The Case

Zombie Army Trilogy is a third person shooter developed and published by Rebellion, makers of Aliens vs Predator and Sniper Elite 3. This game is a remake of sorts of Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 1 and 2 along with the inclusion of what could have been Sniper Elite: Nazi Zombie Army 3. So sniping and zombies, right? Let’s see how this goes.

The Trial

Yo jurors! Let me present some important information on this came before the trial really gets going. This may save some of you a few minutes of reading. If you played either of the Sniper Elite Nazi Zombie Army games and loved them then this is more of the same and may be worth it for you. If you didn’t like those two games, this does absolutely nothing of merit to change your mind so steer clear. If you haven’t played parts 1 and 2 or are on the fence read on.

Zombie Army Trilogy is a game about Hitler losing the World War and deciding to initiate “Plan Z” which consists of using mystical means to create an army of Nazi zombies. Now, these aren’t the typical slow shambling zombies. Well, some of them are. There are also zombies equipped with dynamite that run kamikaze style at you, burning zombies just want a hug, giant zombies packing light machine guns, sniper zombies that basically jetpack from rooftop to rooftop...wait what? Yes.

Interesting enemies but what do you have? This time around, unlike the previous two games, you have a cast of 8 characters to play as instead of 4 with the newcomers being all women. This would have been more interesting if there were actual banter in the game between characters that changes based on who got selected...but no. Each character is just a different skin so to speak, no character specific abilities, so it boils down to the weapons. The player has access to various sniper rifles, submachine guns, pistols, planted explosives and thrown explosives. So they have their tools and you have yours. How does this play out?

Well, this depends. In co-op you end up with what can be a wonderfully tense and exciting game as you run through various locals with up to 3 friends re-killing zombies as you complete various little objectives. In solo mode, the game is more tedious than fun. The number of enemies attacking as well as the amount of respawns means that several sections can drag on as you wait for the game send out the required number of zombies for the section to complete. Besides the tedium this can present the issue with the game occasionally misdirecting the player. There were several instances where I had a tense fire fight and was low on ammo. I’d generally choose to scavenge for more ammunition in this case...but the game would essentially told me to hurry to the safe room and mark the entrance nearby on screen. Thinking the level was over I’d run to the safe room, where players can always restock on ammo and explosives, only for the marker to disappear and the area to again be flooded with zombies that had to be slaughtered before I could proceed. No problem, I’ll just go back to where I came from and pick up some ammo...oh, hi there invisible wall. Guess I won’t be going back...

This misdirection occurs in other instances as well. There was a point where the game blatantly told me to escape which generally means run like hell, so I did. I did this only to be pinned in a corner by another invisible wall that would not go away until I slaughtered a big zombie wearing armor and packing a chainsaw along with all of his friends. Ummm, Rebellion, that’s not “escaping” when the player has to kill everything in the area. That’s just the same as the rest of the game with you giving different instructions making the player think they need to do something different.

And as far as gameplay...that’s generally it. You move from checkpoint to checkpoint shooting and exploding various zombies until you’ve killed enough of them (basically all of them) and then you repeat this process throughout the entire game. The only thing that changes are the locations and the zombies but even that only changes in the early levels until you’ve seen just about everything. Your enjoyment of this title will come directly down to whether or not you enjoy the gunplay and the x-ray kill cam. The game has next to no variety. It does one thing very well though, which is the core sniping, and it runs with it through the entirety of its three campaigns and a horde mode. If you enjoy this, you’re set. If you’re waiting for the game to mix it up - don’t. It won’t.

The presentation of the game is solid. It’s not going to win any “best graphics ever” awards but what’s on display here is impressively atmospheric and detailed. There are varied environments with suitably depressing art along with many humorous jokes and Easter eggs in the levels. The game is not taking itself seriously. If you played the first two titles and want to know what their “remastered” versions bring to the table...ummmm, nothing particularly obvious beyond more foliage and some lightning changes.

The game performs well running at well over 100fps on my machine, most of the time and over 200fps in sections with all settings cranked to max. However, it was not without its technical issues when it came to online and achievements. At some point the game stopped registering that I completed levels at one point. I ran into invisible zombies that could kill me. Their shadows were present and they did not walk around, but when I approached the shadows I could see their attack animations playing out and I was killed. Also, we set up an online game with players from USA and Europe...and the fun began. We had players warping from place to place, a few instances of players getting locked in areas and left behind due to invisible walls triggering when they strayed behind the group and lag so bad that we could fire shots and count the seconds between the shot fired and when the enemy zombie registered the hit. In a co-op match set with players who are a little closer to each other some of these issues with mitigated but not eliminated entirely.

The Verdict

The game looks good, it runs good. It is very atmospheric. The gameplay is very basic at its core where it does only what it does very well and not a single thing outside of that. In co-op, the game is a treat. In single player the pacing becomes an issue. The levels and enemy counts were clearly designed with a co-op focus and single player being an afterthought. In case you haven’t noticed by now, I made no mention of the game’s story. That’s because I didn’t want to even call it that much. It’s so paper thin and presented so poorly it didn’t warrant a mention because I’d have to spend more characters eviscerating it than were used in the script.

Case Review

Judges panel

StuntmanLT Score 3.5/5

3.5

K-putt Score 3/5

3