent: just send out units to win.
Sound: 1.0 No sound would be better.	Fun Factor: 2.0 There’s not much fun to be had here. It’s a $19.99 port of a F2P mobile game, what were you expecting?
Final Verdict: 3.0

 

A copy of Dead Ahead: Zombie Warfare was provided by the publisher.