System: Nintendo DS
Reviewed by Kiwi
Touch the Dead (or Dead 'N Furious if you're European) is an on-rails shooter for the DS. It attempts to replicate the feel of arcade shooters such as House of the Dead. Only with a stylus in the place of a lightgun.
The touch screen is well suited to touching the undead with bullets. There weren't really any moments where it didn't register a shot. Needless to say, it is much easier to be precise with the touch screen then with a light gun. This does take away some emphasis from precision and places it on reloading, which is done by sliding the clip from one side of the screen to the other, most importantly the timing of it and doing it quickly. Even after you slide the clip acorss, your character must go through the animation before you can go back to shooting'em up. The strategy of where to shoot, head shots are good enough for normal difficulty, but furious can require a bit more thought behind shot placement, and reloading does lend some tactical thought to a game that requires little otherwise.
There are four weapons you find throughout the game: Shotgun, SMG, Pistol, and Crowbar. The pistol and shotgun are the most useful, however the SMG is near worthless. Your firepower is further improved by obtaining weapon upgrades at certain points, the first is always increased reload spead.
The story is pretty much non-existent. You are a prisoner, door opens, find gun, everyone's a zombie, go kill them. There are cutscenes in between levels, but they are mostly one-liners and generally uninteresting.
The graphics are down right ugly. Everything is blocky and the textures are very low quality.
Palette swaps make up most of the variety of enemies in this (with increases in durability). Though the ranks of the undead also include zombie rats, zombie bats, zombie alligators, zombie leeches, and robots, which are probably also zombies. There are also bosses at the end of each chapter which are pretty fun to face. The standard zombies also pull out neat tricks occasionally, but not often enough.
The sounds are a mixed bag. The pistol and SMG sound pretty cool, but the shotgun sounds weak. The zombies' groans get old pretty fast, and there is no music, except during boss fights and in the main menu.
Touch the Dead has captured how much fun it is to poke dead things with a stick. Unfortunately the sounds, graphics, and shortness (about 2-3 hours) holds it back from greatness.
Reviewed by Kiwi
Touch the Dead (or Dead 'N Furious if you're European) is an on-rails shooter for the DS. It attempts to replicate the feel of arcade shooters such as House of the Dead. Only with a stylus in the place of a lightgun.
The touch screen is well suited to touching the undead with bullets. There weren't really any moments where it didn't register a shot. Needless to say, it is much easier to be precise with the touch screen then with a light gun. This does take away some emphasis from precision and places it on reloading, which is done by sliding the clip from one side of the screen to the other, most importantly the timing of it and doing it quickly. Even after you slide the clip acorss, your character must go through the animation before you can go back to shooting'em up. The strategy of where to shoot, head shots are good enough for normal difficulty, but furious can require a bit more thought behind shot placement, and reloading does lend some tactical thought to a game that requires little otherwise.
There are four weapons you find throughout the game: Shotgun, SMG, Pistol, and Crowbar. The pistol and shotgun are the most useful, however the SMG is near worthless. Your firepower is further improved by obtaining weapon upgrades at certain points, the first is always increased reload spead.
The story is pretty much non-existent. You are a prisoner, door opens, find gun, everyone's a zombie, go kill them. There are cutscenes in between levels, but they are mostly one-liners and generally uninteresting.
The graphics are down right ugly. Everything is blocky and the textures are very low quality.
Palette swaps make up most of the variety of enemies in this (with increases in durability). Though the ranks of the undead also include zombie rats, zombie bats, zombie alligators, zombie leeches, and robots, which are probably also zombies. There are also bosses at the end of each chapter which are pretty fun to face. The standard zombies also pull out neat tricks occasionally, but not often enough.
The sounds are a mixed bag. The pistol and SMG sound pretty cool, but the shotgun sounds weak. The zombies' groans get old pretty fast, and there is no music, except during boss fights and in the main menu.
Touch the Dead has captured how much fun it is to poke dead things with a stick. Unfortunately the sounds, graphics, and shortness (about 2-3 hours) holds it back from greatness.
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