Zombonic’ Review – Pretty, But Laggy

‘Zombonic’ Review – Pretty, But Laggy
Mesmer Mobile managed to create a zombie game with pretty awesome graphics in Zombonic , but graphics alone don’t make a game and the rest of the game is not quite up to the same level as the graphics.

The first thing I noticed about this game is that it takes quite some time to load.  I have a Galaxy S3 and I’m running Ice Cream Sandwich, so it’s not the newest hardware, but I shouldn’t be obsolete yet, so I was surprised at how slowly it took to get the game going.  Every time I start it up, I’m surprised that the Mesmer Mobile logo doesn’t move at all because it stays on the screen so long that I expect something to happen.

It makes sense though once the game loads and you get a look at the high quality graphics.  You can even enhance the quality in the settings and pick the color of the light in the game.  I stuck with white light because it’s my preference, but the green light is eerie and fun.

You play as a masked ghostbuster type dude who gets to shoot naked zombies.  I find it funny that you’re so covered in clothing, but the zombies wear nothing.  The controls are pretty basic.  You tilt the screen left and right to turn and you tap the screen to shoot the zombies using what sounds like a shotgun but is really this giant fancy something or the other.

The zombies move backwards from recoil and there’s a cloud of blood as they fall to the ground and dissolve. You can also shoot them from pretty far away.  Sometimes they leave behind this glowing ball that’s a randomized bonus that you have to tap to retrieve.  From the ones I managed to get, they’re not really worth taking the time to linger.  You can’t shoot super quickly which adds to the shotgun feeling of the gun and prevents you from being able to miss very often.  The game is pretty unforgiving.  If you want to last, you have to keep moving.  It’s also easier if you only pick one direction to move in.

When the round first starts, because it’s loading I guess, the screen moves very slowly, but after a few seconds, the screen moves very quickly and you can get dizzy/confused if you’re not careful.  The zombies also increase in number very quickly.  You’re busy systematically shooting zombies when you turn just in time to get molested by a zombie.  I never live for more than around 3 minutes.

My absolute favorite part of the game is when I die.  It happens a lot, but the ending animation when your flesh gets rendered from your body from the zombies is really well done. While the animation rotates around you getting eaten, your current time, score, and kill count versus your best time, score, and kill count are displayed on the screen.

And that’s about it. It’s not the most exciting game in the world, and the lag really prevents me from spending too much time trying to improve. I’m sure an update or two in the future will help to smooth things out, but at the moment, the upgrades aren’t worth much more than points, and the drastic changes in the scenery rotation speed are frustrating. To its benefit, despite only ever moving in a circle, I do not get tired of the background.  It’s simple, but there’s enough depth in that it’s not tedious. That’s another plus for the graphics.

I think that if you really love zombies, or want an uncomplicated shooter, Zombonic isn’t a bad choice. It’s $0.99 and it looks really cool. There’s thunder, lightning, and blood splatter, after all. I just think it could benefit from more polishing. The bonuses are incomplete and the lag is really frustrating. For someone impatient like me, I’m glad I got to play it on a relatively new phone.

For more information about Zombonic , you can check out its Facebook.  You can buy Zombonic for Android at Google Playor for iOS at the App Store.

[review pros=”Great graphics, cool lighting adjustments, simple controls” cons=”Lags, not useful power ups, quickly repetitive” score=76]