There are few things as satisfying as watching
a zombie explode in slow motion x-ray cam.
The sight of putrid guts exploding like sausages
past their sell by date.
Or a single bullet sending a Nazi's nipples
flying to a neighbouring town.
No doubt about it, the violence in Zombie
Army is jaw-dropping.
Quite literally so in this poor bastard's
case...
With the series originating as Sniper Elite
2 DLC, it's no surprise seeing Zombie Army
4 again reusing Rebellion's internal kill
cam - of course, this is the version based
on Sniper Elite 4, so shows those festering
wounds in more spectacular detail than the
creaky Zombie Army Trilogy.
And, as in Sniper Elite 4, kill cams now extend
to explosive deaths…
Kill cam is also one of the few benefits of
playing Dead War in single player - in four
person co-op the kill-cam tends to activate
less, or is easily skipped - a shame as I'd
love to force friends to revel in my long
distance murders.
For all Zombie Army's arcade silliness, you
can still detect hints of the underlying sniper
sim in bullet drop and wind impact that kick
in on higher difficulty modes.
Anyway, this video is a rundown of all the
major improvements made by Zombie Army 4.
It was recorded on a base Xbox One, so please
pardon the rather hazy resolution.
If you do enjoy it, we ask that you do your
best impression of this terrifying sod and
give the video a thumbs up - we don’t mind
if its one on your hand, or growing out your
back or head.
Brrr.
While this is a video about how Zombie Army
4 changes and hopefully improves upon Trilogy,
it's important to point out that the basics
of shooting zombies in the head still feels
great.
Ask any fan of Zombie Army Trilogy what kept
them coming back and they'll likely mention
the headshots.
Not just the gooey satisfaction of the individual
kill, but the sheer number of the things.
Unlike the panicked rush of Left 4 Dead or
Killing Floor, Zombie Army is happy to give
you fields of the very slow undead and the
time and space to pick heads off one by one.
Yes, it applies the pressure at other times
- more on that in a sec - but it also understands
that a big part of the zombie fantasy is exploding
an unwitting foe and seeing your combo meter
ping up a notch.
Zombie Army 4 doesn't rewrite the rulebook
here, but levels do offer up a scale and an
undead density that ensures its simplest pleasure
is provided on tap.
But it also offers a bit more variety than
the earlier trilogy, finding ways of piling
on the pressure or changing the flavour of
the action.
Our opening mission in Sardinia whips us from
slightly chaotic forest fights to a much larger
junkyard, where the need to fill fuel tanks
challenges the team to stick together and
fight off a focused horde, or use the extra
space to split up and lure zombies into smaller
flocks.
It has a larger scope than anything in Trilogy
- and I'm not just talking about the one attached
to the gun.
But as soon as this wide area is conquered
you’re suddenly in claustrophobic bunkers
where the lights are off and you rely on torches
to spot new creeper enemies - not particularly
scary with three other maniacs puking out
lead, but you can see how single players would
find this more stressful.
The same level even channels some Left 4 Dead
energy as hordes of creepers and larger elite
enemy types bundle together and come at us
from either end of a corridor, creating one
of those ceaseless walls of meat that push
you down to your last few handgun bullets
before offering a cathartic getaway.
Don’t get me wrong, this is still fundamentally
a huge repetitive game, but more effort has
gone into taking the foot on and off the gas
pedal.
The variety is more keenly felt when you try
a level in solo play, as I did with this level
set in amongst the magma flow of an exploding
Vesuvius.
Rebellion has spoken about their desire to
make the game more relevant to lone wolves
and it definitely feels like more of a horror
experience, as thinning the horde at a distance
becomes more valuable.
When all hell does break loose you have to
be a lot more nimble on your feet as you kite
entire armies into the path of upcoming grenades
like a pyrotechnic pied piper and focus on
squeezing every drop of damage out of shots,
be it detonating suicide zombies in the middle
of their friends or using every item offered
by the battlefield.
Thankfully, this stressful moment is then
followed by more traditional sniping as you
pluck heads off rooftop attackers in a segment
that could have come from Resident Evil 4.
Whether Rebellion can find enough variety
to keep these peaks and troughs feeling natural
is yet to be seen - most of my two hours with
the game is spent shooting waves of zombies
as a thing charges up.
