Game 40: Pocky & Rocky

Pocky & Rocky is a multiplayer scrolling shooter for the SNES and developed by Natsume, the creators of Harvest Moon. It's hard to imagine the guys who made a farming simulator once worked on a fast-paced, crazy hard shoot 'em up. But they did, and here it is. The game has a lot of charisma and character, but it's super tough! I recruited my friend Hylas to help me out, much like I did for Zombies Ate My Neighbors. This game once again proves that two heads are better than one, but is the game really any good? With a name like Pocky & Rocky, how can you go wrong?

Pocky & Rocky is actually the second game in the Pocky series (Kiki KaiKai was a Japanese only arcade game featuring just our heroine Pocky), but the first in the Pocky and Rocky series starring the girl and the raccoon. There's also a new PS2/Wii game called Kiki Kai World (or Heavenly Guardian) that is somewhat of a new sequel to the series, just 15 years later. Well, who cares about those other games, this is all about Pocky & Rocky! Now, let's get it on!

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I select Start and the first hour begins. The game starts telling the story of the Nopino Goblins and how evil they used to be. But Pocky put an end to that! Pocky is a girl with a giant head and varying hair colors, so far I've seen purple and brown.
01 - Rocky the Raccoon has arrived, something terrible has happened to his fellow goblins! They've all gone crazy and he needs Pocky's help.

02 - Suddenly, a big ugly, round goblin has appeared! But in typical fashion, instead of just fighting him immediately we head to the overworld screen. Hylas and I select the first level, The Haunted Shrine.

03 - I really had no idea what kind of genre this game falls under when I started playing, but it is readily apparent now, this is a scrolling shooter! There are tons of powerups and enemies flying all over.
04 - Dang skeletons tossing bones at us after they die!

05 - Some old man just floated around and threw stuff at us, this game is really weird. But fun!

08 - Wow! We just beat the first boss! It was the ugly goblin from the beginning. Stupid guy was tossing nuts at us. Hylas and I wailed on him with our weapons (Pocky throws playing cards and Rocky throws leaves) and slowly took him down, but we both died once. This game is insane!
09 - Cutscene now of the goblin talking. He starts telling us about what happened: the goblins were having a party when a hooded stranger approached. Poor guys, it was the Black Mantle!

10 - Next level up is the Enchanted Forest. What a unique name... The bad guys start battling us right away.

11 - It's not long before we encounter a fire breathing cyclops, hahaha, he goes down in a flurry of cards and leaves.

13 - Well, the game just keeps throwing bosses at us, next up was a hollow green stick! He seems to know who the mysterious Black Mantle is.
15 - Another Cyclops who goes down as I whoop him from behind. Hylas gives me a warning: don't fall in the water!

18 - That was good advice because we just had a three minute rafting sequence of fending off enemies. Surprisingly, neither Rocky nor Pocky took a swim.

19 - Oh man, an octopus boss! With dragon heads on his tentacles. Not more tentacles! I lost all my lives. Game Over for me...
20 - Hylas won out though and there is now a cutscene of him talking with some turtle goblins. Dang it, Pocky is still alive in the cutscene!

21 - Our next stop is the cemetery... I'm out of lives so I guess I'll just watch Hylas play for a bit.

22 - Geez this level is intense, and I'm not even playing at the moment! Hylas using Rocky weaves his way through the graves only to fight an undead monster! Well, Hylas is also undead now. More like dead. Okay, I'll stop.
23 - Game Over for both of us! But thankfully we get to continue and we both come back with full lives at the graveyard. Nice.

25 - We made it to the boss together this time, man, half of these guy's attack are unavoidable! I don't think we killed him, but he disappears and we're able to enter the crypt.

28 - Holy crap man, boss after boss. This time it was a genie who teleported around the room and threw fire at us while turning into clouds. Someone was on drugs.
30 - Wow, another tremendously hard sequence where we had to avoid skulls and bats and green globs and moving walls that tried to shove us into pits. We both lose all of our lives. Game Over again. And the cemetery again.

34 - We just beat the demon and the genie again, but I'm on my last life. This is going to be so hard.

35 - Well I lost that life in record time. Having two players fight each other by scrolling the screen when there are so many pits is really difficult. Hopefully Hylas can do this on his own...
36 - Nope. Game Over again.

