OMG HD Zombies is an action shooter game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS Vita. OMG HD Zombies is actually a remake of Laughing Jackal’s OMG-Z which was one of the best games from the PlayStation Minis range which was originally released in 2011. OMG HD Zombies includes brand new features across the board, but is it a significant improvement in comparison to the original game?
There is an interesting origin to how the zombie apocalypse begins, but I will not spoil that element of the story, although the general story revolves around a soldier that is attempting to escape through the hordes of zombies to get to safety with a rather unfortunate limited amount of ammunition. The story is presented as a comic book strip with an introduction to how the streets became overrun with zombies to five widely varying endings which are gradually unlocked as you progress through the story.
There are 100 levels spread across a variety of environments such as overrun streets to parks, prisons, rooftops, football stadiums and much more besides with environmental hazards in the form of explosive barrels that can set the zombies within a certain radius on fire. You start off with a very limited amount of levels available and you progressively unlock levels dependant upon achieving a successful performance in a level which will unlock up to a few levels at a time.
There are eight zombie types including civilian zombies, bloated zombies, cop zombies, soldier zombies, bilious zombies, mortar zombies, runner zombies and zapper zombies. Each of the zombie types have their own unique reactions to being shot at such as soldier zombies that will shoot multiple rounds into the crowd of zombies, while cop zombies fire a round in the direction they were facing; runner zombies run to a nearby area, screaming loudly and insanely down the ears of other zombies; zapper zombies will shoot out bolts of electricity when fired upon; civilian zombies and bloated zombies will explode; bilious zombies will produce a rather large pool of vomit; and mortar zombies shoot out their internal organs such as brains or intestines across the environment towards other zombies. It is an excellent design decision to have each of the eight zombie types having their own unique reaction to being fired upon as one precisely placed bullet can produce an entire chain of chaos and mayhem that results in fifty to a hundred zombies or so being brutally killed by an ongoing chain reaction in which a soldier zombie could fire bullets into the crowd with one of them hitting a runner zombie, which then makes her run to a nearby corner to scream her head off, in turn making civilian and bloated zombies explode, which results in multiple civilian and bloated zombie deaths with a bilious zombie nearby that vomits as a result of the nearby gun shots, explosions or screaming, followed by a cop zombie or soldier zombie walking into the vomit and shooting into the crowd of zombies or perhaps even a zapper zombie walking into the pool of vomit or being close to one of the exploding or screaming zombies which then makes the zapper zombie electrocute a nearby zombie to potentially start multiple chain reactions with only a single well placed bullet. All of this results in an element of strategy that is incredibly rewarding when a single bullet results in a brutal melee of zombies shooting, electrocuting, exploding, screaming and vomiting at each other simultaneously; which is also quite amusing.
There are four types of medals to earn dependant upon your performance within each level as the medal is decided by how many zombies have been killed and how many are still alive. The figure of the amount of zombies that have been killed is represented as a percentage that relates to various medal categories with 59% or less resulting in no medal at all, while anywhere from 60% to 74% is awarded a bronze medal; 75% to 89% earns a silver medal; 90% to 99% is awarded a gold medal; and 100% represents a platinum medal. There is a prestige system in which you earn your first prestige for achieving a platinum medal on every level and you have the option to remove all of your progress through the story and attempt to prestige the game a second time, third time, fourth time and so on. The medals, corresponding percentages and prestige system are all excellent design choices as they collectively provide multiple incentives to improve your performance to earn yourself a better medal; therefore requiring players to more than likely revisit the majority of the levels even on the way to achieving your first prestige of the entire 100 levels.
