Sunday, August 19, 2012

It's A Zombie Slaughterfest In Tread Of The Dead (iPad/iPod)

Tread of the Dead ($0.99) by Spencer Cordes is a tilt-based zombie game where the goal is to navigate chainsaws, ninja stars, and machetes towards approaching zombies, slaughtering them before they can slaughter you.

This is a tilt motion game, and I’m not always a huge fan of motion based games, but Tread of the Dead allows you to adjust the sensitivity of the controls in the options menu. If you tend to struggle with tilt motion games, you’ll appreciate the customization.

In Tread of the Dead, an array of weapons will be hurled down the screen towards a horde of approaching zombies. Your job is to tilt your iDevice to aim the weapons at the zombies, killing all of them to finish the level.

The fewer weapons you use to accomplish the task, the higher the score you will get, and the higher the grade. S is the best grade you can get, which you earn with a perfect score after massacring all the zombies with a single weapon throw.

Some of your weapons will have special properties, which are activated by tapping on the screen. For example, the ninja star will split into three to take out multiple zombies at once.

Hitting more than one zombie in succession will reward you with combo bonuses, an essential part of getting the maximum score possible.

After each level, the game will let you know how much higher you needed to score for a better grade, which is great motivation to replay a level. Progressing through levels introduces new weapons and more zombies, providing an appropriate increase in difficulty.

If you run out of weapons without killing all of the zombies, you will fail the level and you will need to restart from the beginning, but levels are quick. Playing them over and over is painless.

Zombies in each level are arranged in different formations, so every level is a unique playing experience. It’s almost like bowling, except you’re using a weapon as a ball and zombies as the pins.

Tread of the Dead has more than 100 levels, plus boss fights, unlockable weapon skins, and achievements to earn, so there’s a lot of available gameplay.

When you finish the main gameplay mode you can also run down zombies in vehicles using vehicular mode or play as the zombies in zombified mode, avoiding weapons to stay alive. Tread of the Dead has five game modes in all.

There are a lot of zombie killing games in the App Store, but there’s always room for one more, right? Tread of the Dead may have simplistic gameplay, but it’s fun because it is one of those great casual games that you can pick up and play for just a few minutes at a time.

If you want to give Tread of the Dead a try before purchasing, download the lite version, which is available for free.