42 - This time was almost worst than last. I was too quick on the start button and started the cemetery level without Hylas, so he had to steal one of my lives to join and play. We actually made it pretty far on a life shortage, but the game's supreme difficulty won out in the end, of course.

45 - We're doing really well this time. We both have two lives remaining after beating the genie.

48 - Finally! We defeat the demon again at the end, this time using bombs (which I didn't know how to use... L and R buttons!), and have finally beaten the cemetery level!
49 - Suddenly the Gorgonzola flying fortress has appeared in the sky! Black Mantle must be in there! The next level is called Battle in the Sky. I have no idea how both Pocky and Rocky are familiar with this flying fortress, but they are and they're note scared.

51 - Well, I lose my one life very quickly. First I fell off, then got trampled by a falling skull. Not fun! There is also a cloud monster that seems unstoppable. Basically this whole game is unstopabble.

52 - Hylas loses his last life when he jumps off the cliff with an animal he's riding!
54 - We're back, but not for long. Pocky loses her last life and now Rocky is once again on his own. The game is forcing him through a scroll maze. Basically a maze that would be super easy to walk through if it weren't for the automatically scrolling screen. Well, there's also tons of pirates shooting at him and some doors are blowing fire in all directions.

56 - Somehow he's still alive and kicking! Go Rocky!

57 - Oh oh, the level boss. It's some bird man monster who throws deadly feathers at Rocky. I guess we'll give this one more go now that the raccoon man is dead.

60 - And that last go was just enough! We use all our bombs on the bird monster to whoop down on him! Just a few more levels remain but we are out of time on the first hour of Rocky & Pocky!

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 6
For being a SNES shoot 'em up, Pocky & Rocky's story is not half bad! We get some fun cutscenes between levels that aren't too long and the graphics are cute enough to keep it appealing. The story is basic, kind of reminds me of something like Kirby where you have to save all your furry friends. The Black Mantle was a nice, dark addition to an otherwise cheerful game, just wish I could have met him face to face in the first hour instead of hearing all his minions blab on and on about who and where he is.

Graphics and Sound: 8
Colorful, well detailed, and a heck of a lot of stuff going on makes for a great looking 16-bit scrolling shooter. Pocky & Rocky came out years before Harvest Moon and honestly this game looks better! The color palette was chosen so well that the sprites pop out of the screen. The game isn't beautiful, but it's not trying to inspire games like Ikaruga, it is doing it's own thing and it does it great. Honestly, I didn't notice the music much, the game was just so intense. The sound effects were light and appropriate, no voices, but no big deal.

Gameplay: 7
I really had no idea this game was so hard, and we were playing two player on EASY. Hylas and I can't even imagine playing on a harder level let alone beating the game on easy (we tried, got bored from dieing so much). A hard game doesn't mean too much unless the game is unfair, which Pocky & Rocky generally is. There are some moments with respawning enemies and raccoon-seeking projectiles that made us kind of angry, but that's the challenge of the game. It has a cute presentation and then never lets up after the first minute. There are a few moments of bullet hell near the end of the first hour that made the game very tough, and even though you have a few hearts of life, there's really no moment of invincibility that you sometimes see in other shoot 'em ups. Overall gameplay though is solid and fun.

Fun Factor: 7
Hard games can be a lot of fun, and Pocky & Rocky's first hour is pretty enjoyable. I remember the first time I played Ikaruga and was just blown out of the water within minutes, Pocky & Rocky thankfully has a much better difficult curve but compared to most games it is still harsh. That's okay though, because if you enjoy shoot 'em ups this is a great, light-hearted approach to the genre that's obsessed with spaceships and crappy stories. This specific sub-genre of a Commando-like game is a rather rare breed these days, so it can be pretty fun to take a step back in time and check out what developers were doing 15 years ago.

Oh yeah, best part about this game is when you slide into your teammate which sends them careening around the screen on their bottom bouncing into everything for like five seconds. It's hilarious!

Minutes to Action: 3

Overall: 7
Pocky & Rocky is a decent scrolling shoot 'em up that takes a light-hearted approach to the genre. Sitting down with a friend and tackling this game head on for an afternoon would be great fun, and I don't think this game is much longer than an hour for the skilled shmupper. This game basically requires two players though not because of its difficulty, but because it makes it a lot more fun to count on your fellow raccoon/young lady when taking on the forces of the Dark Mantle. I recommend this game to anyone who is a fan of the genre or just likes to go back and play old and quirky games.

