Atom Zombie Smasher

The Short


Pros
- Addicting tactical zombie-killing, survivor-rescuing simulator
- Lots of play modes and difficulties to appeal to any level of player
- Handful of unique units all play differently and require different strategies
- Tons of maps
- Risk inspired "board game" mode where you fend of regions from infections is quite addicting
- Modding support allows for some zany enhancements

Cons
- Minimalism graphics work, but still come off as a bit cheap
- Difficulty is off the charts, and the game gets really hard really fast (unless you mod it)
- In the main mission, the game chooses for you what items you get, which is really obnoxious

Keep the yellow alive. 

The Long

As I've said before, one of my favorite things about indie games is the fact that they can do crazy ideas that would never fly on a full-on published release. Atom Zombie Smasher is an excellent example of that philosophy. A relatively simple game with a neat premise, there is no way this would get green-lighted by any major publisher. But as a small, cheap independent game, Atom Zombie Smasher is balls of fun (see what I did there? Indie game joke.). 

Don't let the zombies take over the world. 

The core concept is simple: Zombies are invading, spreading like a virus, and you have to try and keep areas quarantined and save as many yellow dots...I mean people as possible. It starts out on a Risk style board, where both you and the zombies are spreading to try and take over as much map as possible. The first to getting the max score wins, with every milestone (indicated in white dots on the bottom of the above screenshot) earning either you or the undead a bonus. Get the most score first and you win. Get overrun and the zombies win, and you get your brains chewed on. 

This is where you'll do most of your work. 

When fighting for a province, your goal is to get a set number of people out alive. You are given a handful of supplies ranging from snipers that set up in buildings, timed explosive and mines, bait to distract the zombies (or "Zed"), and a rescue chopper that will pick up groups of people. Zombies will cross anything besides buildings, but eventually nasty ones will show up that can knock down buildings (or you can blow them up yourself) and take out large groups of people. So you have to be careful, because your supplies are limited.

There's no way to kill all the zombies. Ok, it is possible, but odds are low that you'll pull it off, especially in later missions. So instead you have to strategically decide how to best rally up the yellow (for if they are so much as touched by a purple Zed they turn purple themselves, adding to the horde) and get them out. Sacrifices will have to be made for groups too far out, and this game quickly becomes a desperate wait for the heli to come back and haul your people away. It's a rush, even if the graphics are just little bips, and I actually kind of felt bad when I had to abandon a small group of yellows to die for the greater good. 

Nuking zombies with artillery is always a good plan, just try to not kill too many civilians. 

It's a simple game in concept that quickly gets complex, especially with added units, zombies, and maps. In addition, time passes, and when night rolls around hordes of zombies start crawling in, which basically means you'd better be close to winning before night or else you are hosed. It's quite addicting and very fun, giving the whole "come on, one more game" hook that many games strive for and few accomplish.

A negative, however, is that this game is hard. Even after several hours of playing I still hadn't really figured out the best strategies, and would fail from time to time. This is especially frustrating on the single player Risk game, for two reasons. First, your units have a "cooldown," so you can't use the same batch twice in a row, and also I swear it just randomly assigns them to you so you could get totally boned on what resources you have for a mission. Second, there's no reloading, so if you fail a mission the zombies get your land and you don't get to retry. Considering the zombies already have the tactical advantage (there's like four groups of them moving to cover the map vs your one move a turn), failing once can mean you've failed the entire game already and just don't know it. The idea of adding momentum with the unlocks is good, but it means if they get too much early on you are basically screwed and should start over. 

That's a lot of Zed. 

This unforgiving gameplay is frustrating, also because you can't always control where the yellow dots go. They tend to be really stupid when it comes to seeing purple Zed, and one slip-up can turn an entire group of survivors into enemies. Had the game been more forgiving throughout (maybe having an easy mode that actually is, I dunno, easy?) then I wouldn't have been annoyed, but as it stands it is very easy to get frustrated. 

Luckily you can ignore this frustration because the game not only has tons of maps and single-mission modes, but tons of mods as well. So if you think the game is too hard, some friendly Steam member has posted up an "Easier" mod! (there's even one intended for children to play) You can also have it so people fire faster and redeploy quicker, another big frustration, and basically anything you can imagine. I'm not giving Atom Zombie Smasher a pass because its community retroactively patched up the difficulty problems, but the fact they are so open to it certainly helps alleviate the pain.

Moral of the story: zombies don't fight fair. 

Graphics are simple, as you can see, but get the job done. I actually think it works better with them just being dots, because seeing people eaten or turned into zombies would have been stupid, and there's some weird emotional resonance to seeing groups of betrayed yellow dots turn purple and then head back towards the yellow ones. It isn't a graphical masterpiece by any means, but it's supposed to be a hardcore tactical zombie evacuation simulator, so it doesn't really need to be. It gets the job done, and has a clean and easy to use interface. It works. 

These screenshots all look so similar, I bet I could post the same one six times and nobody would notice. 

So is it worth the asking price of $10? If you are into this kind of super-hardcore tactical game, than absolutely. There's also a demo on Steam to try out if you aren't sold, but despite me sucking really, really hard at this game I had a blast for several hours fending off the damned Zed in my attempt to save humanity. It's a really clever concept executed very well, and despite the few balance problems (and total lack of music, now that I think about it) it works. I'd personally suggest modding it to make it a touch easier least you get frustrated and hate it, but that's just me. 

Yellows unite! Four out of five stars. 

Tell me about it. Here's hoping Atom Robot Smasher is on its way.