Game Rant's C.J. Smillie reviews Zombii Attack

Games that are made for devices such as phones and instant messaging programs are vastly different from the ones made for consoles. They are usually designed for the sake of killing a player's time - something for them to do while waiting for a bus, or on the way to school, or just for something to do when bored. As such, they rarely have any sort of substance to them, and are simplistic in nature.

Gamers Digital has made a number of games with this design scheme in mind, mainly for MSN, Yahoo, Apple, and other similar brands. Now, they have teamed up with Motiviti to make their first step into console gaming, with Zombii Attack for WiiWare.

The story to the game is the same story with any zombie game, movie, comic book, or what-have-you. A virus has spread over the planet, causing the dead to rise from their graves and attack the living to devour their flesh. Naturally, as one of the few survivors left, it's up to you to fight this menace. There is a bit of a twist, though. The one responsible for the virus, Dr. Zii, needs you to capture certain breeds of zombies so that he can fashion a cure. It's as basic a story as needed for as simple a game as this.

Gameplay is very simplistic. The player loads up their slingshot with various items such as rocks, spare tires, anvils, etc, to launch them at the zombies, racking up money to buy more ammunition. The player also has to capture certain types of zombies via a tractor beam and launch them at a net flying around the area.

Since the player is using a slingshot rather than the traditional gun, they have to hold down the fire button to charge up the shot. But therein lies the problem. The idea is that the longer they hold down the shot, the more chance the zombies have to come towards them and damage the base. But even so, players will always want to charge the shot, because firing rapidly is a waste of ammo. Buying different kinds of ammo for different kinds of zombies would be interesting, but having to buy up more and more of the same ammunition because you've run out is just tedious.

In addition to that, it was promised that the game would have "destructible environments", which typically means something along the lines of houses collapsing or trees falling. But the actual Zombii Attack environments cannot be interacted with in any sense, much less be destroyed. In fact, the only thing that can be destroyed is the player's base, which is something they'll want to actively avoid.

The graphics are also pretty terrible - even by the Wii's standards. They look like much more suited for the Nintendo 64 than a downloadable title in this day and age - with blocky character designs and bland environments. The music also pretty generic - sounding like the grungy-techno stuff that players would expect from the 64-bit era.

The biggest problem with this game, however, is that it simply doesn't belong on the Wii, or any mainstream console for that matter. There's very little substance to the title - you just kill zombies, get money, buy more ammo, repeat for 18 levels. It feels like a larger browser game - which is a major rip off at the price. A console title that one has to pay 500 Wii Points for, and that takes up a considerable amount of space on the system's memory, should have a bit more to it than just a casual time-killer. There's nothing wrong with the game in and of itself; it just doesn't belong on a console and would have probably enjoyed a lot more success on the iPhone or Android marketplaces.

Zombii Attack is out now for the Nintendo WiiWare for 500 Wii Points.