The Japanese cover, because the American cover is a Grade A Disaster.

Game 21: Jet Force Gemini

Jet Force Gemini is a Nintendo 64 third-person shooter game released by Rare in 1999. Looking back, it seems like such an odd game: twins Juno and Vela fly around in a space ship and save furry creatures from the evil empire. But when I think about it more closely, Jet Force Gemini really seems like the ultimate Rare amalgamation of their other Nintendo 64 games - Goldeneye 007, Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Conker's Bad Fur Day specifically. That collection of animal fur and blood and guts really comes together on this cartridge.

The game also has some interesting history during development. I used to read IGN very closely and I remember the day when some new character art was released and the twins went from being bland to sexy. Now it seems like they did this just so they could give Vela boobs, but I suppose breast sells and that's their right. Anyways, now you know all of Jet Force Gemini's exciting history (there wasn't much to cover), so let's get right into the review.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - I enter my name for a new game and then start the opening cutscene. We're looking at a glowing planet with an asteroid belt around it, a ship flies by. Some epic space music starts and the camera pans to give us a peek on the inside of the ship. A teenage boy and girl are running the ship, along with their dog.
01 - An alarm goes off, "Alert!" The boy throws down his coffee and runs to the console. We cut to a scene on a planet, a bunch of furry teddy bears are getting shot down by a squad of blue ants. Somehow our heroes are watching this too.

02 - A giant mothership is passing over our hero's ship. They run down the hallway, but a swarm of blue ants burst in! The girl and their dog head into tubes and land on.... treadmills? They then take off in their own personal transport ships. The boy continues to fight off the ants, and then runs into a tube himself.
03 - He lands on his own treadmill, his name is Juno, and he's ready for action. I hit A a few times and he gets teleported into his own orange ship which takes off for the planet.

04 - It's a green planet with plenty of water. Juno lands his ship on what looks like a landing pad made just for him. I take control of the blue-clad hero.

05 - I encounter Yoda, well, maybe not Yoda, but it sure looks like a dark green version of him. Yoda is a Tribal, the furry creatures on this planet, and he tells me he saw Vela and Lupus run through a moment ago, must be my sister and dog. Guess he knows who we are.
06 - Yoda tells me that green doors mean forward and red doors mean back. That's probably an indication of poor level design and that it is easy to get lost. I check out my controls, Z shoots, and the C-buttons (remember this is on the Nintendo 64) control various jumping and rolling maneuvers. R brings the camera directly behind Juno's back to aim.

07 - I proceed forward. The next area is very wide open, but the large textures are truly awful.

08 - I enter a hut and talk with a Tribal. He asks me to rescue as many of the furry creatures as I can.
10 - Another Tribal tells me I'll have to destroy all Mizar troops to proceed from stage to stage. Figures.

11 - While using the R-button to aim you use the left joystick to aim your gun and the C-buttons (aka right joystick) to shoot. This is the opposite of basically every first person shooter I've played since Halo and I'm going to have a hard time getting used to this in the next hour.

12 - Goldwood Forest - My first liberation zone. The game pans around the area, telling me what to shoot and what not to. Kinda obvious. Oh snap, Sniper Drones!

13 - Blah blah, let's get going. Kill ants, free Tribals.
14 - Finally, A hostile area! I take out my first Sniper Ant with some well placed shots.

15 - After that I rescue my first Tribal, cute little furball.

17 - Phew, just cleared my first large area. The switched joysticks are disorienting me in combat, not sure how I ever played games like this! I dig around in the options looking for a change. Hmm... nothing.

18 - Two different doors to enter, I enter the right one.

20 - It's a long tunnel with ants lined up all the way. There's really no point in aiming it seems, just run and gun. I take on a ton of ant soldiers and then rescue a few Tribals at the end of the tunnel. Only one left to rescue in this level.
22 - I manuever my way through a line of ticking land mines while dodging ant bullets. The imprecise controls are making this difficult, Juno takes wide turns.

25 - I accidentally fall down a waterfall hole then crawl underwater through a small crevice. I'm out in the open again. I wish there was some kind of map, I feel really lost. Oh, area cleared! And I rescued all the Tribals (I did?), not bad!

26 - Next area has what looks like to be a collection of exploding barrels.

