Game Review: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – iPhone
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. And it is another widely held truth that Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the New York Times best seller, was in want of the perfect video game to bring it to life–or at least back from the dead!
Summary
4/5 – Side-scrolling, massive zombie-slaying action.. with some love and romance thrown in between. If you have played other iPod/iPhone games before and can get through the character dialog, you will enjoy this game.
Controls
3/5 – Like a few of the short reviews I read previously to playing, I found doing the combo attacks was a bit challenging at first. I found some of the easier advanced combat moves to be all I relied on when I was surrounded by zombies; otherwise, tapping repeatedly for the basic attack was my main source of action. I feel that having a longer delay in the basic tap-attack would force players to try using the combat techniques more often. Also, since you control character movement with the left side of the screen, you’re limited with attacking on the right side of the screen, which just so happens to mean you block your visibility of new zombies entering the side-scrolling screen with your finger.
Graphics
4/5 – A little flat, but not bad considering my iPhone screen is only so big. I’ve seen much, much worse. I would feel this game would be more enjoyable on the iPad.
Sound
5/5 – I could turn the game on and then leave the phone on the desk next to me if I wanted, the musical background was delightful.
Story
3/5 – The story opens up in a somewhat pleasant way, people are socializing at a ball, talking, and then OMG ZOMBIES ATTACK! After the main character has defeated them, the story continues back on track, almost as if nothing had happened. Some hard-to-understand textual chatter for us Americans to understand goes on between figures of the storyline AND THEN OMG ZOMBIES ATTACK AGAIN, after of course the story smoothly continues. I felt as if the whole thing seemed out of place, especially considering things just go back to normal, girls try to find husbands, and no one seriously prepares for another zombie onslaught. I do understand the premise, based on a book based on a book, however it gave me a few chuckles every now and then.
Replay Value
3/5 – The levels were the same left-to-right side scrolling zombie slasher. You could essentially play the first two levels and visualize how the rest is going to turn out. Since there are no other characters to play, there’s no justification to play the game over and over again. Except for more zombie blood, naturally. The redeeming factor here is that you can repeat levels for additional technique experience, to grab some moves that you may not have purchased otherwise.
Pricing
4/5 – I definitely felt as if I would get my money’s worth for this $2.99 app. Play should last you about an hour, maybe more. While I am not judging pricing on a dollar-per-hour scale, it’s more about how fun the simplicity of playing through it was. Available at iTunes.
