You’ve finally made it to a remote location and you’re holed up in a fancy cabin in the woods. The undead horde is upon you, with more and more corpses shambling out of the tree line each day. With a seemingly endless supply of ammo to counteract this apocalypse, it’s up to you to wipe out every last zombie or die trying.
Over 9,000 is a twin-stick shooter based on a classic defend the house mentality. Every day, a new continuous wave of undead seek to destroy your shelter and eat your brains. Players have to survive each day, killing everything in sight and grabbing pickups from corpses. This title throws a constant struggle of risk vs reward as you’ll have to think on your feet and react quickly if you want to stand any chance of making it past the first couple days. You see, the zombies seem to be carrying an awful lot of scrap metal, which just so happens to be perfect for building turrets. Did I forget to mention that you seem to be a master engineer with a penchant for death?
As I fought and died, I had to come up with new strategies to ensure my survival. My first mistake was forgetting to build turrets at all. I was quickly overrun, despite finding a few more weapons to make me feel a bit more powerful. Alas, a machine gun alone is no match for the sheer volume of walking death that approached me. I hoped all these corpulent monstrosities wanted was a nice big hug, but that was not the case.
The second attempt, I was feeling alright. I now knew how to build turrets, and understood the importance of scrap metal and grenades. I had a couple other starting weapons to choose from and things were going good. Two turrets with a spread shot and one turret for single targets, that should keep me going for a while, right? Well unfortunately I forgot to look back once night hit on the second day, and walked straight into a house full of death.
Rocket launchers! Of course! On my third attempt, I set about surviving the first day purely on my own, saving up every bit of scrap metal I could find. At long last I had enough for a rocket turret, and built it straight away. I thought that surely this would eradicate my problem, and sat back as the dead exploded all around me. More and more rocket turrets were built as the scrap metal piled high atop the bodies of my fallen enemies. Finally, I had six rocket turrets up and running. I thought I was safe. I was not…
They were too fast, and there were too many of them. My rockets let me down eventually as they were overrun by zombies who cared not for their fallen comrades. I was backed into a corner and watched my turrets fall one by one until the swarm came for me. There had to be a better way.
In the end, I did come up with a pretty good strategy for getting past the first few days. Luckily by this point, a friend was able to hop on and help team up to eradicate our common foe. Probably one of the best features of this title is definitely the ability to play with a friend, as two shotguns are always better than one. Over 9,000 Zombies! throws a lot at you, and you’ll definitely want some help. That said, there’s still a lot to appreciate on your own.
First of all, the shooting and movement feels good. This game is a bit slower pace, with an emphasis more on feeling overwhelmed by a slowly growing mass than being forced to dodge every projectile on-screen. There’s some nice player feedback, with screenshake and a flash when you’re firing. It’s also rather insignificant, but your shells slowly pile up at your feet as you move and shoot. It’s these little details that really help make a game feel fun to play.
Unfortunately, the UI didn’t get quite as much attention as other areas and is probably my main complaint. At first glance it’s confusing. It takes some getting used to before you know where everything is. It doesn’t help that all the text is just a few sizes too small as well. It’s functional, it just could use a bit more work. Hopefully this can get touched up a little bit shortly after or before launch, but it’s certainly not the end of the world.
With Over 9,000 Zombies! you get exactly what you’d expect: gore, explosions, and guns. It’s very reminiscent of other defence games, but unique enough to stand on its own and deliver hours of fun. If you’re looking for a fun way to kill some time this winter and have an affinity for twin-stick shooters I definitely recommend checking out this title. Keep your eyes peeled though, or you’ll soon be ravaging that which you sought to protect!
Interested in trying it out? Go here – Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/273500/
