With Halloween fast approaching Sega has managed to squeeze out the horror title The Typing of the Dead: Overkill just in time for the 31st. I jump into the type text zombie action adventure to see if game can get me pumped for Halloween. You can watch the video review below or scroll further to read a more in depth written review.
The Typing of the Dead series began in 2000 as an arcade game and was also released on the Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2, PC, and under the name "Flick of the Dead" in 2012 for iOS devices. The game is a mod based around the popular House of the Dead 2, but rather than wielding guns and weapons to defeat your zombie foes, you must use the power of words and fast typing to blow the brains out of the incoming hordes.
The title menu is simple and easy to navigate through and lists the same features as expected in most steam based titles, the main story, multiplayer, mini games, settings. The original version of The House of the Dead is also included, and an update allowing co-op play will be released as a free download in the future, which is quite fun and follows the original games' first-person shooter aspect, avoiding the need to type. You also choose between three difficulty levels. easy, medium, and hard.
You start by choosing which option to play through, but the multiplayer option is currently disabled and is a bit disappointing. The game then breaks into a cut scene detailing the story as to why the player character is in a town surrounded by the undead, don’t worry there will be no spoilers here. Then you're thrown into the deep end with the zombies running at you at a fast pace with only your words to defend yourself.
The game mechanic is simple, there is no WASD here, you are not in control of the player and the game moves in a linear path through the zones. A zombie or a group of zombies will approach you looking rather upset with a highlighted box of text. You must type out that word as quickly as possible and with each correct letter you score a shot on the zombie from your fictional pistol. in many cases the zombies are at distance and can be picked off simply by typing a letter.
Although quite fun at first i found that the charm wears off pretty quickly. There isn't really too much variation in the way you attack your foes and even the sometimes funny word matches on screen can't escape the sense of repetition, but hey if you're practicing typing really fast then i can think of no better game. This game would be good for a typist no doubt. At no point did I feel connected to the characters as their background is not really explained and the opening cinematic. It just makes you feel like these guys were just thrown together for the game and don't really share anything in common. In games usually, I like to feel like I know the person I’m controlling, but this game has no personalities whatsoever, its just like DayZ where you spawn in as a fresh spawn every time.
The graphics remind me a little of Left 4 Dead with the UI being quite clean and simple. The health and points bar is located in the top left of the display with a hand gun bullet chamber animation moving as you shoot or type the words. There is an interesting line and artifact effect that moves over the screen, kinda like and old school television and gives the game a sense of being old. The surroundings appear sharp but one thing that did become quite apparent is that there are only two real zombie animations and again lead to the point that the game isn't very deep.
The audio i found was quite good, the gunshots sounded good and the zombie noises and surrounding sounds made the game feel quite authentic, along with the good quality of songs on the title menus.
I found The Typing of the Dead: Overkill pretty dry, I became bored after playing it for around half an hour as I have no desire to become faster at typing and feel I'm at a good pace already. I wasn't able to test the multiplayer as it isn't available, which shows the game may have been a little rushed to get it out before Halloween. The game is only saved a little by its looks, nostalgia of the original, and it does feel good and smooth to play. i just didn't feel connected in any way to any of it. You can only expect so much from a simple arcade game, but this offers nothing to make me want revisit it and the charm wore off after 30 minutes. If they had included multiplayer then that might have put it in a more positive light.
The game is set to be priced at £14.99 / €17.99 / $19.99 but is available at the reduced price of £7.49 / €8.99 / $9.99 until November 1st.
