DIG THAT: PARALLEL ZOMBIES

PLATFORMS | ANDROID
DEVELOPER/PUBLISHER | PERBLUE
RELEASE DATE | 7.19.12
PARALLELZOMBIES.COM

Oh no. There are zombies attacking people on Huntington Avenue.

Quick! Grab your shotgun and head for Mission Hill. They’re heading for that giant house that takes up three city blocks!

This is the scene in Parallel Zombies, an Android-exclusive game created by PerBlue, who’s claim to fame concerns using Google Maps to put the player in their own hometown. There is a certain charm in being able to shoot zombies near, or inside, of your apartment.

The basis behind the game is simple. You shoot zombies. That’s about it. For some that might be enough to dissuade a download, but as an MMORPG, Parallel Zombies is able to break up this banality by giving the player different missions for experience, and allowing you to explore the area by doing more complex missions. You can choose to play as the lone survivor, or team up with others online to take down harder missions. You get rewards for completing missions, getting supplies that you can trade.

Also you can play with a whole bunch of different weapons. It's like a playground.

Parallel Zombies creates an entire world locally, and this surprising complexity gives the game an additional bump. The problems therefore stem from the Android itself. I played this game on my Asus Transformer tablet, and while the game loaded quickly and ran smoothly, the controls take a lot to get used to. For those that are used to the touchscreen controls utilized by modern tablets, this poses less of a challenge. However, for those who have never used a virtual joystick, for example, you might get stuck. This is just something to take into consideration though.

Parallel Zombies is free and available on Google Play, and for a free MMORPG, it ranks top tier. It’s engaging, easy to play, and you get to jump on rooftops. Also it’s zombies. You shoot them. Nothing complicated about it.