The Last Stand

The Good
I'm not a big fan of defense games, but I do like shooting zombies, so seeing this game one day while cruising through Newgrounds I was a little curious. After a few minutes I was hooked on this game. The graphics are really good for a flash game and the lighting effects when firing off a round from your weapon is a nice little touch.

The music is very creepy, combined with the dark look of the game really gives it a sense that it has something to do with George Romero. True there is no voice acting, but the sounds of the zombies gurgling as your blast their heads apart with a shotgun or hearing the zombie rottweilers flesh being torn apart with a .357 magnum are fantastic.

Even the weapon selection is nice, from a simply 9MM, to an Uzi, even heavy machine guns like a AK-47 (a personal favorite of mine, along with the powerful .357 magnum), even the hunting rifle with its one shot, one kill (provided you hit an armored zombie in the head in some cases) really give this weapon an overwhelming edge against the rest.

The zombies are very creepy, hearing the moaning and the sounds the make when the die can actually give you the creeps a bit. The combinations of them make it exciting every time you unload into one, even the little "cameos" like a TV news reporter and a clown (who doesn't like to blow Bozo apart with a sawed-off shotgun?). Really there is a lot to love this game.

The Bad
My only complaints about this game is that it can be too repetitive. Once you get the formula down, you can easily get enough firepower and help early on in the first few nights and can easily tear through the zombie hoard. True its fun to tear them apart, but it can be too easy at times which can led to a little boredom.

I do wish they had some kind of editing to it, like a zombie creator. It would have been nice to create a unique zombie and see it show up once in a while, it would have been a nice little touch, or even the ability to edit the main character. Also I would have loved to see a scoring system, I would love to know how many zombies I wasted.

The last thing would be the controls. You use the classic "A,W,S,D" to move, it would have been nice to use the arrow keys as well to, see how you use to mouse to aim and shoot, it would be nice to keep your hands as close as possible to each other. Plus the aiming to me seems a little off, I have aimed at a zombies legs at times or aim at their head and it seems to aim either higher or lower that my intended target. I don't know if this is a programming flaw or maybe even intentional, maybe the guy could be scared and can't aim right?

The Bottom Line
All in all, The Last Stand is one hell of a flash game to play. From the creepy sounds and surroundings, the blood-splattering zombies, the powerful weaponry and even the little quick quips in the guy's journal make this a wonderful game to play. True there were a few little quibbles about, its nothing to really hurt the game, so if you get a chance try this game out.

This is a wonderful start to a hopefully long and storied franchise and though it already has spawned a more advanced sequel (which I'll review another time), I would love to see more to come, maybe even a transfer to consoles. So my final word on this game...AWESOME!