Review: N.Y. Zombies - Not A Hero, Just A Guy With A Gun
by Allan Curtis
October 26, 2010
Overview
You squint though the rain at the shambling shapes in the distance as a unearthly groan reaches your ears on the slight breeze. You level your scavenged rifle and peer thought the smudged scope at the advancing terrors, your finger moving to the trigger coldly. Seconds later they all crumple to the ground in a shower of crimson. As you turn and survey a dozen more mindlessly questing towards you, you sling your shotgun off your back with a sigh.Features
N.Y. Zombies Features tense shooting gameplay, many weapons with upgrades, many types of zombies to wipe out and a decent narrative.The Good
N.Y. Zombies is a defensive shooter. You cannot move though the environment, but rather you tilt and pan your view, shooting zombies who attack you. This non moving mechanic works in the game's favor, as it lets you concentrate on the game's intense shooting action.
Controls couldn't be simpler. You just tap where you want to shoot and swipe to rotate your view.
N.Y. Zombies features many weapons for your undead blasting enjoyment, including a pistol, rifle, riot gun, grenades and even a railgun. Each can be upgraded up to three times, enhancing its damage and other stats.
You also have access to auxiliary items you can buy such as medkits, armour, 
flash bangs and Molotov cocktails.
What makes N.Y zombies different from other fps games is that weapons take a LONG time to reload and most of your enemies are slow. This introduces a more strategic feel into the game.
For example your rifle fires quite fast, and is very powerful, but the level 1 rifle takes literally ten seconds to reload after firing 5 shots, which is a more than adequate time for a reeking horror to chew your face off. So you pick off zombies in the distance with your rifle, then, while it reloads you quickly switch to your Uzi and fire off a stream of full auto. Once that is gone you switch your your quick reloading pistol and unload that at the oncoming terrors.
By the time you do this, your rifle is ready and you can switch to it. The game is more about picking the right weapon and managing your reload times than simply shooting down everything in sight,a s getting caught with everything reloading is deadly. Using your best weaponry like the rifle and railgun to pick off strong enemies before they reach you and using your lesser weapons on weaker opponents is important too.
N.Y. Zombies starts off easy, but quickly ramps up in difficulty, adding in fast running zombies that charge you, jumping zombies, huge, tough zombies that walk slowly towards you and take an avalanche of lead to drop, dark areas where you need to use flares to see clearly and tumor zombies that revive other zombies.
The game also randomly generates where zombies will appear and what kinds, so even when you replay missions they don't feel samey.
Replaying missions is a good idea, as the game lets you return to previous areas to earn more money, so you can buy better weapons, which is a very good idea, as buying the wrong weaponry can make it very difficult to beat certain stages.
Graphically, N.Y. Zombies looks very good, rather like a PSone game. There are a good number of different zombie models; the animation is very smooth and zombies stagger and lope like they should.
Soundwise the game is well done. Guns could have little more punch however. The rifle sounds rather weak kneed and zombies don't scream when they die. There are other nice zombie sounds however and certain weapons, like the railgun and chainsaw have good sound effects.
The music is really good however and really conveys the hopeless terror of your situation, coupled with the game's dark deserted environments.
