LogFAQs > #949571737

#72. Zombies Ate My Neighbors (Genesis, 1993)
I never beat this game, but I sure played it a hell of a lot with my friend (who was the owner of this game). We never really got that far, but I sure loved the couple hours or so I could get into this game before not making it further. It was a surprisingly tense experience and really felt like the maximum you could possibly do for a "survival" style game in 1993. No, you don't need to, nor should you, kill every single zombie or you will run out of your better ammo. You gotta save those bazookas and lawnmower shit and super potions for when you really need them! Strategizing your ammo usage, finding the right paths around each level's maze to save the neighbors around the map (you need to save all of them to get to the next level... unless some die but I think that makes you lose a life? I forgot). The maze-like design of each level worked really well in this game. Adding in a finite amount of keys vs the much larger amount of locked doors or chests containing items made you really consider when and where to use your keys. Good feeling of helplessness as you run around loss, just trying to find that last neighbor, or extra key, or whatever it is you need while holding off the zombie masses as your ammo whittles down.

The Jason-like chainsaw guys really stick out the most in my mind, when you are trying to escape them in that hedge maze level, they can cut through the walls and just kill you super fast and your ammo is pretty goddamn worthless vs them unless you use stronger ammo, but they'll just respawn anyway so RUN FOR IT

The level we'd commonly get stuck on as I recall was the giant baby zombie, which quite frankly the first time that thing absolutely ZIPS BY YOU at LIGHTNING SPEED on screen and you can't really make out quite what you see at first is one of my scariest moments of gaming. Beyond that, we wouldn't get too far after that. I remember the shopping mall level with the Chuckie dolls being difficult, and I think the furthest we got was the ant monster level. Hearts beating with intensity the deeper you get into this game, geez.

Still, fun weapons, great game design befitting of surviving zombies especially for its time, great music, good maze-like level design, and good strategy in your pathing and item management make for an all around great, if not hard game.


Truly a master-class game in goddamn fear and intensity. For 1993!

Oh! And I also wanted to say the style of this game is hilarious. The fact it can be both funny and scary at the same time is fantastic. The levels are laid out in sort of "episodic" format. So each stage starts with a title screen that sounds like a bad ripoff horror movie like "FORTY FEET OF TERROR IN..." "LEVEL EIGHT: TODDLER TERROR",
or "MORE SHOCKING THAN LEVEL FIVE" "LEVEL SIX: PYRAMID OF FEAR". its a great touch

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