But again, if you didn’t have a problem
with that in Zombie Army Trilogy, you’ll
handle it here.
Given how much of the appeal hinges on killing
lots of things quickly, the introduction of
juicier weapons is a simple win for Rebellion.
Giant elite zombies may fill you with fear
when they stride into the action, but they
also bring toys that can be turned on their
zombie pals.
Swiping a Heavy Machine gun is permission
to turn the level around you into a jam factory,
at least for the handful of seconds you manage
to squeeze from that limited ammo clip.
Flamethrowers are another treat delivered
straight to your hands.
It’s spray of magma won't win any awards
for pretty fire physics - it looks like a
river of angry marmalade - but will nicely
cremate any brainless idiots coming for a
chew.
When multiple members of the team have one,
it's a particular delight, turning the screen
orange and making me very happy that games
don’t support smell-o-vision.
The best new toy comes courtesy of this butcher
miniboss.
He’s a hulking brute who will absorb bullets
more efficiently than I absorb toblerones
- well, unless he gets stuck on scenery and
lets you feed bullets direct to his head.
Killing him drops the buzzsaw which does exactly
what you would hope a buzzsaw does: it turns
the undead into the fundead, letting you wade
through crowds to the sounds of violent squelching
and the sight of flying limbs.
One of my complaints in 2019’s Resident
Evil 2 remake was that it didn't let me test
the impressive gore physics with an unlockable
chainsaw - this scratches that messy itch.
On top of this you also have temporary weapon
modifiers that boost regular guns with fire
or electric damage - these are neat ways of
a regular soldier punching above his weight,
but let's not pretend that they compare with
an actual flamethrower.
Of course, anything you can do the zombies
can seemingly do better: just as you’ve
got on top of the festering boots on the ground
they bring out a zombie, er, tank.
Yes, apparently vehicles can be undead now,
chasing you down of their own free will like
Herbie: The Love Bug’s mad goth brother.
I only fight the one Zombie Half Track in
our demo and that’s quite stressful enough
for me, as our gang tries to shoot off weakened
panels to reveal the fleshy heart inside.
Do cars actually have hearts?
I don’t know, I failed my driving test 9
times.
If I’d taken it in this bad boy I might
actually have stood a chance.
Another burst of chaos comes from Blood Fountains
- small siege areas that see you having to
kill zombies in a satanic circle in order
to make blood sacrifices to a fountain.
Okay, on paper it's not that different from
demonic locks that won't unlock until you've
killed everyone, or waves of zombies to survive
while an object slowly activates, but the
difference here is encouraging enemies to
get a little too close for comfort before
offing them.
In this particular encounter the area is filled
with explosive oil barrels and most of the
zombies are carrying oil cans that turning
the floor at their feet into an inferno.
It's basically impossible to fire a bullet
without zombies exploding more zombies around
them.
A particularly good moment to show off the
tweaked combo meter - used to earn a mega
points multiplier - which now has a timer
ticking down to force you to find your next
kill.
As fun as it is to have slower shooting galleries
asking you to snipe your way to a combo chain,
there's something to be said for Rebellion
gleefully including moments destined to send
scores skyrocketing.
You get similar opportunities from summoning
rifts found around the game.
Normally, summoners are bad news - you’ll
find these commander sods who call reinforcements
and have to be shot in their hearts in order
to kill.
But the summoning rifts let you conjure fresh
enemies for yourself - the idea being that
the more waves of enemies you outlast, the
better the rewards they drop.
At any time you can run over and close the
rift to stop increasingly nasty Nazis from
emerging, but if you can handle the heat you'll
be rewarded with much needed ammo and items.
I'm too chicken to see how good the rewards
can get, but it'll be fun finding out.
For every new way of piling on the pressure,
the game also finds new zombie slaying tricks.
Traps are lifted wholesale from Rebellion’s
2019 co-op romp Strange Brigade - Zombie Army
is basically the video nasty version of that
Saturday matinee adventure.
Shoot the giant targets and you’ll power
up churning fans or electrified pads that
pop zombie heads like sausages left in the
pan for too long.
Very good for thinning larger groups in single
player where you don’t have co-op pals covering
multiple enemy fronts.
Slightly less flashy, but just as handy, are
new takedowns that offer an instant kills
after building a ten kill combo.
