Alien Zombie Megadeath Review

    OG readers of Robotic Attack Squadron will remember that the first game I reviewed for the blog was Pom Pom's Alien Zombie Death, which was followed soon thereafter by a review of Jelly Pops, another Pom Pom game. Alien Zombie Death came close to receiving a perfect score. Jelly Pops was interesting and fun, but not nearly as good. Pom Pom's follow-up to AZD lies somewhere in the middle, or maybe dead even with, Jelly Pops despite the huge amount of new alien killing content it brings to the table.

     I really don't feel like re-hashing my gameplay description here since AZMD's gameplay is nearly identical to that of AZD, so I'll refer you to my AZD review for general information and focus on the difference between the two games in this write-up.

Point 1: The Graphics

    AZMD features 3D graphics on a 2D plane as opposed to AZD's 2D characters. A few of the enemies look better in 3D, such as the slime guys with an eyeball that shoot at you. Some look better in 2D. It's a bit of a toss up. The scary dogs that chase you around in AZD look waaaay better in 2D. The 3D versions are not scary at all. And they are called Buffalo for some reason despite the fact that they are clearly canine in the first game (they even bark in the first game, but not in this one). AZD had cool planetary backgrounds, but I probably have to give the advantage to AZMD's backgrounds. There is a different one for each of the game's 40 main stages, and some of them are really interesting. There's gasses, planets, structures, all kinds of cool stuff. Protip: quit out of a level and go to the title screen to see that level's background displayed in it's full glory on the title screen. I did this many times to get a better look at some of the cooler scenes.

Point 2: The Sound

     This is also close to a toss up between the two games as they have different sound effects that aren't really better or worse than each other, just different. I guess I'll give the advantage to AZD because it has that creepy dog whimpering bark when you fight dogs.

Point 3: Gameplay

     Gameplay is similar, although there are some differences. The big thing is that in AZMD your multiplier only goes up if you collect crystals that are dropped by dead enemies. These crystals disappear pretty quickly, so you need to constantly move toward where you have killed enemies. I think in general AZD was better without this, but it is fun to kill a million aliens and then run through collecting tons of crystals to quickly fill up the multiplier bar.

     There is a new power-up in AZMD. It slows down time for everything but your character. It's really great. It compliments the other 3 power-ups perfectly. The other three have more specific uses, but slowing down time almost always helps you out no matter what situation you are in. Speaking of power-ups, the missiles in AZMD don't seem as effective to me.

     There are also a handful of new enemies. There is a new version of the slime guys that shoot at you that have a shield on the front so that you have to shoot them from behind. There are these stationary guys that shoot lasers across the whole screen after telegraphing where they are aiming with a visible line. There are also new bosses that shoot at you, release minions, and chase you around as an invincible ball once you kill them until they regenerate. There are a few others too. All of the new enemies are great and fit in just fine with the old ones.

     The main types of levels in AZMD aren't endless; they have a set amount of enemies and then you beat them. This is strange considering that all the levels in AZD had you play until you died. To me these beatable levels were just filler as you need to beat them to unlock the survival levels. There are 40 of these beatable levels, so that's a lot of filler. Not that they aren't fun, I'm just questioning why they exist when the survival mode levels are the stars of the show. There are 32 survival levels by my count. That's a lot compared to AZD. There a bunch of new gimmicks in some of these levels, such as jet-pack levels that let you fly around really fast (kind of fun, but not as tight as the core gameplay), decoy pod levels that have stationary spots you can touch that create a decoy of you for a short period of time (also fun, but not as tight as they could be), bomb disposal levels, which have you carrying bombs to disposal units before they tick down and explode on you (these levels are pretty cool), levels that have tons of asteroids flying through them but no enemies (a fun diversion from shooting), and space baby rescue levels, where you must defend babies from the aliens as they bounce their way across the screen (a fun type of level, very hectic). It's sad when the babies die...but then it gets scary as their ghost comes after you... 

     Most of the levels are the traditional kind where you have nothing to do but dodge obstacles and navigate the stage layout while blasting aliens by the hundreds. There are many more levels in AZMD, but the layout variety and enemy themes keep things pretty fresh. I must confess, I did not get all the medals in all of levels. I got frustrated with a handful of the harder ones and have given up for now to move on. I'm not sure that I'll ever come back either; I think I may have had enough of this formula, even though I love it.

     AZMD has a bunch of space suits to choose from, and you can unlock suits that look like a bit like some of the aliens. You can mix and match parts to customize a suit too. It's fun to do that.

     And of course, it wouldn't be a Pom Pom game without a few glitches (just kidding, I honestly love this developer!). I experienced slowdown once when there was a truly crazy amount of enemies on screen at once (like, probably over 100). The other glitch I came across was repeatable and affected gameplay pretty badly in some cases. Shooting some bosses causes them to retreat. If they retreat off the edge of the screen without dying, they won't come back or re-spawn, meaning you are stuck in the level with nothing to do. This is real bad, as it means you sometimes have to lay off your fire when you have a boss on the ropes just to save the level from crashing. If this happens to you though, have some fun killing spaceships, which keep spawning. If you kill tons of them in a row, they start to be worth insane amounts of points.

    Alien Zombie Megadeath is not as sublime as its smaller progenitor. There's a lot more going on, but some of the magic is gone for me. A handful of additions, such as the new enemies and the new power-up, are really awesome. In general though, I prefer the original game in nearly every way, including its amount of content. AZMD has way more levels, but like I said, 40(!) of them are filler to me and some of the survival levels are not so great. I had fun with some of the other new elements, such as baby rescue and bomb disposal and some of the new level designs and enemy patterns, but I didn't really have too many of the great moments of narrow escapes and great triumphs that I felt in the original game. Maybe it's because the formula isn't so fresh in this game as it was the first time around. I'm giving AZMD a Mediocre Game, Tier 1 rating. There's a lot of fun to be had for AZD veterans looking for more content, but they'll have to wade through a lot of filler to get to those great moments. Conversely, if I hand someone AZD, I can almost guarantee they'll have an epic gameplay experience on their first game.