Indie Review: Deadly30

Zombies... Zombies everywhere!

• Name: Deadly30
• Genre: Shoot 'em Up
• Players: 1
• Multiplayer: No
• Platforms: PC
• Developer: Ignatus Zuk & Gonzossm
• Publisher: Headup Games
• Price: TBA
• Reviewed On: PC

The year is, well somewhere in the World War 2 era. You are a soldier recently thrown into a world where the dead walk amongst the living in a desperate pursuit to satisfy their undeniable hunger for human brain matter. Get where I’m going at? You’re a dude with a gun and zombies are trying to kill you. Simple as that.

You start off in an unknown location somewhere during World War 2, and all the soldiers have turned into flesh eating monsters just waiting for their human buffet. Thankfully you discover a haven of sorts in a small house with a generator that keeps you (relatively) safe at night by providing some shelter and light. You are a marine trying to survive the outbreak of brain munchies and all you have to do is survive for 30 days. Sounds easy right?

No.

Deadly30 is a shoot ‘em up zombie game in which players are tasked with surviving 30 nights of total zombie destruction, hence the name. During that time players can upgrade their arsenal, reinforce their base and head out during the day to find more comrades for the cause. There are only three available characters to play with and they are each kind of ironic. They are American, Russian and German. Three old enemies must now work together in their quest to survive the apocalypse.

At night the might of the zombie forces come in to eat you up. They come in a variety of colours, too. Green, blue and red. Each more dealier than the previous. And some are naked. The graphics are extremely reminiscent of old school retro games with cartoony visuals and pixally goodness. All of this fits well to the overall theme of he game.

RPG elements come into play as you level up to unlock more deadly weapons to extinguish the melting flesh monstrosities. These help you build more sustainable defences for your base. In order to build the aformentioned defences or weaponry, you need to collect scrap. Scrap are little pieces of stuff lying around the game world. If you’re feeling brave you can go out during the day to explore the game’s three areas. Sometimes you get lucky and get mountains of scrap, where sometimes you get next to nothing. It’s all a gamble. You do need to hurry though, because time lapses throughout the day. It’s definitely not recommended to be outside your base during the night.

There is a degree of humour in play where the characters sometimes make references to their stereotype, like the Russian who has an unhealthy obsession to vodka. You also get treated with occasional cutscenes that start off serious, but soon turn out to be a joke. Like the marine having diarrhea, where after doing the deed a zombie rises up next to the outhouse. Comedy gold.

Deadly30 does get frustrating. After a while you will get covered with zombies that just don’t want to die. As you get swarmed you can’t really do anything other than aimlessly shoot into the horde and hope you get lucky. Your ammo runs out quite quickly as well, and then you’re just stuck with your knife that doesn’t do much.

The game is a fun little shoot ‘em up, but falls completely flat in the sustainable fun department. If you die, you lose all your scrap and progress up until the previous night. This becomes one massive irritation after a while. Play this if you have a few hours to kill, but prepare to be challenged.