2/08/2009

Hey, Video Games Are Like Comics: LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD'S ZOMBIE BBQ


For trading in Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon, Trauma Center for Wii, and Brain Age, I was able to cop Little Red Riding Hood's Zombie BBQ for Nintendo DS, which retailed at Gamestop for only $14.99 new. Zombie BBQ takes place after Little Red Riding Hood and the Woodsman kill the Big Bad Wolf. On her way home she finds that zombies have taken over, "feasting on everything from the succulent ham of the Three Little Pits to the sawdust brain of Pinocchio."

The playable characters are, obviously, Little Red Riding Hood, who uses guns and mega bombs, and Momotaro, a Japanese fairy tale hero born from a giant peach, who uses ninja stars and a grenade launcher. The character designs in this game are incredible, and for the life of me I couldn't find any information on the artists, Santiago Casas and Daniel Vendrell, outside of they both also helped illustrate some "How to Draw" style manga books, most notably some of the "erotic" ones.

The most surprising thing about this game is that it's not Japanese developed, but comes from a small Spanish developer Enjoyup. A simple dodge and dash rail shooter, it doesn't expand on the genre but adds to it with great DS controls, you drag the stylus across the bottom of the screen blasting zombies as they approach, clicking the different weapons. The most satisfying moments are when you've cleared a screen and you can start working on the top screen living dead.

Items and weapons include flame-throwers, shotguns, and lasers, the latter is a screen clearing straight line that you can sweep the length of the screen with. The movement when it comes down to it is grid based, sliding across the screen in front of zombies depending on which square they are walking in front of. Seeing what's coming next on the top screen isn't always positive, when you hit a tight spot with a ton of zombies you feel the horror movie pressure and start to freak out about what's coming soon.

The name implies "Snakes On A Plane" level bullshit irony, but the game is actually a lot of fun and challenging. It's like Time Crisis if it had zombies and you couldn't hide behind stuff.

BONUS: LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD ZOMBIE BBQ TRAILER!!



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We are Ikari Studio, the crazy ones that made the characters designs.
Thanks for you kind words!

;)