Dead Z Meat – Nintendo Switch Review

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Fast Facts

Dead Z Meat

Developer: isTom Games
Publisher: isTom Games
Website: https://deadzmeat.istomgames.com
Genre: Shooter, Horror, Comedy
Platform: Nintendo Switch,
Age Rating: 12
Release Date: 15/10/2020
Price: £8.99

A code was provided for review purposes.

Introduction

The Zombie genre is an oversized bloated mess. With nearly every game under the Sun featuring Zombies or an Undead army of some shape or form. Then on the other end of the spectrum is the classic light-gun shooter. This genre that was mainly seen in Arcades has died a death and fell into the annals of history. Considering how the Nintendo Switch is designed, I’m surprised that more developers haven’t attempted to adapt the classic light-gun shooter to the console.

These sort of games would be great on the Switch, just as much as they were on the Wii. Dead Z Meat attempts to bring the light-gun heyday back to the Nintendo Switch. Dead Z Meat is a straightforward shooter that’s not on the rails, neither does it require any movement. The whole aim is to blast Zombies and have fun whilst doing it.

Dawn of The Dead

The concept behind Dead Z Meat is a pretty simple one. The dead are plaguing humanity yet again and its up to us, the nameless hero to stop them. There’s no real storyline to mention or anything else other than blasting screen after screen of Zombies. The Zombie design is incredibly silly in nature and it feels like the whole game is a parody rather than a horror. With an over the top announcer commenting on your actions, it almost feels like an arcade game in its design rather than a game made for a home console.

Controls

We control our Hero in Dead Z Meat with a single Joy-Con controller. We point on the screen where we want to shoot and pull the trigger. Naturally the Zombies head is where we want to be shooting and in doing so reduces the comical Undead to a pile of green goo. To aid us in aiming we have an onscreen red reticle. Unfortunately the gyro controls are a bit off with aiming often feeling messy and extremely sluggish.

To counter act this I ended up increasing the sensitivity to the max setting. This sadly didn’t effect the sluggishness and my aim often felt like I was shooting from horseback. At the point the game was playable but not enjoyable. Thankfully my Player 2 suggested lowering the sensitivity to see if it made it less twitchy. This surprisingly worked and in a positive way, made the game far more enjoyable than it was before. We also have a reset button at our disposal. This serves to reset our aim if needed and places the target back into the centre of the screen. In a cruel twist, its this button that makes the game playable. Without it the game becomes a horrible mess.

Choose Your Weapons

Weapons are plentiful throughout Dead Z Meat and we’ll be constantly switching loadouts as we progress through the game. Weapons can be upgraded via coins we earn during levels. These upgrades can effect our weapons in certain ways such as; causing more damage, effecting reload times and increasing the ability to hold more ammo. Thankfully there is no shooting off the screen to reload and we simply do so automatically at the end of each magazine. We can also hold two weapons at a time and I found that one of the most effective weapons was the staple Zombie killing weapon: the shotgun.

As is seen in any film or video game with Zombies – the shotgun is a real power-house, and in Dead Z Meat it’s no different. Once upgraded the shotgun becomes a boss-killer and is great at dispersing crowds of the Undead. The levels we fight through also make great use of the background and foreground, so naturally, a shotgun doesn’t have much range. This can be countered by flicking the analogue stick to equip our secondary weapon. It’s great to experiment with weapons, and there is a fair amount to choose from. If strapping bombs to the Zombies is your thing then Dead Z Meat has you covered as well!

Environ-What?

Whilst the majority of levels have us blasting away the hordes as they fill the screen. Occasionally things get mixed up where we have to protect a ‘cure canister’ for a set period or take out Zombies from afar with a sniper rifle. The gyro controls can make these sniper parts difficult but the majority of levels have the Zombies stumbling towards you which is a more manageable process.

There are a lot of levels in Dead Z Meat but the environment design is repeated a lot. We often see the same streets and the same dark environments over and over. This repetitiveness is waylaid by the in-game challenges and various amount of Zombies to fight. Which can, in turn, make for some entertaining stints of action. As mentioned above, levels also feature a scoring system. Rapidly performing headshots or going a period without taking damage can significantly add this score up. Competing for high scores can be quite entertaining for two players but this also brings up a more glaring issue.

Single Player In A Lifeless World

The most disappointing aspect to Dead Z Meat is that it’s singleplayer only. Whilst competing for high scores can be great, it would be a lot better to blast the undead together. It’s a shame as the very nature of the Nintendo Switch encourages multiplayer gaming. Also, there aren’t any other game modes to play. But the variety of missions we get to play more than makes up for this. Top this with the ability to upgrade weapons and Dead Z Meat has heaps of longevity, even if its a single-player affair.

End of Days

Dead Z Meat is a surprisingly fun game even with its glaring control issues. It’s not as good as previous shooter games that were released on the Nintendo Wii or older consoles. But if your feeling sentimental for arcade games of old then Dead Z Meat has heaps of nostalgia hidden within its undead hordes. At heart, its a decent yet flawed attempt and I sincerely hope that isTom Games gives the genre another crack, as their ever so nearly there!

Rapid Reviews Rating

You can purchase Dead Z Meat from the Nintendo eShop by clicking here.