27 - The music here is really upbeat, lots of drums. A Tribal gives me a Red Key, used for opening doors with Red Locks. Thanks! There's also a door behind him that I can't enter. He says its a Mizar door, why they would have a door on this planet I don't know.
29 - I have to shoot a target to proceed... How annoying! I'm wasting all my ammo. Try as I might, I can't get it open. I head through another door.

30 - Okay, there's a giant bug boss in here. Am I ready for this guy? I save my game.

31 - I'm fighting him pretty good, but then I fall in the pit. Wonky controls. I fall again trying to get some red gems.

32 - All right, he went down real easy once I bothered to try. I got a machine gun as a reward! This sucker is high power and should open that frustrating target easy.
33 - The door goes down in a flurry of bullets.

36 - I'm picking up ant heads as I run around, wonder what they do?

37 - I take out a few more snipers, cool physics as their guns bounce around after they're dead.

38 - I get taken out by one of those giant bug's laser beams. Ouch. Direct hit.

39 - I get right back on my feet (after miraculously coming back to life a few hundred feet away) and take the bugger out.

40 - The game thinks it's funny to place a sniper right above a door entrance. Lame. I'm also starting to notice how hard it is to get the camera to swing around to where you want it.

42 - Woah, I turn the corner and there's a ton of floating gunners! I take a minute to pick them off one by one, luckily they're horrible shots.
43 - I fall off an invisible cliff and die. No continues left now... gotta be careful.

44 - Sweet, I just shot an enemy grenade out of the air! But then I die again, continues gone. Lame.

46 - This time I take out the horde of gunners with my machine gun. Much faster this time.

49 - Wow, the game really likes overwhelming odds. Right now I'm fighting off a large group of much more accurate gunners. Not fun.
50 - I take out the final gunner as he kills me, at least they won't be back now.

51 - Moving on finally, I'm able to rescue a bunch of Tribals, but in the next room a swarm of green flying gunners awaits me. I grab an invincibility power-up on the ground and blast through them. Level complete. But I missed four Tribals. Whoops.

53 - I make it back to my ship, no sign of my sister of dog. I take off to the heavens.
54 - There's a long sequence as my orange ship docks in the main ship. Juno just ran through a solid wall after he got off his ship. Odd.

55 - Somehow one of the Tribals got on my ship. He starts a cutscene, looks like the ants are on MY ship? Maybe I'm not on my ship but the alien mothership? It's not clear. Vela is doing some reconnaissance. Well, until she starts blasting everyone!
56 - She takes off after some ants but then gets captured by a giant purple bug. Now I gotta rescue her I suppose. How did this Yoda know all this information anyway?

57 - I'm back in control and take off into the unknown.

58 - This is a cool indoor area, I like it better than the forest. I rescue some Tribals from the giant purple bug.
59 - I'm clearing out another room of bugs and gunners. This game could be a lot more fun if it helped you aim at the flying guys too.

60 - In my final minute I manage to rescue another Tribal and spatter some ants. Nothing too exciting.

Now for some scores out of 10.
Story: 2
Jet Force Gemini's story in the first hour is extremely lacking. It basically entails to a pair of twins and their dog are chilling out in orbit around a planet when the furry inhabitants of that planet are suddenly attacked by some evil ants. That's it. There is no explanation why Juno and Vela were by that planet, there is no explanation on who the Tribals are and why they would get attacked, and there is no explanation on who is attacking them except that they're Mizar. Considering it takes 15 minutes to actually get rolling, you would have expected a lot more.
Graphics and Sound: 6
The characters are probably the best looking things in this game, they're relatively detailed and Juno and Vela specifically look really good. After that, everything kind of goes downhill. The 3D areas seem pretty large, but Jet Force Gemini employs some really awful looking textures all over which spoil the expansiveness. There was a decent variety of environments in the first hour; though I spent the most time in the forest, the last few minutes placed me in a large spaceship cargo deck. I actually enjoyed the music so that helps out this category's score. The sound effects were typical but the soundtrack seemed above average. But Rare has always had pretty good music in their games. Oh, one note, Jet Force Gemini runs in widescreen mode (as you can see by the screenshots in this review), this is a great method of future-proofing by Rare.
Gameplay: 4
Besides the polygonal graphics, many Nintendo 64 games suffered from crappy gameplay. My theory behind this is that the controller simply wasn't ready for both 3D movement and dynamic camera control. Throw in some simultaneous aiming and moving/strafing with only one joystick and all of a sudden you have a 10 button controller that is simply inadequate for the games developers want to make. Jet Force Gemini suffers from this and thus the player suffers too. Is it good gameplay when an experienced gamer has to constantly think about what buttons to press? No. Does it make sense that the game forces you to use an inaccurate joystick (or is it just a bad aiming system?) to pick off sniper ants that just span a few pixels? No. I could go on but the first hour of Jet Force Gemini's gameplay is simply a disappointment.
Fun Factor: 5
Gameplay and Fun Factor categories are usually directly related, if the gameplay sucks, you're probably not going to have much fun. This would be the case for Jet Force Gemini if it didn't have that unique sense of style that's a trademark of Rare games. It's so satisfying splattering the ant drones' green blood all over nearby rocks or "accidentally" shooting a Tribal here or there. The characters have a certain roguish appeal, but they're way too underdeveloped in the first hour, unfortunately. This score would be higher if it weren't for the frustrating moments where you're just getting picked off in the distance by gunner drones and your crappy aim can't hit anything. Too bad.
Minutes to Action: 14
Overall: 5
This is a disappointing score for me, Rare had such a great track record on the Nintendo 64 and doing a quick recap in my mind, Jet Force Gemini probably had the worst first hour out of all their releases on the system. I also really can't see how the game could recover from this considering so much of the fault lies on the below-average gameplay. The story may become a classic and the soundtrack might keep kicking along, but if the gameplay sucks, well, you can't really do much. Here's to the alien blood splattering run-and-gun action adventure that was not to be.

