Games

This Zombie Army franchise is actually a spin-off of the Sniper Elite video game franchise, which portrayed fictional Allied missions carried out by the series' main hero, Karl Fairburne, during World War II.

The Zombie Army story takes place in a separate alternate history where Hitler, upon losing WWII, decided to enact "Plan Z" and resurrect all of the Wehrmacht's soldiers as zombies.

The first two Zombie Army games were compacted into a trilogy release with the third game. This trilogy had Hitler raising his undead army, being killed off, and then resurrected as a sentient zombie leader before being tossed in hell.

This fourth and latest game has millions of zombies running rampant across Europe. It's discovered that Zombie Hitler is still leading the hordes from hell and is now amassing a new zombie army with which to invade Earth.

You play as the hero from the Sniper Elite games, Karl Fairburne. Or, if you prefer, you can play as various other characters from the franchise (and even some from the Left 4 Dead franchise). I personally prefer to play as Jun, an original Chinese character for this game. Each character has different stats, so it's not just choosing a skin for your character; you have to be mindful of their abilities too.

Like the Sniper Elite games, one of the core mechanics of this game is to snipe zombies from afar. Thankfully, these are the clumsy, shambling, slow zombies, so you have time to line up shots, even in a short and narrow area. If you get a perfect aim on a vital organ, it rewards you with a slow-motion cutscene of your bullet firing, zipping across the map, and an x-ray view of the enemy's skeleton shattered or vital organs exploded by your bullet. With rotting zombies, though, there's not much difference between the x-ray view and their normal appearance.

These are supernatural zombies, raised with occult magic, so they don't stay dead. If you don't get a headshot on them, don't be surprised if their body suddenly glows with occult magic and comes back to life. A good way to ensure they don't get back up is to stomp on their corpse until it disintegrates in a gory mess. It'll sometimes release ammo and other beneficial items too!

I love the attention to detail in this game. All across the map, you can find zombie rats and crows with glowing red eyes. They leave you alone, but it's still super creepy how they just linger in the shadows, silently watching you. It's truly a world-building detail, which makes me think about how The Black Plague was spread through rats. I wonder if these rats would turn people into zombies if they got bit...

There are also other signs of the occult in the background, like a zombie hand running around each level that you can snipe for bonus points. Or these creepy china dolls that pop up in various places. Sometimes they're just dolls, sitting there unmoving in dark corners. Other times, they talk or move slightly. And sometimes you have mere seconds to shoot them before they just straight-up vanish into thin air after taunting you. Creepy dolls, man...

You can also find these random zombie heads that are technically alive, but unable to do anything. This one in particular, you could turn on the stove and cook it until it melts into the soup. I like the sign someone wrote on the wall behind the stove. Very important detail to remember!

I find it interesting that this game takes place in mid-1940s Europe, but the music in the game is reminiscent of '80s horror flicks, including posters for each mission that look like worn B-movie horror films from that generation. Also, when you pick up equipment and ammo during a mission, it makes a sound like an old-fashioned mechanical pinball machine from the '80s.

It's like they kept the WWII setting from the Sniper Elite games, but wanted an '80s horror vibe for this game. Classic horror films from the '80s have been pretty popular in the past decade; I feel like Stranger Things helped to bring back that nostalgia for us millennials who grew up in the '80s and '90s, so they were probably trying to cash in on that nostalgia trip while it's hot.