It seems funny to me now that upon starting Zombie Army 4: Dead War I was concerned it wouldn't be able to match the content of the previous game. That previous game, Zombie Army Trilogy was, as its title implies, made up of three seperate games. I have fond memories of playing through that, while I wish I had people to play it with, it was still a fun, albeit, repetitive game of zombie slaying in a World War II setting. My synopsis of the story for this one may be a little foggy, due to playing this over a three year period.
Zombie Hitler has been defeated and banished to Hell but that didn't mean the zombie horde invading the world was defeated. Even with him gone the zombies continue to hunt down the last bastions of humankind. Even worse, Nazi cultists are working together to resurrect the Fuhrer, and so you are in a race against time travelling all over Europe in order to stop this happening.
Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a gigantic game even when you don't count the huge amount of DLC missions. The base game is split over nine chapters and comprises of thirty two different levels. Add in the downloadable content (whose final chapter, Ragnarok released last month) and you have yourself an additional eleven chapters and an extra thirty two levels, making for a whopping sixty four in total. While I dread to think how much money I splashed out to own all the DLC chapters, it did completely double the size of the game, seeming pretty essential in my eyes. Having played this over such a long time period my memories of the base game is hazy.
Zombie Army is a third person shooter in which your character's primary weapon is a sniper rifle. This was a spin-off from the popular Sniper Elite series and has a genuine B-movie feel to it. Levels play out in almost exactly the same format, there will be story based reasons to progress you through levels, and constantly you will be being swarmed by hundreds of undead soldiers. If you recall the Library level from Halo then the whole game is basically that. You trying to hold your ground against an overwhelming force. Much of the combat happens down the sight of your sniper rifle, while you get to hold one weapons for some close range combat should the need arise. Occasionally you will be treated to some X-ray killshots should you get a particularly nice looking kill. The different chapters are varied and this especially becomes true during the DLC. The amount of different zombie types is pleasing, in addition to normal undead you get special ones such as hulking brutes armed with gatling guns, flamethrowers and saws, ones that are strapped with explosives and rush you, commander zombies who have the ability to summon soldiers. Then there are the zombified vehicles such as tanks and gun turrets, whose heart must be exposed to destroy them. The DLC spices things up more, bringing with it vampire zombies, zombie sharks and more.
Locations the chapters take place in are varied, even if sometimes they feel similar in look. There are quite a few chapters set in Hell itself, a cool chapter that sees you heading to the centre of the Earth, various factories and facilities, ones sets in swampland, in the mountains, a mental asylum and more. Each chapter for the most part did feel unique in look. I admit I struggled a bit to follow the story, not so much due to it being complicated, more that there were periods of many months in between me playing the game. The final DLC mission ends on a bit of a damp note, didn't really feel like the end of the game and it actually wasn't that difficult.
A game like this is designed to be played in co-op, that was something I did feel I missed out on as it can get a bit dull playing this solo. That was a similar complaint I had with Zombie Army Trilogy, but even on my own I enjoyed this.
Zombie Army 4: Dead War is a huge game that builds upon the lessons learnt during the construction of the first three. My biggest worry had been the length, but this becomes almost too big for its own good. That is only due to the mechanics never really being spiced up too much and so it can all feel a bit repetitive. From the very first level to the final one, you are doing near enough the exact same gameplay loop throughout. With friends I would imagine this to be an amazing amount of fun, even playing it on my lonesome though I thought this was quite grand.
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