Review of Zombie Nation (NES)

Zombie Nation is a video game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1990, developed by Kaze. It has some interesting elements that are very memorable. The title is a bit misleading, however. You may be expecting a Contra style game with zombies, but you'll be surprised. Let's go over why.

Story : Aliens have taken over the earth and turned the world into zombies. Even the Statue of Liberty does his bidding. You are Namakubi, the head of a fallen samurai. You read that right, you are a giant disembodied head. Using barf and shooting your eyeballs out, it's up to you to save the world. To put it simply, this game's story is flat out awesome.

Graphics : Excellent graphics, well ahead of it's time. The backgrounds are all rendered beautifully, and many are very bright and vibrant. There's many colors here, they really reached into the palette to bring some variety to the stages. Namabuki looks cool and is animated well, and so are all the villains you encounter in the game. In short, very nice graphics that show the time put into them.

Sound : There's great music to be heard in this game. Very horror movie esque, and very memorable. I've found myself remembering these catchy tunes at odd times over the years, which shows just how memorable they are. There's very nice tones all over the game, all the arrangements sound excellent as well.

Game play : One thing about these shoot em up style games is they usually lack in everything but game play. Zombie Nation is the exact opposite. Everything in this game rules but the game play. Controlling Namabuki can be very, very hard. The controls are very sensitive, so if you're not careful he'll fly right into enemies and be killed quickly. Truly though, this is the only bad thing in the game. The controls are very, very hard to get used to but not impossible.

The rest of the game is standard fare, but still very fun. There's five levels in all but they're all very long. However, they are broken up into parts and don't get boring. A few more boss fights would be nice but the creatures you fight in the game are fun to look at regardless.

The game is very difficult overall, due to the controls unfortunately. Even on easy mode, the game is still very hard. There's many instant kill enemies in the game, and some will have you bending your controller in half. If the controls were more precise, this wouldn't be a problem. Too bad.

Re playability: There's no other game where you can play as a floating zombie head that shoots vomit and eyeballs, so I'd say if you like that idea at all you will be checking out this game time to time for the rest of your life.

Overall : 7/10. The controls are too sensitive, making the game a bit too hard and frustrating at some points. Still, a very unique game with lots to offer.