ZOMBIES!!! Second Ed. Director's Cut (2006)

Twilight Creations, Inc.

Date Reviewed: Aug 19, 2009

Critical Kobold Rating:    (4 out of 5 Dice)

Geez, It's Really Dead Downtown Tonight...

     Ernest McGruder downed the last gulp of whiskey, then tossed the bottle away into the corner of the room. His sweaty hands dug into his pocket, and he pulled the remaining three shotgun shells out into the dim dawn light seeping in through the window shades. "Kee-rap," he muttered, sliding the shells into the 12-gauge.  

     He glanced out the window, saw only deserted street. Nothing moved but the newspapers blowing in the fetid breeze. The whole city stunk of death. Suddenly, Ernest heard the dull thunder of the helicopter as it came in low over the auto parts building and flew towards the landing pad a few blocks to the west. The last ride out of this city, the ham radio operator had told him last night. The Army was making one last trip to pick up survivors, before the bombs dropped. 

     "Keeee-rap!" Ernest hissed again, then flung open the door to the shop, and ran out into the ominous pale light of the cloudy morning. He didn't even pause as he hopped over the gruesome mutilated corpses scattered across the sidewalks and roads, their blood draining onto the concrete at his feet. He ran towards the distant sound of the landing helicopter. 

     When he rounded the corner near the grocery store, he skidded to a stop, and so did his heart. There, amid the decaying bodies of several investment brokers and a pawn shop owner, were almost a dozen of the undead. As one, they turned to look at Ernest, and then they began to shamble towards him, arms outstretched, faces contorted into vicious hungry grins. 

     Ernest chambered a shell with a loud rack of the shotgun slide. Three shells. Four times as many zombies.

     Ernest knew he wasn't gonna make that chopper ride.

     ZOMBIES!!! is a neat little game about eluding the undead hordes that have infested your city's streets and buildings. The game consists of large tiles with (sometimes gruesome) full color illustrations of streets and public buildings. Each tile also has a small grid drawn on it, breaking it up into nine equal squares, which are used for figure movement. Also included are a half dozen hero figures armed with shotguns, and about 100 zombie figures. Cardboard chits represent shotgun ammo and first aid kits. Players start with three "life points" (represented by the same tokens as the first aid kits) and three ammo points. There is also a set of Event cards, and every player starts with three of those.

     All players begin in the Town Square tile, and the other tiles are shuffled randomly into a draw pile. There is a Helipad tile as well, which must be shuffled into the lower half of the draw deck so that it doesn't pop up too early in the game. The winner is the first player to make it to the helipad and escape the city, or the first player to kill 25 zombies. (The more players in the game, the lower the number of trophy zombies you need to destroy to win.) 

     Each turn, the current player draws a city block tile, and plays it somewhere on the table, touching the other tiles. This creates an ever-larger city playing board as the game progresses. If a building tile comes into play, such as a gas station or sporting goods store, there will be text indicating how many zombies, ammo tokens, and first aid tokens are also in that building. The player who placed the building can choose any of the nine squares on that building tile to place the zombie figures, ammo, and kits in.

     The active player then rolls a six sided die to determine how many spaces they can move their hero figure. (Hero, victim, whatever…) If you choose to enter a square with a zombie, or are forced to, you must battle that undead bastard before continuing. You roll a die, and if you get four or more, you blow his head off. (Or her head; the zombie figures included are equal numbers of male and female. Nice touch.) If you roll lower than that, you can spend ammo tokens to bring your roll up to the necessary four. If you don't have ammo tokens, or you don't wish to spend them, you lose a life point, and go into another round of combat with the zombie. Lose all your life points, and you go back to the Town Square and have to start your run through the zombie-infested city streets all over again. Sucker!

     If you manage to kill the zombie, and it was in the same square as an ammo token or a first aid token, you can grab those up to use in later fights. You also put the zombie in your "kill pile", because if you collect enough of those babies, you win. (One of the effects of getting killed in a zombie fight is that you also lose half the zombies in your kill pile. Not a big deal if you've only chopped up two or three, but if you're close to winning and then you lose ten of them, it blows.)

