Sometimes, all you wanna do is play a game that doesn’t require a lot from you. It doesn’t want a lot of your attention, it doesn’t expect a lot from your braincells, and it doesn’t need a lot of time in order to be fully finished. A bonafide example is Zombies, Aliens and Guns. Generic name, generic concept, yet there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I will probably never remember about its existence once I’m done with this review, but it entertained me for about two hours. It gave me some Gamerscore. It made a single afternoon go by smoothly, and there’s nothing wrong about that.

You will have to escort these dim-witted marines to the end of some of the game’s levels. Thankfully, you are not penalized if they die.

This is a very uneventful twin stick shooter where you only use the left analog stick to move, the right analog stick to aim, and the right trigger to shoot at, well, zombies and aliens. You control an unnamed macho marine, some kind of Contra-esque reject, and your objective is to escape from an island infested with monsters, all while trying to rescue some stranded marines in the process. At least that’s what I think the game is all about. Let’s just say it doesn’t take its time to explain what the hell is going on, and to be fair, I doubt I would have cared about it anyway.

Aim, run and shoot. Aim, run and shoot. Repeat.

I will give the game credit for being very accessible, for being stupidly easy (but never in a totally condescending way), and for actually trying to spice things up with different kinds of levels throughout its minuscule runtime. Most levels revolve around searching for stranded marines before getting to the exit, but there are levels where you need to collect macguffins, others where you’re inside a car and wielding a machinegun with infinite ammo, and the occasional boss battle. These fights are quite boring, as those enemies are very spongey, but hey, they’re here. You might die once, but that’s about it.

This one level on top of a Humvee was the game’s highlight.

Gameplay-wise, that’s about it. There are very few weapons at your disposal, with your initial gun being the absolute best. The soundtrack isn’t comprised of many songs, but they are actually quite catchy. I also really liked a neat little touch added to it: whenever a song ends, the game will play a little sound effect of someone changing a cassette tape.

But without a doubt, the one thing that caught my attention right away was Zombies, Aliens and Guns‘ presentation. It is very simplistic, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. On the contrary, I actually quite liked the contrast between adorable 2D sprites interacting in a low-poly, 3D environment. But that’s basically all there is to say about the game. As previously mentioned, you can beat Zombies, Aliens and Guns in less than two hours, so there’s not even a lot of game for me to even talk about.

Pretty much every single boss battle is a boring patience test against an excessively spongy enemy.

Zombies, Aliens and Guns is probably one of the least ambitious and memorable games I’ve ever played, but oddly enough, it was far from being bad. It fulfilled its reason to exist, which was to distract me for about two hours in a Thursday afternoon, entertaining me with its accessible controls, easygoing level of difficulty, and easy achievements. I played it, beat it, had a bit of fun with it, and will now probably forget about its existence. There’s nothing wrong about being competent but largely disposable. This is the equivalent of grabbing a tasty but unmemorable hamburger on a discount in a fast food joint.

Zombies, Aliens and Guns is available now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PC and Switch.

Reviewed on Xbox Series S.

A copy of Zombies, Aliens and Guns was provided by the publisher.