Ground Zero Review – Resident Evil Takes The Last Train To Busan

Ground Zero Review

If you are a fan of those old school fixed camera angle style of horror games, then Ground Zero from Malformation Games is your ticket. Billed as a retro survival horror game, Ground Zero mixes the old with the new and comes up with unique twists on some pretty well-trodden horror gaming ground.

Malformation Games are astute enough to riff off horror games from the PS1 era, like the original Resident Evil game, and throw in a nod to a recent horror flick classic, The Last Train to Busan. The setting for Ground Zero is a post-apocalyptic South Korea. The city of Busan, to be exact. At the game’s start, two months have passed since a meteor impact devastated the area.

A meteor impact destroyed the country, and monsters resulted from the mutation of all living organisms. Into this situation, two operatives are sent to investigate. Korean agent Seo-Yeon and her Canadian counterpart Evan go to find out what is going on. There’s a true international element to the game. Another element of internationalism is the inclusion of a Spanish spy with an obvious nod to Ada Wong from the Resident Evil games. The mix of languages is a clever cover for some suspect voice acting. Which is another nod to those classic horror games. As a Canadian, I found this international cast quite refreshing. Evan’s remarks about his background and how he came to be in this situation vis-a-vis the Canadian government elicited a good chuckle or two.

As for the game, Ground Zero is about – Surprise! – zombies. Instead of a man-made one, this virus comes from a meteor. All living things that come into contact with the virus are converted. Initial encounters come as – No Surprise – dogs. Another obvious nod to Resident Evil. Shortly thereafter, you encounter zombie humans. Further into the game, you encounter even more grotesque creatures. Given the extra-terrestrial origins of the virus, some of the creatures you encounter are really out there. All the zombies have their own attack patterns. You need to learn them in order to devise strategies to best defeat them based on the limited weapons and inventory at your disposal.

Ground Zero Has Lots of Weapons

Concerning weapons, there is an impressive spectrum of arsenal. It ranges from handguns to shotguns to machine guns to rocket launchers. Thankfully, most of the weapons share the same ammo type, which cuts down on inventory juggling. The start of the game makes this doubly so because limited inventory space poses a challenge. So, expanding storage is most welcome. You’ll need the extra space too, as there are many items to carry, such as health canisters, room keys, and puzzle items. You have a wristwatch that brings up the in-game menu screens where you can access your inventory, weapons, communications, and a database. You add to the database by scanning objects with the wrist watch.

Once you have extra inventory space, you will have much more flexibility in your attack strategies. So you won’t be so reliant on one or two weapons. While difficult to pull off in the heat of battle, there is a one-shot kill option that is accomplished by holding the action button while aiming. Another powerful but difficult move to carry off is a melee parry. The combat system is quite robust with only one blemish. There is no quick switch option, which means the rather tedious going to the inventory action to do so. Combat and movement are further complicated by the use of fixed camera angles. However, this is a feature, not a bug. It is much harder to line up enemies for shots or melee combat.

The same is true for movement. There is a tendency to course-correct when transitioning from one screen to the next. You need to learn to keep pressing on the joystick even when the joystick direction seems to be opposite of your screen movement. If you are a hardcore retro gamer, there is a choice between a modern control scheme or the infamous tank controls.

Equal Split – Combat & Puzzles

The gameplay divides equally between combat and puzzle-solving. Like the combat, the puzzles are a good mix of different types. They cover a range from simple keys and locks to keypad codes and more difficult ones. If you find the default settings for combat too difficult or easy, there are a lot of custom settings to tailor the game to suit your tastes. At higher settings, the clues for puzzles become much more cryptic.

These settings make the game very replayable. Even more so because the game has alternative endings, extra content, and ranking challenges. There’s even a separate game mode called Apocalypse Crisis, which has time-based challenges. The game also offers different routes to navigate sections, as well as choosing which character you want to play as.

Given the game’s install size is 28 GB, there is a lot of content here. However, the game’s graphics might deceive you because they mimic the PS1 era. The game apes the blocky graphics, but not to the point of distraction. Character models look decent, and so do the environments. Game sounds and music work well in conjunction to heighten the sense of dread and tension as you play. What is really remarkable about this game, beyond the care taken to honor previous survival horror game classics, is its depth. There are so many ways to play and replay the game that giving an accurate completion runtime is elusive. There’s a speedrun achievement of 8 hours to beat with a normal runtime of 11 hours. It’s doubtful most gamers will finish anywhere near the normal runtime. You can expect to spend around 15 hours.

Ground Zero is one of the most complete indie survival horror games I’ve run across in a long time. While it may come across as a Resident Evil clone, Ground Zero is more like a companion game than a mere clone. The game keeps itself fresh with its generous mix of combat, puzzles, extra modes, and unlockables. Ground Zero offers a lot of quality survival horror gameplay at an indie price.

***PS5 game code provided by the publisher***