     Finally, before your turn ends, you roll the die again, and move that many zombies one space each. Naturally, you'll want to move the rotting buggers towards your fellow players, and out of your way. They'll be doing the same to you, trust me. In this fashion, zombies can leave the buildings they started in, and begin shuffling about the city streets, so that as the game progresses, it's hard to move anywhere without bumping into a few of these guys.  

     Once every player's taken a turn, a new round starts, with more city tiles being placed, and more zombies running amok. Once during each round, each player may choose to play a single Event card from their hand. Some of these are good for you, such as giving you a new weapon like a chainsaw, or a skateboard that allows you to move more spaces during your turn. Some of these are designed to screw your opponents, such as summoning more zombies to their position, or slowing their movement down so the brain eaters can more easily chew on them. Heh heh!

     Eventually, someone will draw the Helipad tile, and place it on the table. Then it's all bets off, baby, as everyone scrambles to make it to the last chopper out, and toss as many man-eating undead into the path of your hapless opponents as possible. The first player to make it to the center square of the helicopter tile wins.   

     That's all there is to it, really. (What did you expect? You ever seen a zombie movie?)

     Here, my nephew Brad is wading through a veritable sea of flesh-hungry brain suckers, while I have a clear street all the way to the helipad.

     That is, I had a clear street, until we noticed that the text of the helipad calls for NINE FRIGGIN' ZOMBIES to be placed there!

    Things did not go well for me after this photo.

The GOOD

     It's just a simple, fun game. Easy to pick up after a turn or two, and as the game goes on, it gets more difficult and more tense. Each turn there are more zombies active on the board, the city gets bigger, and there are more chances for someone to nail you with an Event card that causes your hideous and blood-splattered demise.  

     And you have to more careful than it first seems with your strategy; during my first playtest, I kept throwing zombies at my 11-year old nephew Brad, assuming he'd get eaten and sent back to the start while I headed for the chopper. But I didn't count on his good combat rolls, and he ended up killing a crapload of zombies. Eventually, I was afraid to move any towards him because if he hosed a few more of them, he'd win with trophy kills. And that's indeed how he won the first game. What can I say, that kid's good with a double barrel.

 The NEUTRAL

     One of the complaints I've read online about ZOMBIES!!! is that it can get tedious and become drawn out. While I found the few games I played to be rather quick and fun, I could see where repeated playing would begin to cause déjà vu. There are only so many tiles, so many Event cards, and so many surprises in the set. After frequent games, things may start to seem stale. (However, I must point out that the helipad will always eventually come up in the draw, so there's always a definite ending to the game. It really can't drag on that long.)

     Twilight Creations has tried to offset this by offering expansion sets (like, seven!) that combine with the basic set, adding new tiles, new rules, new Event cards, and even super zombies. (The zombie figures glow in the dark, man! How cool is that?) I suppose if you're going to play the game enough that the starter set is going to bore you, you'll need to look into getting some of the other boxes to keep things fresh. Well, as fresh as stinkin' undead can be.

     My only minor gripe is that the tiles can be easily bumped or knocked out of square, sometimes jostling the playing pieces and disrupting the playing board, but you can help avoid that pitfall somewhat by not playing drunk. Other than that, you'll just have to be careful.

 The EVIL

     THEY'RE ZOMBIES! They're everywhere! We're all gonna die, man! Game over! Game over!

   In the last moments of our game, I was in the lead for the helicopter and the win. (I'm the red figure in this photo.) But Brad, the blue figure, had some good movement die rolls, and an amazing string of zombie-blasting rolls, and arrived at the chopper literally one move ahead of me.

     My dear nephew then took off in the helicopter, leaving me standing there on the zombie-filled platform, watching him fly away as the sounds of inhuman snarling and lip smacking surrounded me.

     He denies it, but I swear I heard him softly laughing as the undead closed in on me...   

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