The percentages do not just earn you particular categories of medals, but they also represent the amount of money that you earn from your performance during a level. You can earn anywhere from $1,000 for achieving a 60% to 74% zombie kill rate and a bronze medal; $3,000 for achieving a 75% to 89% zombie kill rate and a silver medal; $6,500 for achieving a 90% to 99% zombie kill rate and a gold medal to as much as $10,500 for achieving a 100% zombie kill rate and a platinum medal. In-game currency is used to purchase upgrades for your weapon, explosive barrels and to make all eight zombie types more deadly in regards to being more likely to kill other zombies around them. There are three categories of upgrades with each category having multiple upgrades available that range in their pricing from $2,000 for the first upgrade to $20,000 for the tenth upgrade comprising of a total of ten upgrades available for all of the eight types of zombies, explosive barrels and your weapon for a total of 100 upgrades available to purchase at any given time. The only catch being that the upgrades for each of the three categories are on a set path; meaning that rather than being able to purchase any of the upgrades in the order that you wish to choose so that you must purchase the upgrades in the path provided, although you can purchase an upgrade for any of the eight zombie types, explosive barrels and your weapon at any given time. The upgrades available for purchase include increasing the amount of bullets in the magazine of your gun, reducing the length of time to reload; increasing the amount of bullets a soldier zombie fires before death and widening the pattern of fire; increasing how explosive the barrels are and their reach to the surrounding zombies; increasing how explosive the civilian zombies, bloated zombies, mortar zombies, runner zombies and zapper zombies are; and much more besides. Upgrading any of the zombies, your weapon or the explosive barrels collectively results in totally different experiences on any given level which is a further amazing design choice as it changes the game up completely and makes the upgrades feature absolutely essential.
The stats screen provides you with a breakdown of a wide variety of your statistics including the total amount of zombies killed; the total amount of each of the eight types of zombies killed; the amount of upgrades acquired; the amount of bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals earned; the highest chain you have achieved; the amount of barrels you have exploded; the amount of money accumulated and spent; the amount of gun shots fired by the player, cops and soldiers; the amount of zombie deaths inflicted by other zombies, explosive barrels and bullets. The statistics are vastly detailed with a total of 31 statistics which is a great design choice as it provides a wealth of information and analysis in regards to were you are succeeding and were you are not; indicating the possibility of which areas you next need to invest the accumulated in-game currency earned in previous levels to enhance your performances further in your continued attempts to achieve platinum medals.
The controls are effective as they are simple to learn, regardless of whether you are using the face button control scheme or touch screen control scheme. The face button control scheme consists of pressing X to shoot; holding L to view the current status of health for all of the zombies before you strategically plan which zombie is best to shoot to trigger a chain reaction to the surrounding zombies; holding R to view the colour coded groups of enemies for an indication of how the zombies react to other zombies within their vicinity; changing the direction of the left analogue stick or pressing up, down, left or right to move the crosshair to aim your shot; and pressing start to display the pause menu. The touch screen control scheme consists of tapping on the zombie you want to shoot; tapping the zombie head icon to the bottom right of the touch screen to view the colour coded groups of enemies for an indication of how the zombies react to other zombies within their vicinity; tapping the health icon to the bottom right of the touch screen to view the current status of health for all of the zombies before you strategically plan which zombie is best to shoot to trigger a chain reaction to the surrounding zombies; tapping the pause icon to the top right of the touch screen to display the pause menu.
Graphically, OMG HD Zombies is pretty good with subtle background details ranging from pictures of missing family members to signs displaying that people are alive inside a particular building and asking for help. The eight different types of zombies look unique from each other as is the case with the environments which range from overrun streets to parks, prisons, rooftops, football stadiums and more. OMG HD Zombies is generally quite gory and violent as many of the zombies ooze blood and split in half when you shoot them with dismembered zombie body parts strewn around some areas of the environments.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great purely touch screen based user interface across various menus such as the main menu, comic book strips, level select menu, online leaderboards, stats menu, options menu and various gameplay menus, although that means there is no support for navigation via the left analogue stick, right analogue stick, directional pad, face buttons and rear touch pad. The background of the menu screens features a dark street pavement stained with blood, while a clever touch to the presentation is a blood stained finger print that is displayed anytime you tap the touch screen during menu screens.
The audio consists of sound effects and music with the sound effects including gun shots from your weapon and the guns belonging to soldier zombies and cop zombies, runner zombies screaming, explosions from bloated zombies and explosive barrels, zombies growling in general and blood splattering, while the music blends multiple genres together to perfectly create a sense of tension, suspense and atmosphere that is appropriate for the subject matter.
The trophy list includes 12 trophies with 9 bronze trophies, 2 silver trophies and 1 gold trophy. Easier trophies include the Happy Shopper bronze trophy for purchasing all ten of the upgrades for a zombie, explosive barrels or your weapon; and the Sweeter Than Gold bronze trophy for earning your first platinum medal by achieving 100% in any given level. Harder trophies include the Back In The Line bronze trophy for earning a prestige for the entire game by achieving 100% in all 100 levels; the Shopaholic silver trophy for purchasing all of the ten upgrades for all of the eight zombie types, explosive barrels and your weapon to reach a total of 100 purchased upgrades; the No Stone Unturned silver trophy for completing the game to 100% by achieving 100% and a platinum medal for all 100 levels; and Bang And The Zombies Are Gone gold trophy for earning a prestige for the entire game twenty times over by achieving 100% in all 100 levels, starting afresh and then doing it all over again a total of twenty times which is certainly the hardest trophy of the entire trophy list and by far the longest trophy to achieve. I would estimate depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take over 75 hours to 100% the trophy list with the vast majority of that time coming from having to prestige the game twenty times over for the Bang And The Zombies Are Gone gold trophy.
