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Bargain Bin Gems: Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! DS By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman
During the weeks before Teenage Zombies hit the store shelves in 2008, I was quite excited for this game. At the time, it seemed as if InLight Entertainment was actually developing an awesome Lost Vikings clone for the DS. When Teenage Zombies did get released many of the initial reviews were more so warnings to the general gaming public, telling them that this game was not what they expected. This deeply saddened me and actually led to me omitting the game from my wishlist.
Recently, the price for Teenage Zombie: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys! had dropped below the $10 mark ($8 used at Gamestop), so I figured there was no time like the present to check this game out. While this isn’t the team puzzle platforming game that Lost Vikings was, this does stand as a very fun game. It should be stated that the games does share in that “use the various attributes and skills of each party member to transverse each level” feel with Lost Vikings; however, the gameplay is seemingly more action based than puzzle based.
In Lost Vikings, you needed to be very strategic regarding which path you chose to take in any given level; in Teenage Zombies, your forethought and strategy could essentially be replaced with just getting the drop on the enemy and hoping they go down before you do with a thorough beating (which usually does happen, even on “hard mode”). The hazards and road blocks in this game can be seen less as puzzles and more of a visual cue as when you should switch your zombie (ie: I’ll never have to figure out how to get past a sewer grate, I just know that I need to switch my main over to the zombie that has acid barf).
Even though the zombies themselves look as if they’re done in the style of those newer Cartoon Network cartoons, the entire game follows this golden era sci-fi comic motif. Not only are the cutscenes done in the classic comic book style (including an intro movie/comic with voice overs that are actually good), but the main game is also set up as being in a comic book including narrative bubbles that you can actually use as ledges. I was quite amazed by this choice of theming, especially since I haven’t seen anything done like this since Comix Zone. Another amazing aspect of this game is the story itself. While it does follow that cliché “monsters versus different monsters” thematic, I found the choice of giant brained aliens as the antagonists quite hilarious. The story starts out with a larger than normal group (yes, this is how the size is referred to in the in-game narrative) of brain aliens coming to Earth with intention of invasion. As mankind stands helpless against the brain aliens, they call out for the only group of super heroes that can save them in these dire times. Naturally, the only heroes that can stop the brain aliens are a group of unearthed teenage zombies with an appetite for gray matter. The story is zany, comical and pretty well written. It really reminds me of one of something you’d see in the old Tiny Toon Adventure or Animaniac cartoons, it’s truly great.
Though this is a very fun game with a excellent story and presentation, it does fall very short in the audio department. Aside from the awesome voiced intro, the game’s general audio is just plain bad. It honestly sounds like the crappy sound effects that come out of a generic Newgrounds or eBaums World flash game. It was tolerable for the first half hour of gameplay, after that I ended up just muting my DS and never looking back. The biggest negative point in this game isn’t the music; it’s the mini-games in this game. By now you should all have a general idea as to how much I hate mini-games; however, these mini-games are seriously pointless. The only thing they give you is more points, which would be fine aside from the fact that you can just keep exploiting the “replay mini-game” option to make some artificially high score. Just in case you’re curious or have a younger sibling that likes mini-games, they mostly consist of: doing free throw shots in a form of zombie basketball, playing an old 80’s style zombie slaying video game, skating around in a half pipe ala 720, etc. They’re not very fun and I often just use the time to take a 60 second hand stretching break.
With the price of this game being so low, I have no reason not to recommend it to any fan of classic gaming. You’ll find the zombie story cute and quirky, and even fall in love with the simple gameplay (despite that fact that it sometimes wavers over the line of being too simple even in hard mode). 7/10 Evil brains in jars of brine
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