Product description
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Includes game, original case, and original manual. Also includes
bonus collector DVD case with reprint of original artwork to look
pretty on shelf next to current games! These items are in good
condition and complete but they are not like new. They may have
small flaws to the case and the game may have very small
scratches that do not affect game play. All ClassicGameStore
games are tested before being taken into our inventory.
.com
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Think you undid the undead in Dreamcast's -crazy fright fest?
Think again. The zombies from House of the Dead 2 are back, and
they want revenge for your -happy ways. In a change from House
of the Dead's first-person viewpoint, Zombie Revenge places all
characters (including hordes of attacking zombified souls) in a
third-person camera view.
A perfect translation of the arcade game by the same name,
Zombie Revenge also offers up an original mode that features a
few small differences, including the option to play with
powered-up s or in bare knuckles mode (without the aid of
hands).
The graphics are crisp and clean, but the controls are mired in
poor response time, and too many functions are assigned to the
same buttons. Fans of the arcade version will rejoice at not
having to pump quarters into a machine, but average
zombie-hunting folks might be better off with Sega's other spooky
shooter, House of the Dead 2. --Jeff Young
Pros:
* A seamless arcade-to-Dreamcast conversion
* Interesting VMU minigames enable players to add strength to
their characters
* Impressive graphics Cons:
* Ambiguous controls
* No save-game feature
* You can only carry one weapon at a time
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Review
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What started out as Blood Bullet turned into Zombie Zone
ultimately settled in under the name Zombie Revenge. This
side-scrolling beat-'em-up has finally made the not-so-long
journey home to the Dreamcast in near-perfect arcade form. Think
Dynamite Cop with the focus on ammo spending and, well, zombies,
and you're just about there. Does the fact that Sega has added
exclusive home-only features mean that Zombie Revenge is much
more than a gussied-up arcade port? Not exactly. Originally
developed on Sega's Power VR2-based NAOMI arcade hardware, Zombie
Revenge is an arcade-perfect port, with the only difference being
some slight loading times between levels and cinematics. What
this means is if you really loved the game when it required
quarters to play, then you certainly won't be disappointed here.
If you haven't spent a lot of time with the arcade version, then
what's being offered here may warrant a closer look before a
purchase. As a disposable arcade game, Zombie Revenge works for
all sorts of reasons. As is the general mindset these days, an
arcade game is not expected to do anything more than offer a few
minutes' worth of twitch gaming, with the majority of the depth
being in the move lists or number of ways to attack. Beyond that,
a superfluous storyline to provide some slight semblance of
reasoning behind your actions is all that's required to complete
the package. The problem is, once the game goes to the next level
and comes home to the consumer, its once-suitable premise is
exposed for its shortcomings. You can initially select from three
characters: Stick Brightling (the blonde pretty boy), Linda Rotta
(the sassy, yet tough, obligatory Jill Valentine wanna-be), and
Busujima Rikiya (the funky half-zombie soul brother). All three
perform in roughly the same way, with variations in their methods
of hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, to say all three perform
equally is to say that all three control pretty badly. Perhaps
the single greatest reason that Zombie Revenge isn't nearly the
bang-up action fest it purports to be is because of its control.
The shopping list of things that don't work right is long and
comprehensive. For starters, when a game pits you against an
unfair number of nents, albeit slow-moving ones, you'd like
your character to move with a little more urgency than our trio
does here. The Y button controls hand-to-hand attacks that suffer
from the worst canned animations you'll find in a game of this
kind. What this means is that you're stuck watching your
character go through his entire animation before you can right
him and point him in the correct direction. When you're trying to
fight your way out of a corner full of zombies, this can become a
problem. Sega tried to compensate for this by offering the
crowd-clearing sweep move. Tragically, you are penalized some
points for doing so, making it only slightly less damaging
than actually trying to fight your way out. Why not run, you say,
from the heat of battle? That would be a great idea if the
controls weren't so illogically ped to the control pad. To
run, you must already be in motion, then press the X button,
which normally functions as the block button. Where this becomes
difficult is when you're trying to run, but you hit the X button
a split second before you're actually in motion, causing you to
stand still and block. Sadly, blocking does not work when you're
receiving a flurry of punches from all sides, being by
machine--wielding zombies, or when you're the target of a
boss' screen-clearing laser or fire attack. It's a wonder why
this function doesn't default to the A button, which isn't used
for anything. Picking up special weapons is also a time-consuming
burden that leaves you vulnerable to attack while you are doing
it. On top of that, one cheap hit and you'll drop anything you've
picked up, making it almost not worth bothering with. You will,
however, pick the extra weapons up, if only to break the monotony
and the pace of the game itself. Instead of being Resident Evil,
NFL Blitz-style, Zombie Revenge is an exercise in tedious pacing
and mind-numbing repetition. Each zombie is capable of absorbing
at least ten to 15 s. When you're stuck with the default
pistol, you can only fire the thing so fast. So while you
struggle to move quickly and keep , using the highly flaky
auto-ing system, you are only able to squeeze off s as
fast as the game allows, which is to say, not very fast.
