I love a good zombie flick, even zombie video games are a great treat. But Zombie Wranglers? Unfortunately this is one game you should do yourself a favour and steer well clear of! The game places you somewhere in the middle of a suburbia cartoon nightmare, in control of some type of giant zombie vacuum cleaner (I figure this is where they got the title of the game from!). As these zombie cartoon creatures begin climbing out of the ground, you are charged with the task of running around sucking these dudes up with your vacuum. Yes, very Ghostbuster like.
Zombie Wranglers features cell shaded graphics adding a plethora of bright colours to your screen. Usually these bright colours evoke lovely memories of my childhood, when I would watch cartoons on a Saturday morning, turning the colour on the television up as high as it could go! However, the only memories Zombie Wranglers will be evoking from me is the pleasant relief as I hit the off button on my universal remote. Without trying to force my opinion of this game down your throat, I will briefly explain how the game works. After hunting out the zombies you can go on the offensive with a number of attacks – suck ‘em up with your vacuum, stun them with a simple melee or blow them away with your laser charge gun. None of these attacks seem to work with any type of consistency and you are probably better off running around the neighbourhood pretending you are a ninja.
Capturing a zombie earns you cash which can be exchanged for power ups that are randomly scattered around the map. There seems to be plenty of chicken drumsticks up for grabs which replenish your health instantly (just like real life). There are a few cool power ups available, but again, they are quite inconsistent and you will often end up getting nabbed by a zombie trying to use them. The game starts out easy enough with several dud zombies to hone your weapon skills with. The zombies quickly become more powerful though, requiring combinations of different attacks to bring them down. This is where things get really frustrating, with your inconsistent weaponry often failing to bring about a desired result. I found at this point, your best point of attack is to hit the off switch (again) and go for a game much less likely to cause you to bash yourself in the face.
I didn’t have the patience to attempt playing the game on Xbox LIVE but I can only assume that things would get worse when you throw in a little bit of lag here and there. What could have been a fun game failed miserably in almost every category, the much loved zombie killing genre of games taking a bit of a hit with this title. The power ups were a fun touch until I realised thy rarely work either, so the only suggestion I have is that you save your Microsoft points for something a tad more enjoyable.
