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After taking a quick look at Doublesix’s Burn, Zombie, Burn it’d be easy to dismiss it as yet another twin-stick shooter – Geometry Wars in a farmyard, with zombies instead of shapes. This would be a very wrong assumption though, as this is no twin-stick shooter. This is a single-stick shooter high on collectables, upgrades and high scores, with a dose of zombie-fuelled humour thrown in too.
Your most basic goal is to stay alive, kill zombies and score points. With the left analogue stick controlling your player’s movement, L1 locking your aim onto enemies, L2 locking your character into a strafing position and R1 firing it’ll take a few minutes to get the hang of things and to stop trying to shoot by pointing the right analogue stick in various directions. Add to this the ability to kick, drop TNT, remotely detonate mines and whip out a flaming torch and there’s more here than initially showed itself.
Core to the whole game is fire and burning zombies. By killing zombies you earn points, with chains of kills using the same weapon eventually unlocking special super events (activated by a big red button) that give you a huge helping hand while on the killing field. Simply trying to kill and stay alive will earn you decent points, but not really enough to unlock the medals required to open up all the extra content the game has to offer. To do this you need to set some zombies on fire.
By poking the zombie masses with your flaming torch they catch alight, with the twist being that your multiplier increases for every zombie that starts to burn. It’s not quite as simple as it seems though, as burning zombies are faster and more keen to take you out and burn their fellow zombie chums. Seeing as these burning zombies help you rack up your overall score it pays to keep them alive, but killing them (and in turn reducing your multiplier) will result in some of the better power-ups appearing on the map.
Burning zombies drop TNT upgrades (upgradeable in terms of type and blast radius) and special weapons, which when used given you more points, so you need to find a balance between slaughtering the burning horde and letting them run amok as score multipliers. So, what seemed liked a fairly mindless shooter (don’t worry, there’s fun to be had here by simply killing the waves of undead) is in fact something of a high score gamer’s dream come true.
With numerous game modes, including Free-play (last as long as you can with the lives available), Timed (earn bonuses to extend time while trying to score as many points as possible), Protect Daisy (your girlfriend is in your car and needs protecting) and a Challenge mode that sets you specific tasks, there’s quite a lot here for your money too. Add in unlockables that will take a very long time to acquire (including developer high scores) and two-player support and we’re running out of reasons not to recommend buying Burn, Zombie, Burn from the PlayStation Store.
Despite being a game from a small developer (although Doublesix was formed by Kuju) Burn, Zombie, Burn looks pretty smart too. Models are basic and the maps are small, but the number of zombies on screen gets ridiculous at times, and there’s plenty of variety meaning you’re not always facing off against your bog-standard lurching undead goon. Audio work is solid too, if a bit too cheesy at times, and the soundtrack is likely to stick in your head for quite a while.
Available for £6.29 Burn, Zombie, Burn is easy to recommend. The non-twin-stick controls won’t be for everyone, but once you’ve got to grips with the system Doublesix has created there’s no end of fun to be found here. With enough depth to keep you coming back for weeks, if not months down the line, high score junkies won’t be disappointed.
