DS Review
Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys!

November 28, 2008 by Justin Moore


It’s been a good long while since I’ve put a little square cartridge into my DS and been severely disappointed; I guess I was due for it, so I shouldn’t be surprised. What could be so bad about “Teenage Zombies: Invasion of the Alien Brain Thingys!”? Let’s start with the plot, remember: I’m not making this up.

Plot and Gameplay:
It is a day like any normal day, until Earth is invaded by an armada of flying alien brains. The brains come to earth, start blasting people apart, and those that they don’t kill they enslave with mind-control. Who could save earth and destroy this new enemy? Zombies. Not just any zombies either, teenage zombies. And not just one, oh no, there had to be three of them. Despite the ridiculous and shallow plot, the dialog and overall writing of the game is pretty funny.

Raising from the grave to defend earth are the three heroes: Lori "Lefty" Lopez, Finnigan "Fins" Magee, and Zack "Half-Pipe" Boyd. “Lefty” is a former basketball player whose left arm can stretch and reach higher places. “Fins” is a gluttonous zombie that for some reason has tentacles grafted onto his back that he can use to climb walls and grab zip lines. “Half-Pipe” is well, half of a person…er…boy, since he is missing everything from his waist down, he scoots around on a skateboard which he can use to slide into small spaces and go really fast down a slope and hit a ramp to get some extra air and jump large gaps.

You play as all three zombies, switching between the three with a quick tap on the touch screen, and the core gameplay revolves around simple platforming and figuring out which zombie to use to get past a particular obstacle. There are touch screen mini-games that pop up every now and again which in terms of fun are hit-and-miss. Most of the mini-games serve little purpose past giving the player bonus points, points which are used for nothing.

The biggest problem with the gameplay is how slow everything happens. The main characters are zombies, so they do fundamentally move slowly, but this is a problem for the game. The time it takes you to move your zombie stretches out the levels and makes it feel like everything in the game takes longer to do than it should.

The saddest part of the game is the plot, here are three teenagers who were cut down in the prime of their lives. They all had interests (basketball, skateboarding, and swimming), and dreams, dreams that they will never realize. The game seems to be aimed at kids and I blame this on the “The Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy” callusing our youth into jaded heathens that are not deterred by the dead or the undead.

Graphics:
Teenage Zombies opens with a comic book presentation of the flimsy plot. The colors aren’t quite bright, but aren’t quite dull. The whole game has a kind of Invader Zim ?­
appeal to it in terms of art. The animation of the characters are limited, and you’ll get tired of looking at the same motions of your characters and the enemies.

Sound:
The opening sequence has voice acting, and there are voices sprinkled throughout the game, but that’s pretty much it. What little voice acting there is in the game is well done, but there is too little of it to cover for the rest of the sound problems the game has. The musical score is boring, and the sounds of all of the sprites are equally as half-assed.

Conclusion:
With the art style reminding me of Invader Zim, I was really excited to play this game. The comedic moments and voice acting in the opening sequence got me even more excited, but once the actual game started, it all bled together into a bland grey blur of weak sound, weak 2D graphical presentation, and weak gameplay. Overall, this game is a game, and does function, but it feels like a title somebody squeezed it out in a week while they were trying to figure out how to make games for the DS.

Rating: 5/10