Amplifying the tediously paced action is the stipulation that you
must destroy all the monsters to move on to the next area. Also,
certain weapons, such as the flamethrower and the drill, are
found in certain spots only and cannot be taken to the next
level. To put it another way, the game's best moments are
short-lived. Surprisingly, despite its inferior control, this
game still manages to be a more engaging experience than Dynamite
Cop. Once you finish the arcade mode, there is the original mode,
which adds neat little surprises and items into the almost
identical gameplay. Secret costumes and armor power-ups can be
had by pressing start and the Y button when you select your
character. Stick, for example, will don a Power Ranger-like red
suit of armor when you find the armor icon. It doesn't last
forever, sadly, and it will disappear when you've taken too much
damage. In original mode, you can also select mode and
bare-knuckle mode, which, as the names imply, rely more heavily
on the respective combat techniques to add challenge. But this is
nothing more than a cheap gimmick in actual practice, since you
can still punch and shoot in either mode. Beyond the original
mode, there are boss battles a la House of the Dead, where you
can practice your skills against the bosses. This doesn't prove
to be much of a challenge, since most of the bosses move very
little except when they reach 50 and 20 percent . The tip
to defeating the boss is simply to move when it launches its
occasional attack. Perhaps the feature that caused the most
commotion when it was announced was the fighting mode, which is a
simple one-on-one versus mode, Final Fight-style. You can still
grab s or simply punch and kick your nent, only on a
limited stage. The sinker is that your character still controls
as stiffly as he does in the regular game modes. The fighting
mode gives the impression of being little more than an
afterthought, and it remains that way in actual play.
Graphically, the game more than holds its own against other games
of this nature. There are some cool lighting effects, such as the
flashlight found early in the game. But once again, something
cool isn't given any true purpose, since the game is never dark
enough to require it. Thus, lacking an atmosphere along the lines
of Silent Hill, Zombie Revenge's sole flashlight appearance is
wasted. Character models are a bit on the sausage-y side, but
everything runs in high resolutions at 60fps. The soundtrack is
appropriately horror movie-esque, but it doesn't elevate the game
experience one bit. While the sound effects are generally fine,
the one-note crack of the relentlessly fired tends to get
tiring quickly. The voice acting is uniformly atrocious, but
that's practically the unspoken MO for survival horror games, so
it's no worse than anything the Resident Evil series has thrown
at us. Perhaps the coolest part of the game is when you reach the
stage that approximates the actual House of the Dead opening
stage, only this time it's viewed from a third-person
perspective. Acknowledging one's past creations is a welcome
trend, and in this case, it works. Objectively, it's not as if
Sega didn't try to add longevity to Zombie Revenge. It most
certainly did, but to put it bluntly, the company still has a
long way to go before it reaches a Namco level of quality insofar
as home conversions are concerned. The extra modes are more
novelty than added value, and the fact that the game itself is
severely flawed makes the extra modes nothing more than severely
flawed extra modes. While this sort of gameplay may suit some
folks just fine, someone looking for a good reason to part with
50 bucks should look elsewhere. It's worth a rental for
curiosity's sake, but it'd be better to wait and see if Sega gets
the sequel right. --James Mielke
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. -- GameSpot Review
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