Game review: Zombie Driver HD

It`s time to put the pedal to the metal, tear through city streets, plough through hordes of the undead in Exor Studios’ Zombie Driver HD for Xbox live Arcade and PlayStation Network.

Originally created for the PC. Exor Studios have faithfully ported Zombie Driver over to home consoles providing higher quality visuals and silky smooth frame rates.

Boasting a story mode and racing tournaments as well as survival modes and online play, this downloadable only title will definitely hold its own in the download market.

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It is essentially a top down open world free roaming driving game unlike any other where the player drives from one specific point to the next during story missions and around a circuit during races.

The story is present but very cliché. A typical random city has fallen victim to a chemical accident gone wrong turning all of its inhabitants into flesh eating zombies.

You are a random driver employed in assisting the cities armed forces to save all of the imprisoned survivors and also take down any enemies encountered big or small.

Story wise, the game fails as the intro at the start of the story mode is no more than 30 seconds long and doesn’t explain any form of back story or reason behind the chemical explosion.

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The characters encountered in game as well as your character are not explained in any way shape or form because this is an arcade game through and through.

Characters don’t require explanation, the game requires you to play giving little purpose but it’s enough to keep the game flowing.

The game plays like a Grand Theft Auto clone with the camera high up behind your car, giving you freedom to go wherever you please with time being the only restriction.

The similarities stop there, however, as you cannot exit your vehicle and start off with only one type of vehicle.

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The controls are simple but can be changes to suit the player, the triggers or R2 and L2 act as the cars throttle and brakes, the face buttons are the handbrake, weapons and nitro.

As you proceed through story mode, you will unlock different vehicles with different attributes as well as vehicular upgrades and weapons.

This gives Zombie Driver some degree of depth and keeps the player interested and some purpose to carry on as well as the different mission types.

Some require the player to save civilians take down zombie hordes, transport precious cargo and take down huge bosses.

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Race events and tournaments are standardised races against other racers around a track, however made more interesting with the inclusion of guns and zombies.

There are 3 race modes on offer, Race, Eliminator where the player has to stay ahead or face elimination and Endurance which is a checkpoint race with each checkpoint adding time to the bomb in your car, run out of time and its game over.

The final game mode is survival, 7 arenas with seemingly endless waves of zombies which the player must endure and fight to survive.

This mode allows the player to unlock modifications to the players’ vehicle making it possible to turn even a mere taxi into a merciless killing machine.

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The graphics are nice, sharp and detailed; zombies of all types look terrifying and the vehicles of the player and the military look great.

The cities’ various locations look impressive with burnt out cabins, small villages, railways and city centres giving this game superb variety, making the player wonder what is coming next and the high definition update is instantly recognisable.

Mowing down zombies leaves their bloodied corpses on the road behind you and huge bosses die in a spectacular fashion which adds to the satisfaction value of Zombie Driver and scattered around the city are weapon pickups to make things go boom and the explosions look amazing!

Summary

The high definition upgrade of this PC classic is a good arcadey addition to the console downloadable games market with its super sharp detail and addictive satisfying gameplay. Lack of a story lets Zombie Driver HD down though with characters and situations not explained in any detail. The variety of mission types, game modes and weapon types may be enough to keep players interested however for story and purpose, there are better games out there. I score Zombie Driver HD 3/5

Zombie Driver HD

Developers: Exor Studios

Publishers: Exor Studios

Xbla

Psn

PC

Genre: Top Down Action

Release Date: 17th October 2012

Story - 1.5/5

Gameplay – 3/5

Graphics – 3.5/5

Overall – 3/5

©theleet