Game 14: Zombies Ate My Neighbors

Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a cult-classic barely recognized by most gamers, but much like Streets of Rage 2, ZAMN (maybe the greatest gaming acronym ever) looks like it will soon get a release on the Wii Virtual Console. This will undoubtedly expose the game to a much wider audience whose only experience with run-and-gun games is Alien Hominid. Well, hopefully they're able to appreciate this oldie enough to check out some of the other greats in the genre, such as Metal Slug, Contra, or Gunstar Heroes - all of which are available on the Wii or Xbox 360. Actually, let's hope this game appreciates the modern gamer.

Anyways, Zombies Ate My Neighbors was actually developed by Konami and published by Lucasarts (a rare pairing). It was released for the Genesis and Super Nintendo in 1993 and features two player multiplayer. I'll be taking advantage of this and playing simultaneously with my friend Hylas. Let's see how the first hour of one of the original zombie games turned out...

For the record, we are playing the Super Nintendo version of the game (I just like the Genesis cover better), so the score I assign is specifically for the SNES version, but is no doubt indicative of the Genesis version too.

(minutes are in bold)
00 - We start a new game of ZAMN! But there's a password option too (it's been a long time since I've seen a password entry option)! I pick the guy with 3D glasses, Hylas is stuck with the girl. Level 1 starts off right away: Zombie Panic.
02 - We finish the first level with no problems. The objective is to rescue all your neighbors in each level. You rescue them simply by running into them. There were cheerleaders, babies, and even a fat man floating in the pool. Pretty fun so far, but very simple. Zombies went down in one shot.

03 - Time for level 2: Evening of the Undead... This level is bigger than the first, but still pretty easy. Hylas gets hit a couple of times by zombies, but nothing too bad. Once again, I nearly rescue all the helpless by myself! I also got a rocket launcher instead of a simple super soaker like gun.

07 - Level 3 is Terror in Aisle Five! This level was much harder, mostly because it features some crazy ax-wielding terror toddlers! These little kids were freaky and when you "killed" them, they turned into little fire demons! I was able to extinguish these with my fire extinguisher though. Speaking of demons, I was able to drink a potion and I turned into a huge purple monster! That was awesome.

13 - Chainsaw Hedgemaze Mayhem is the fourth level. And holy crap was this level hard! Basically you're running around a hedgemaze the whole level fighting off near invincible chainsaw wielding crazy-men! Sometimes you'd have like three of them chasing you at once, and Hylas and I found out way too late that their weakness was the fire extinguisher. We each lost at least one life, it was hard to keep track during this disaster.
20 - We received a password! VHRV! Level 5 is Weird Kids on the Block. This level was easier, we were provided with weed whackers pretty early on that let us mow through our enemies - which were actually dopplegängers of the two of us! There were also a few plant enemies, but nothing too scary in this level. I also found a few health packs for myself because I've been sucking it up!

