Shoot The Zombirds Review
PROS
- Addictive pick-up-and-play simplicity.
- Greater rewards for speed and precision; hasty shots punished with speedier enemies.
- Charmingly nightmarish designs; ugly and cute all at the same time.
CONS
- Limited variety and long term appeal; less so for returning players.
VERDICT
Shoot The Zombirds gives Pumpkin Boy another crack at the dastardly child-napping birds of the first game with a nightmarish spin.
- Full Review
- App Store Info
From creating pottery, to knocking down cans and stopping waves of red and blue jelly monsters, Infinite Dreams easily lives up to their name as they approach a wide variety of games and styles of play from casual to hardcore. Shoot The Zombirds acts as the nightmarish sequel to last year's Shoot The Birds and while much of the basic gameplay is in tact, small tweaks keep the game fresh and place an emphasis on careful, precise shots.
In particular, Pumpkin Boy packs far fewer arrows than before, making it much easier to run out when you panic and fire arrows with abandon. More than ever before you'll need to make use of trick-shots to skewer multiple birds on one arrow, either by shooting straight through them; allowing one to fall on another; or best of all, bouncing a pile of already-pierced birds back up in to a passing flock.
Occasionally your arrow will slip past a bird as it skims off the front or back of it - something that's sure to cause some amount of frustration at first - however these near misses are intentional and encourage players to aim better; especially when it causes the bird to panic and move even faster, leading to a spiral of panicked shots.
As before, your motivation for taking down these undead birds is to protect your brood of 'pumpkids'. At first you'll only have two to protect, but cash earned from progress and cash-laden skulls can be spent on upgrading how many pumpkids you have, how much cash you can earn and how many arrows you start with. Temporary bonuses are also available, along with costumes that cost a not insignificant amount to purchase.
Ultimately Shoot The Zombirds feels much like the first title, but its incredibly haunting visuals, small, but significant gameplay tweaks and objective-based multiplier upgrades make this a hard game to put down, but returning players will feel the inevitable burnout much sooner than newer players.