The words “zombie tycoon” don’t really interest me. When I think tycoon games I’m thinking Animal Park Tycoon, RollerCoaster Tycoon, etc. Perhaps that’s why I skipped the first Zombie Tycoon game — not even so much as looking at a trailer. Someone managed to sneak a Zombie Tycoon 2: Brainhov’s Revenge trailer in front of me, one where I found out that the game was actually an RTS. You now have my attention.
Zombie Tycoon 2 is an RTS where you play a mad scientist and his zombie hordes. The game starts with Orville Tycoon marching with his zombie army toward the last human stronghold. Before he can claim complete victory, his army is overrun by his previous mentor (one who he betrayed) and his new army of feral zombies. Instead of the game being about humans versus zombies, it’s more about zombie on zombie action. You get to play both sides of the fight at various points in the game, so you’ll have a chance to get to know both bad guys.
Both zombie armies are similar — the major difference being their look. There are various types of zombie units, but you mostly get the same type of units on both sides. Samurai are melee units that close in on enemies quickly and attack just as fast. There are also boxing units that deal heavy melee damage, and ranged units to hit enemies from a distance. The final two units can attack, but they are more utility: engineers and cleaners. Engineers can operate machinery – If you need to more a forklift or crane, they’re your guys. Cleaners are immune to toxic spills that you’ll come across while playing maps. They also clean up the spills, and as a bonus, spill toxic waste that will hurt your enemies when they are destroyed.
Like I said, the biggest difference in the zombies is their look. For example, the boxing zombie for Tycoon looks like an overweight ogre with boxing gloves, while Branhov’s boxer looks like a Thai boxer. In addition to the zombies looking different, both Tycoon and Brainhov have their own monsters. Each monster has a set of unique moves that may either do heavy damage to enemies or provide some type of support function. For example, Brainhov’s Bearhug (zombie bear) can stun enemies while dealing a great amount of damage, and Tycoon’s Braintrust has an immensely powerful beam it can shoot while using a cloak to make allies invisible.
In addition to zombies you control directly, there are also roaming zombies that can help you out. Each map has various structures you can attack and make your own. Once you claim a building it will produce one or two roaming zombies that will attack enemies if they get close enough, and also attack other nearby structures that you haven’t taken yet. You can also command your roaming zombies to charge a single area for a limited amount of time. Roaming zombies aren’t as strong as your regular zombie army, but if you have 20-30 roaming zombies they can help you take heavily fortified areas or turn the tide of a fight.
Neither Tycoon nor Brainhov sit back during this fight, as both of them march with their armies in their mobile spawners. While moving, the mobile spawner is nothing more than a trailer. Once it stops, however, either villain is able to use its chain gun to dish out damage while more zombies are produced to replenish the ones you lost. The transformation of the mobile spawner does take a few seconds, however, so it’s not always a good idea to stop while being pursued.
As RTS’ go, this one is not complicated. You use buttons 1-4 to select the units you would like to move, Q-R to select which move you want your monster to perform, and then right click around the map to move the units. It’s a simple game to get into and those who find RTS games to be a bit daunting should have an easy time with this one. There are various objectives in each level — some which are optional, but will help make the level easier for you. Your zombie army is broken down into units, and if you need a certain type of zombie you have to transform that entire unit.
You’ll have at least two zombie units with you, so you can mix and match. My favorite combination was using samurai with a ranged unit backing them up, and I didn’t have to change that dynamic that often. I found it was rare that an objective required me to have a certain unit. Most of time this happened, it was the engineer that I needed so that I could move something or turn on a machine. Even on levels where there was a lot of toxic goo on the ground, I didn’t HAVE to get cleaners, but it made my world a whole lot easier.
There were quite a few issues that kept the game from being as fun as it could be. First off, the game doesn’t do a very good job of teaching new players how to play. Like I said, I didn’t play the original Zombie Tycoon, so I had no idea what any unit did, and that was especially true of the monsters. Besides telling me about the engineer, I had to look in the codex (a menu in the game that tells you about each playable unit) to find out what their function was. Each zombie only has one function, but monsters will have four — so as I got introduced to each monster I had to go to the codex to find out what each move was. Moving about the map and completing objectives was simple and for the most part self-explanatory, but units are a huge part of RTS games, so being lost in that aspect was a drag.
I also ran into a few bugs that were annoying. Sometimes enemies would turn invisible and attack me and I couldn’t attack back. Other times, units stopped responding to my commands. A really annoying bug was when an enemy with zero health would show up and start attacking me. If the enemy had zero health they weren’t able to be killed, so they would just follow me around until I died.
The biggest problem I had was with the AI logic. At times, enemy AI would walk past my units attacking them and come directly for Tycoon or Brainhov. For normal units this was fine, but the game has a few units that can take A LOT of damage and deal just as much, so to watch them walk through hordes of zombies and come up to the mobile spawner and start blasting it was really annoying. In most missions Tycoon or Brainhov aren’t allowed to die, so having those units come directly to you, ignoring all the other danger around them, and then slapping serious damage on you was bad news.
Besides those issues, I had a good time with Zombie Tycoon 2. The game also comes with multiplayer, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find anyone playing it. The game is short, but fun and comical. I think the $10 asking price is fair for what you get, and you would get more if you can manage to find someone to play multiplayer with you.
