If there is any one thing that draws a lot of attention, it's zombies. To be honest, the word "zombie" in the title of a game piques my interest as well, so I was more than happy to take a Burn Zombie Burn! test drive.
First off, what is Burn Zombie Burn!? A PSN exclusive, Burn Zombie Burn! is an over the top kitschy mock-up zombie tribute game, sharing gameplay similar to a Geometry Wars style shooter. You'll play as a main character that vaguely resembles a Bruce Campbell-esque hero armed with chainsaws, various guns, and of course, torches to Burn Zombies. The undead you face will vary from small time standard zombies, to exploding zombies, to hulking beast zombies; each with slight variations in defeating them. Having a co-op buddy works best against the big guys, and its a bad idea to chainsaw a monster that'll explode when you get too close. Burning zombies are worth more points, but are also faster and more dangerous as they get close.
The key to this game that brought it back from the brink of being fed to the zombies, is the L1 button. This button allows the main character to auto aim while shooting, thus improving the smoothness of gameplay significantly. Your goal changes from; Run to a corner and buckle down until you die, to; tread slowly, and clear a path as you move around to pick up items and upgrades, while at the same time boosting your score with loads of kills.
It's a well known fact that zombies are mindless, and relentless – and that's a lot of how this game felt. You're given 3 modes in Co-op to play through 6 different locked levels. Levels range from an abandoned shack in the woods, to a drive in movie lot, as well as a grave yard or "Secret Lab." The three modes are: a general slaughter survival mode, a timed mode, and a protect the girl mode. To further explain the three modes, your survival mode just allows you to run around in circles killing zombies until you run out of lives, simple enough. Timed mode has a timer that counts down, and you rack up the highest score possible before either the time runs out, or you run out of lives. The third mode, which was the most interesting in co-op, is the "Protect Daisy" mode. Protecting Daisy is much easier with two people, as there is a Cadillac placed on the screen with a health bar, it takes damage just like your character until it's destroyed. Your goal is to keep yourself, and the car containing the girlfriend character "Daisy", alive to rack up a score. You'll be able to do each of these three modes in any of the six available levels.
Many arcade games include a challenge mode when faced with limited gameplay options. However, Burn Zombie Burn! missed the memo explaining how much fun challenges are with a friend. All of the challenges, which are loads more interesting and varied than the score-based game, are single player only. With no real storyline, and very little goal besides "stay alive" the co-op game went stale pretty quickly.
Another issue I encountered is the local-only co-op. You and your friend will replay the same level many, many times to unlock different stages. Friends tend to get bored looking at the same environment for too long, and while sitting in the same room, other suggestions are likely to come up. Suggestions such as watching a movie, or playing Flower, even feeding the fish were uttered after only a few rounds. There are two solutions that I have thought would have prevented this. Number one, have the co-op levels fully unlocked from the start, or fewer prerequisites to unlock the later levels. Number two, add a bit more variety than those three gameplay options. The challenges would have been a great touch, especially to coordinate tactics to beat specific challenges.
Oh, and just to be snarky and make my point, give us online play! When people are sitting on your couch and get bored, they tend to wander off and eat your food. Online play not only saves your fridge, but extends your possibilities and investment into the game. The co-op in Burn Zombie Burn felt a little bit like an afterthought with so many limitations, I would have expected more from a title like this, especially with so many different challenge modes already in the single player portion!