Zombie Smashers X

If you liked River City Ransom, don't bother reading this review. Just download this shareware demo and play.

Ditto if you're a fan of B-Movies and like the idea of: Jump kicking a zombie, exploding its head. Throwing a trashcan at a zombie, exploding its head. Hitting a zombie with a wrench, exploding its head. Maxing out your power bar, punching a zombie, and exploding its head. Not just that, either. The characters (10 in all) have special moves. So you can pick up a prone zombie and backbreak, or come up behind a kneeling zombie and break its neck, or pick up a zombie and spin it round, or rip out a zombie's heart and eat it (which gives you health, hurrah).

There are shops that are a lot like River City Ransom's, similar weapons - even the tire - and tattoos replace books to give you new powers. And to add wonder to the awe, there are editor programs for creating new maps to add to the game, or to create custom games. Conceding to a reviewing convention, I had a friend play the game with me. His normally placid face was cracked with glee as we dispensed head-bursting justice to the risen dead with metal bars, and we cheered every time I leapt over a zombie and used my backbreak skill to produce a realistic skruk.

We didn't rise up from our session of fighting to exhume corpses and kickbox with them, even though this game is excessively gore laden (and therefore mind twisting to us young, impressionable folk, right?). We did, however, have a lot of fun.

Jim Silva has given us a great game. Support his genius with the paltry $10 fee to get the full version.

Review By HOTUD