As we speed faster and faster into impending doom due to the multitude of issues we currently face (the global pandemic, world hunger, Best Buy sending me a damaged copy of Doom Eternal), I find myself thinking more and more about living in a post-apocalyptic America. Since this hasn’t been a thing that any of us have dealt with in our generation, I look to fictional works such as video games or movies to generate my survival plans. In most cases, these are harrowing journeys that many of us who complain about social distancing and stay at home orders wouldn’t last overly long in, but every once in a while we get one that focuses a little more on fun than projected realism, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War falls on the fun side.

Picking up after the events of Zombie Army Trilogy, you are simply trying to survive the post-Hitler Europe after zombies wreck the country beyond repair. The story is much more cohesive than the previous entry/entries, opting to include long-winded speeches and backstories for NPCs that really only serve to guide you from point A to B, giving some personality to the red shirts of the game. It never really takes itself seriously and is certainly nowhere near Shakespeare, but it really doesn’t need to be – chances are you went into this for one reason, and that’s to blow some zombies apart, bit by bloody bit.

Rebellion has a history of putting out some of the most entertaining sniping experiences of this console generation, and Zombie Army 4: Dead War is no exception. Whether you want to go the realistic approach, requiring you to account for distance, wind, etc., or just go in guns blazing, hitting where your crosshair lands, the game has you covered with the smooth handling. The slow-motion bullet cam makes a triumphant return, but as a first in the history of the Sniper Elite style series, it felt like it was underused. Even when I turned the option within the menu to the max, I would only see this happen once or twice a level. This wasn’t a deal-breaker for me, but I am going to be completely honest, I giggled like a 6-year-old every time I shot off a pair of green zombie testes.

If you’re new to the series, the game focuses heavily on sniping, despite having some explosive tools and secondary weaponry at your disposal. If you’re not into playing the long game (this offers plenty of advantageous spots to do so), you’ll likely be disappointed as the secondary options come with a lot less ammo and don’t pack nearly enough of a punch. Opting for the long game amounts to an experience that really reminds me of the scene from the 2003 remake of Dawn of the Dead where they are picking off zombies from the roof of buildings – it’s not particularly challenging to blow chunks off the slow-moving undead, but that doesn’t make it any less fun.

This follow up took everything that was great about the first/previous games in the series and cranked them up to eleven. The visuals are highly detailed and well-polished, with only the occasional visual glitch or wonky animation being present. I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing a zombie having its head split open by a high caliber rifle, but I imagine that it wouldn’t just disappear as some red Kool-Aid shoots from the neck wound, but that happens pretty often here.

The missions are structured in a very Left 4 Dead style of storytelling, with acts being broken up into short chapters that are book-ended by reaching safe rooms and completing various sub-objectives in between. These minor objectives are more of the same “guard this” or “survive that” variety and miss the opportunity to cash in on bigger and better set-pieces. At one point, I was tasked with surviving a storm of falling suicidal zombies that exploded while my NPC comrades were shooting down Hell planes with mounted AA guns. Now I am not saying I always need to use an AA gun in a shooter to enjoy it, it’s just common sense that this is more fun than having exploding corpses fall from the sky.

I found the game to be enjoyable enough solo, but really got into it when I joined up with some friends. Supporting up to 4 players online in either campaign or a survival style hoard mode, the carnage only improves with the more players you bring into the mix. The game does an apt job of scaling the number of enemies and the variety of them based off of how many players are in the group. In certain instances, I found myself tactically retreating and having to herd some of the undead into traps, but I rarely found myself staring at overwhelming odds with the number of enemies thrown my way.

If you follow my reviews, you probably notice I can find a lot to hate about pretty much anything, but this is one of the rare exceptions to that rule. My only real complaint is that the way in which the missions are designed requires a bigger time commitment than what I can give on a regular basis and offers no mid-mission save point, even when playing solo. I would finish a chapter and want to play another one, but had no idea how long it was and really didn’t want to lose progress.

Zombie Army 4 probably won’t provide any valuable survival skills in my own personal zombie survival guide for when the COVID-19 virus kills us all and reanimates our corpses, but it will help me remember that popping zombies in the dome will never fail to get a laugh.

9 out of 10

Pros

• Solid Shooting Mechanics
• Highly Detailed Visuals
• Shooting the Nuts Off of a Zombie at 200 Meters Is Hilarious

Cons

• Lack of Mid-Mission Save Points
• Some Weird Animations

Zombie Army 4: Dead War was developed and published by Rebellion. It is available on PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Zombie Army 4: Dead War, check out the game’s official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

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