26 - Pyramid of Fear, another maze-like level, but this time with tough mummies roaming the area. A lot of the doors shut down when you pass through them, making this a difficult level. Hylas and I both end up getting killed and losing all our lives. Time to enter the password.

34 - We enter the password and start the fifth level over again. We're able to beat that stage without trouble, and grab a few health packs in the process.
38 - The pyramid level again. Hylas asks me why the girl has boobs, this is not the time for such deep questions!

41 - Phew! We beat that level pretty easily this time. Knowledge of the layout helps a lot. Next level is Dr Tongue's Castle of Terror! Which didn't turn out to be too terrible. We were actually stuck for a few minutes until Hylas had the genius idea to use the fire extinguisher on the fireplace! It always comes back to the fire extinguisher...

47 - Titanic Toddler! This is actually a boss level, and the boss was a 20 foot tall baby! This toddler was tough, luckily Hylas had multiple super demon potions on hand and he whomped him almost single handedly! Awesome!
52 - We got a new password: NBGW! Level 9 is called Toxic Terrors. This level was pretty short and kind of easy. Hylas called it "sucky" though. Basically we were getting balls of goo launched at our heads the whole time which was pretty obnoxious. We saved everyone except one baby who got eaten by a goo monster. Too bad for him!

55 - Level 10 is called No Assembly Required. Geez, another insane level with the ax-throwing babies. This game is obsessed with making levels hard and maze-like. Anyways, this was our final level in the first hour. Peeking at the next level, it's called Weeds Gone Bad. I'm actually really glad we don't have to play another weed whacker level.

Now for some scores from the first hour out of 10.
Story: 1
The only story this game has is inherited by the title itself: Zombies Ate My Neighbors. It's a sweet and original title (ZAMN), and the game doesn't bother trying to explain why there are zombies, and why they are trying to eat your neighbors (I know it's something zombies do, so maybe that's an inappropriate question). Run-and-gun games aren't really known for epic storylines, so I'm glad ZAMN didn't bother trying. This score will have little effect on the final score.
Graphics and Sound: 3
The game looks okay. The sprites are drawn decently but there's so few of them, I'm pretty sure I saw nearly every sprite in the game in the first hour (never mind within the first 10 minutes). The sound is kind of lacking though, there's no zombie growling and the music is... lame. I honestly can't even remember a single riff from the entire hour of playing. One last note on the graphics though: the giant baby sprite was a nice surprise and looked really good.
Gameplay: 4
Ugh, this game is sometimes very obnoxious to play. Zombies nearly spawn right underneath you and being limited to shooting at the typical eight angles makes fighting back difficult at times. There's a wide range of weapons which is nice (no boomstick though) and a few interesting utility objects like distraction clowns. However, this game is hard and cheap. Zombies Ate My Neighbors is a kick-in-the-pants reminder that older games are pretty tough and modern gamers are hand-held by tutorials and quick saves. At least the game features a password system. I could go on and on about the difficult levels ZAMN throws at you very early on (that frakking chainsaw level was one of the most annoying and difficult levels I've played in a long time - and that was the fourth level!), but I think you get the point by now. The gameplay score gets an extra point for featuring a radar system that shows you where the neighbors are around you.
Fun Factor: 4
The game is still fun though, but it's just mediocre fun injected with frustration. The first hour of ZAMN doesn't really do anything that cool except for the giant baby fight, which would have been pretty tough if Hylas wasn't carrying super potions though. I was really looking forward to playing this game and enjoying the first hour of it, but it never really kicked off. I really can't see myself playing this game anymore than this. Kind of disappointing.
Minutes to Action: 0
Overall: 4
Hylas mentioned after we were done that he felt Zombies Ate My Neighbors was neither good or bad, and quickly gave it an overall score of 4. I would agree with that score (after so many more words though). No doubt when this game came out it was so original (I can't think of a zombie game that came out before it) and the gameplay was decent enough to get by (if I had my Nintendo Power collection with me I would totally look up the score they gave it). Nowadays, it just doesn't cut it. I wish I could give it a better score but the game just didn't age well in my opinion (though I consider a 4 a just below average score). Either way, I would recommend Zombies Ate My Neighbors to fans of survival horror games as the horror is more comedic, you definitely have to learn how to survive in this game! It's a great alternative to the too-serious genre these days (though from what I hear, Stubbs the Zombie sounds like fun) and I'm sure run-and-gun gamers have already eaten this one up.

Art by Mario González - used with permission.