There are no difficulty levels, although an important element to the difficulty curve involves how much you have upgraded the effectiveness of the eight zombie types, explosive barrels and your weapon. Purchasing upgrades are a large factor as the game will become gradually harder as you progress through the levels with a steady increase in the amount of zombies at the start of levels and a seemingly increased amount of health for each of the zombies in later levels. Upgrading the eight zombie types, explosive barrels and your weapon will certainly offset the gradual increase in difficulty, although it is a well managed difficulty curve that will still most probably see you achieving a bronze medal without upgrades, while silver medals are achievable with some upgrades, gold medals through the assistance of a fair few upgrades and platinum medals with the majority of upgrades. It is important to note that particular upgrades are more likely to help you on certain levels in comparison to others as for instance; there are explosive barrels in quite a few levels, while there are plenty of levels that do not have explosive barrels and each of the eight zombie types are individually featured in a fair amount of levels, so it is important to factor in which zombies are in a certain level and whether explosive barrels are featured or not before purchasing upgrades to help your performance percentage in a particular level.
There is unfortunately no multiplayer component which would have made the game even more fun to be able to share the carnage with a friend in competitive or co-operative modes. OMG HD Zombies would have been perfect for hot seat multiplayer in pass the Vita multiplayer with different rules for how to win including achieving the best score; killing the most zombies; best medal for your performance; killing all of the zombies with the least amount of bullets used; and killing all of the zombies within the least amount of time, while the same style of gameplay would also be suitable in online multiplayer. A co-operative multiplayer mode could have seen an increase in the amount of zombies for the purpose of having two soldiers resulting in double the amount of bullets or alternatively having the same amount of zombies in comparison to single player, while both soldiers have half the amount of bullets resulting in each soldier having three bullets to create a chain reaction of zombie killing.
Online leaderboards focus on global scores and your friends’ scores across two categories of zombies killed and level scores with both leaderboards containing each player’s rank and name (PSN ID), while the zombies killed leaderboard has the amount of zombies killed throughout the entire game and the level scores leaderboards have the level scores for each individual level with the positioning of each player in the zombies killed leaderboard based upon the overall amount of zombies killed, while the positioning of each player in the level scores leaderboards are based upon the overall amount of points earned from each particular level.
Replayability stems from multiple areas with the stand out being the upgrades feature for the eight zombie types, explosive barrels and your weapon that will have you returning to levels in an attempt to improve your performance; which works well with the bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals and the in-game currency that is carefully balanced with the cost of upgrades. Replay value crops up in other features such as the ability to prestige the entire game by completing every level with a 100% performance rating for every level, while there are also five unlockable endings and competitive online leaderboards that will also have you coming back for quite some time.
Analysis
• Title: OMG HD Zombies!
• Developer: Laughing Jackal
• Publisher: Laughing Jackal
• System: PS Vita
• Format: PSN Download
• Cross-Buy: No
• Cross-Play: No
• Players: 1 (Online Leaderboards)
• Memory Card Space Required: 672MB
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Jason
Jason plays all genres of games and enjoys all different kinds of experiences that the games industry has to offer. Jason’s favourite PlayStation exclusive franchises throughout various eras include: Crash Bandicoot, God of War, Gran Turismo, inFamous, Killzone, Little Big Planet, MotorStorm, Resistance, Spyro the Dragon, Uncharted, Wipeout and various games that never became big name franchises. A special mention goes to Black Rock’s superb Split Second: Velocity as it is rather unbelievable that it will never receive a sequel.
Jason now mainly plays modern PlayStation games on home console and portably, but occasionally returns to the old retro classics on the 3DO, PS1 and PS2 such as discovering Cool Spot Goes to Hollywood 20 years after its original release on PS1. Jason is happy to see gaming coming full circle with updates for retro classics such as Alien Breed, Superfrog and Crash Bandicoot.
