TOUCH THE DEAD
Published by:
Eidos Interactive
Developed by:
Dream On Studio
INTRODUCTION:
Have you ever heard of the popular Arcade/Console shooting
series entitled House of the Dead, where you take the role of a government agent
whose job is to destroy the evil forces of the living dead? Well, that’s what
Touch the Dead tries to do, except on a much smaller screen, and instead of a
light gun, you’re armed with a..uh..stylus pen. Let the zombie blasting begin!
GAMEPLAY:
Well, I must say, I always got a kick out of the House of the
Dead series of games, and I love all things zombie, so I was more than excited
to pick this one up. Did I get the “bang” for my buck (oh, that was awful)?
Well, sort of.
First of all, I need to tell any fan of the HOTD series that
this game is not at all related to it. What, you say? I know- what a huge rip,
eh? Sega’s crack team of zombie creators and awful translators didn’t have
anything to do with this bad boy. That being said, it is almost a complete
rip-off in every way, except not quite as fun.
There isn’t much story to write home about in Touch the Dead,
and I doubt you’re buying it for story, so let’s just get down to gameplay. You
have no gun, but you do have a stylus pen, and this is how you kill your zombie
enemies- you tap the touchscreen and then they die. In order to kill them in the
most effective manner, you touch them in the head, and this does the trick.
Otherwise, you may find it takes longer to kill them. It’s fairly fun to blast
zombies, and you’d better love it, because that’s basically the whole game,
there are few bells and whistles.
You don’t actually move, as the game is on
rails and your path is laid out for you. Herein lies complaint number one; I
don’t have a problem with the game being on rails, but why would you take the
absolute worst paths through every room? You can often see the exit when you
enter, but instead you circle around the room, erratically. That makes no sense-
and on top of that, the zombies respawn where you’ve already killed them! That
drove me nuts.
My biggest complaint comes with the game’s cheap A.I that
plays off of design flaws. In order to reload, you have to take your pen and
drag it from one corner of the screen to the other, bringing a clip to your gun.
As if this isn’t bad enough, you’ll find that after you’ve done this, your
character will STILL do a ‘reload’ animation, leaving you to sit there and watch
when the zombies pile up.
As the game moves on, you’ll notice that it’s damn
near impossible to really mow the zombies down, because you’ll find you spend
more time reloading than you do shooting. You get overwhelmed a lot and it’s
frustrating. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a challenge, but when the whole
purpose of the game is to shoot zombies, it’s a pain in my ass to constantly
reload. Also, you don’t recover health between levels- that can be a real pain.
Gameplay: 6/10
GRAPHICS:
Now to be honest, I know that this is a handheld game and not
to expect XBOX 360 graphics, but this game is muddy and ugly. The zombies
themselves look bland and uninspired, and that hurts the score a lot- you want
them to be hideous and gross, to show some character. Instead you get dull grey,
pixellated creatures. That being said, they do blow up real good; you’ll notice
lots of chunks and holes to reflect damage. Still though, this one ain’t the
prettiest title I’ve ever seen on the DS.
Graphics: 6/10
AUDIO:
I thought that Touch of the Dead’s sound was probably its
greatest strongpoint. The audio samples used for gunshots and reloading are
crystal clear and badass. The music is dull, but still, the nastiness of the
moaning, groaning and blasting is great, and that’s what matters most.
Audio: 7/10
FINAL VERDICT:
I paid around forty bucks to own Touch of the Dead for my DS,
and at the end of the day, was it worth it? Not exactly. Touch of the Dead
certainly isn’t garbage, and if you’re a HUGE fan of Zombie games, I’d probably
still recommend Resident Evil: Deadly Silence before I recommended this one. But
when all is said and done, Touch of the Dead is really what you’d expect,
although a bit more low-res. You want a straightforward, screen-tapping romp
with lots of zombies? You’ll find it here, and I think that’s what really
counts.
FINAL SCORE: 6.5/10
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