Zombie road-kill
According to Zombie Road Racing, the apocalypse should be quite fun. Not that you’ll live long, but you will get the change to crawl behind the wheel of a big-rig and turning the undead into pate by jumping and wheeling your way through an uneven world.
Not a bad way to go.
Brains…
Oddly, the danger isn’t becoming a zombie’s chew-toy in this physics-based racer. Trying to make it as far as possible down the track, the big worry comes from accidentally flipping your ride and crushing your brawny driver’s neck. Thus, the zombies that fill the track prove little more than obstacles designed to throw off your various meticulously planned jumps by unpredictably slowing your path through the world.
Various items litter the roadway. These range from barrels to refill your fuel tank (an empty tank will end your current run), to power-ups that give you speed boosts, the ability to smash through zombies without slowing down, and the standard coin multiplier.
Death rides a pale quad bike
You must use accelerate and brake controls to keep yourself level as you bounce over uneven roads. These are the only two commands on offer as you race through the 2D world, and are controlled courtesy of two responsive virtual buttons conveniently placed on either side of the screen.
It’s a good thing the controls are so tight, because I found that I had to take very careful control of my speed as I zoomed over the uneven map with the delicate nature of the game’s physics regularly proved maddening. Hitting a ramp too hard had me flying into the air and rotating into an upside down position before coming smashing down on my unfortunate driver’s cranium. Slowly edging forward didn’t help matters either with sheer drops frequently flipping my fragile four-wheel death machine.
This left me having to learn each course by heart to really have a chance of going the distance without flipping or running out of fuel.
Splat attack
Zombie Road Racing has a playful visual style filled with bright, bold colors. The characters and vehicles look like they began life as toys based on a kids TV show, while the animation is reminiscent of Plants vs Zombies, as the zombies and your driver rag-doll through the world.
The cars range from souped-up quad bikes to the lunar rover. Each provides improved performance along with a distinct playful look – though unfortunately the cost of these proves prohibitively expensive. You can earn coins to purchase these by completing set tasks and killing zombies. If that sounds too much like hard work, however, you can purchase coins from the store in-app (but be warned though, that lunar rover will set you back a pretty penny).
Un-dying fun
Though unnecessarily hard from the start, Zombie Road Racing’s fun mix of undead-murder and physics-mastery kept me amused for hours trying to make it just that little bit further.
