Zombie Catchers Review

In the future, zombies invade our beaches and our swamps (noo! Our precious swamps!). That’s the bad news. Here’s the good news: zombie goo is edible, even though it tends to taste like “blueberries with a hint of battery acid.” Here’s the better news: two intergalactic businessmen, AJ and Bud, are willing to catch and squeeze zombies for their delicious inner-juices.

Put all that action and entrepreneurship together to get Zombie Catchers, a weirdly enjoyable game by Two Men and a Dog that’d be even better without its free-to-play trappings.

The action in Zombie Catchers is divided into two distinct portions: selling and catching. Rounding up zombies is where the bulk of the game’s fun is. AJ and Bud beam down to the huntin’ grounds and lure the undead from their festering pits by throwing brains as bait (disturbingly enough, there is an unlimited supply of said brains). When the zombies emerge, players go to work by grabbing them with a spear gun, nets, tranquilizers, and whatever else is on-hand.

The zombies don’t sit around and let themselves get caught, though. They’re brainless, but not dumb. Low-level zombies simply run away and make themselves harder to catch, but higher-level zombies armor themselves with barrels and trashcans. Some even wield weapons that can seriously trip the player up. If a zombie escapes into the underbrush, they can’t be caught and that’s potential profit down the drain.

Captured zombies feature in the business-based half of the game. They’re squeezed by machines to become delicious confectionaries slurped down by the living. Zombies are “juiced” over a period of time. Higher-level zombies yield more product and more money, and money goes back into upgrading AJ and Bud’s equipment – thus allowing for more profits down the line.

Snagging zombies in Zombie Catchers is great fun. Netting a runaway is supremely satisfying, and losing quarry is a bummer. The only problem with these hunts is that they’re subject to a timer. Zombie Catchers is a free-to-play game, and the player’s “drones” find prey every ten minutes or so. Of course, anyone that doesn’t want to wait can pay hard currency (plutonium) to access the hunting grounds whenever they want.

Zombie Catchers doesn’t subscribe to the industry’s worst free-to-play practices by far, but getting shut out really puts a damper on things, since a single hunt only lasts a couple of minutes (at best). It’d be so much nicer to be able to hunt zombies wherever, whenever.

Free-to-play issues aside, Zombie Catchers is still a zombie-spearing good time. Good thing enjoying zombie juice doesn’t require a refined palate.