They give you health and ammo, and bring down
bigger enemies.
I found that they are best saved for larger
armoured elites - that’s these freaks cosplaying
as the guy from Dead Space.
Of course, if you’re anything like me you’ll
end up just using them to see the range of
gruesome animations, from the ol’ shotgun
belly… to an electric hand buzzer taken
to its logical extreme.
Or you could just stab them in the top of
the head as if you were opening a can of beans.
*Evil* beans.
Similarly, you also get new weapon assists
by killing ten enemies with any given weapon.
With a rifle you get stronger bullets with
greater penetration, whereas shotguns or SMGs
lose recoil or bullet spread and slightly
slows time to allow for faster shots.
Finally you can use a charged pistol to mark
enemies for instant headshots, although I
was too trigger happy to use this to great
effect.
You’ll have to imagine seven heads exploding
in glorious unison.
More dedicated fans racked up hundreds of
hours of in Zombie Army Trilogy, despite the
game offering no progression system to reward
those hours of play - hundreds of hours of
the same zombies with the same guns.
Not so in Zombie Army 4, which brings screen
after screen of tweaks and unlocks earned
by climbing through XP-fuelled ranks.
At the most basic level you get upgrade kits
to spice up every weapon - giving a sniper
rifle explosive rounds, a faster reload or
better scope before using branching upgrade
options to pick say, getting health back on
kills or increased melee damage.
To be honest the differences between a fully
powered gun and base model aren't dramatically
obvious in what I played, but you could argue
this at least doesn't unbalance the game - you
can have a jolly head popping time whether
rank one or one hundred.
Slightly more attractive are special melee
attacks that unlock as you rank up - these
are moves performed by filling this gauge
down here and range from machete slashes and
incendiary axe throws to a giant electric
fist that lets you do your best impression
of Thanos.
And if you're worried that this will get Marvel's
lawyers on the phone, definitely don't show
them the Divine Blast, which will leave zombies
feeling Thor.
Sorry, *sore*.
All of these have more powerful versions with
deadlier after effects, unlocked at higher
ranks.
Then you have more traditional perks, boosting
damage on weapons or explosives, boosting
stamina or letting you revive from a fallen
position by landing a kill - this is especially
useful playing in solo mode where there's
no helpers to lift you back to your feet.
These perks unlock at different ranks and
can be further beefed up by performing certain
achievements - killing lots of zombies with
grenades sees the bombardier perk increase
damage, range, then damage radius.
Even the items you find in the field can be
modified, with each offering two mods that
can change the behaviour - a med pack could
have an auto-revive function to jump you back
to your feet or can be used less selfishly
to unleash a divine burst that heals nearby
allies and weakens enemies in the vicinity.
It all adds up to a more complete feeling
experience than before.
Last, but definitely not least: Horde mode,
which takes all the tiny improvements listed
throughout this video and crams them into
an endless zombie siege.
The biggest addition is the way the arena
itself evolves over the battle, opening up
new routes as zombies bust through walls or
dropping weapon and ammo packages in deeper,
darker corners to take you out of your comfort
zone and deal with the threat from a different
angle.
Throw into this the gradual appearance of
miniboss characters - our friend the butcher,
or the screamer and his disgusting thumb-covered
body - and you certainly aren’t given the
opportunity to catch your breath.
Whether its got the legs - attached to its
body or otherwise - to compete with other
horde classics is yet to be seen.
I do miss the inclusion of in-match economy
- spending points to place defences a la Gears
of War, or just buying new weapons in Call
of Duty’s similar mode - Zombie Army 4 is
very stripped back by comparison, selling
itself entirely on the satisfaction on splatting
those skulls.
Something it does very well, but probably
more enjoyably in the more varied environments
of campaign.
Of course, you don’t have long to wait to
see if this will tick your own zombie boxes
- as the game shambles out on February the
4th.
Sadly, as an Epic Store exclusive, which means
all those pals fans have made playing the
game on Steam will have to convince their
fearless zombie hunting friends to make the
trip with them.
We’ll try and get a review of the game up,
so if you found this video useful and want
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If you have any questions about what we’ve
played, or not covered in this video, pop
them in the comments.
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Thanks for watching Rock Paper Shotgun and
hopefully we’ll see you again soon.
