Containment: The Zombie Puzzler

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here.

I never know what to do with self-explanitory titles. I mean, how do I explain it any further? "Containment: The Zombie Puzzler (on iPad and PC) is a puzzle game with zombies that you must contain." It's great for the developer/publisher, because they don't have to spend any extra time explaining the concept of the game. But reviewers like me who have delusions of cleverness no longer have anything to work with. Won't anyone think of the poor reviewers?

Zombie Bowl-O-Rama

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here.

Zombie Bowl-O-Rama... It's a casual game by Mumbo Jumbo about bowling. With zombies. That's not normally what you would consider two great tastes that taste great together. It's really quite... random. The "story" (such as it is) is that an asteroid FROM OUTER SPACE crashes into a graveyard and then suddenly zombies! The opening intro video and the main menu are actually probably my favorite parts of the game. They've got this great cheesy 50s sci-fi horror vibe that I quite dig.

The Walking Dead Episode 5.

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here. 

I'm just going to stay it right off the bat: The Walking Dead is my personal pick for game of the year, no contest. It is simply, in my opinion, easily one of the greatest adventure games ever made and one of the best games ever told by a video game. Episode five was the very satisfying conclusion to what has been one heck of an emotional trip into Robert Kirkman's world.
This will be my spoiler free-ish review. I may or may not write a spoiler-filled reflection on the game in a while, but for now, rest assured that if you haven't played the game yet, I will keep the spoilers to a minimum. Though I will say, right off the bat, that my severe acrophobia did not make playing this last episode any easier.

City of Horror

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here.

Regular readers will remember that the first game review I did for Buy Zombie was Mall of Horror. I recall having positive things to say about it. It was fun and strategic, though somewhat friendship-destroying. City of Horror is the... well, I'm not sure what to call it. It's its own game, so it's not an expansion or reprinting. Is it a sequel? Can board games even have sequels? The website boardgamegeek.com classifies it as a "reimplementation". I suppose that works better than anything I can think of.
Whatever it is, it takes the rules of Mall of Horror and then refines them, expands on them, and tweaks them in a few areas. This creates an experience that if you've played Mall of Horror will feel familiar, yet wholly distinct. If you've never played Mall of Horror, but you think you'd enjoy the kind of game where you feed your friends to zombies for fun and profit, then you're in for a special treat.

The Walking Dead: Episode 4

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here.

Episode four can be summed up in a single word: Tension.
I'll be honest, after the emotional beatdown that was episode 3, I was a little scared to play episode 4. If it messed with my emotions as viscerally as episode 3 then I would probably end up as a little puddle of goo on the floor that my wife wouldn't appreciate having to clean up. Fortunately, while episode continued the trend of a strong emotional impact, there wasn't as much in the way of sucker punches as episode 3 gave us. In essence, it's the perfect follow-up since it gives you just enough room to breath without letting up entirely.

All Things Zombie

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here.

All Things Zombie. Well, if any game ever gave itself a difficult name to live up to it's certainly this one. No reliance on another work's title like a licensed game, and no simple title that explains the basic concept of the game. No, ATZ wants it all. But can it live up to the standard it sets for itself?
Okay, maybe I'm being unfairly silly. It's a bad habit I need to break. Putting that aside for now: All Things Zombie, by Lock 'n Load publishing, is an award-winning board game that, obviously, takes place during the zombie apocalypse. It's also one of the most unique war games I've ever played.
Granted, I have to admit that I'm not the most avid wargamer out there by any stretch, but I have dabbled in it a little. While I can see the appeal of the genre, most of the time it's just not for me. I usually lack the patience for those kinds of a games. That just makes it all the more surprising at how pleasantly surprised I was by this game.

The Walking Dead: The Board Game

Please note that this is the rough draft for a review I wrote for BuyZombie.com. Please check out the final draft of the review here.

Now, if you're a regular reader, you may be confused that I am reviewing The Walking Dead: The Board Game. "Didn't he just review that game not too long ago?" you're asking yourself right now. Such confusion is normal, since what I reviewed before was not The Walking Dead: The Board Game, but rather, The Walking Dead Board Game. You see? The other one didn't have the extra ": the". Totally not confusing at all. All right, all sarcasm aside, because the names are so similar, for ease of understanding and the sake of brevity, from here on out I will refer to "The Walking Dead: The Board Game" as "this game" and to "The Walking Dead Board Game" as "the other game". I don't know if it will help you keep things strait, but it does help me.
Similarities in the name aside, the other game was based on the TV show, while this game is based on the comics, and while there are some superficial similarities between the games, (like their names) they are in fact very different.